Stop me if this sounds inside out or backwards or just delusional?
So, we’re at war with Iran without sending troops or more attacks, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tells us. Apparently, we’ll know it’s a war when Iran sends a missile at one of the plentiful U.S. targets in the Middle East.
The White House intelligence leadership is briefing Congress tomorrow — well after the aerial bombardment of three nuclear facilities will have been completed rather than before the fact, as logic and law would have it, according to congress members awaiting the session.
Iran’s nuclear weapons manufacture has been “severely damaged,” says Gen. Dan Caine, the Joint Chiefs Chairman, not “obliterated,” as Hegseth told us in a press conference or possibly still feasible, according to Iranian officials.
“This is most certainly not open-ended,” Hegseth describes this war against centrifuges and uranium purification labs rather than people. Indeed, he and Trump signal that the U.S. is awaiting word from Iran that it now wants to return to a negotiating table with people willing to bomb them, though Trump cut short whatever poor negotiations had been going on. Apparently, this White House believes that a war lasts for one 25-minute bombing run if the ordinance includes 14 big bombs to cut through mountain and concrete fortifications shielding weapons preparation.
Remarks from administration officials were provocative, boastful , apparently overstated — and focused on the bombing mission and not on what had changed in intelligence or what comes next. After assurances keeping the goal narrow, Trump himself posted suggestions that “regime change” would be welcome,
If Iran does not agree to peace on Trump’s terms, the president’s vow that “there are many targets left” opened the door to a much deeper and potentially longer conflict. Of course, Iran will counter that conventional weapons can be used to mine the Straits of Hormuz to stop international shipping.
Stop me if this sounds inside out or backwards or just delusional?
Allies, the neighboring countries in the Middle East, and even heavy-duty MAGA supporters are saying they are furious with Trump for jumping across the red line that the bombing runs, no matter how cleverly or professionally designed and carried out, represent.
What was the “two weeks” delay to give diplomacy one more chance about? More than one commentator has noted that Trump was dissembling to Americans or was led to his decision by the Israelis.
Trump seems ready to return to golf, as if he is not facing a zillion questions about American intentions in a world of war actions.
Did the Bombs Work?
From all accounts, it will take days or more to determine exactly how much damage was achieved. But it may be never before we citizens learn exactly why Trump decided to abridge international protocols to end in stealth bombers.
We still don’t know if intelligence confirmed any change in imminent threat from Iran, for instance, or why Congress couldn’t be told before a decision was made to join the Israeli war against Iran. While Trump prides himself with a bloodless 2:30 a.m. bomb run, it is Israelis who are counting their dead from retaliatory missiles. Trump contents himself by insisting that he did the world a favor.
Why didn’t he bomb before, then? Why bother with the charade of negotiations? Or why now ask for negotiations to finish what the bombing run apparently did not quite bring off — destruction of Iran’s nuclear weapons dreams. Or, dialing back, why cancel a successful prior negotiation that produced a past agreement with Iran that set limits for nuclear fuel purification and usage?
Instead, we’re seeing Iran sending its foreign minister to Moscow to get counsel from Vladimir Putin, the same Putin whom Trump is romancing to restore to fully equal status with G7 partners, despite a continuing ugly invasion of Ukraine. We’re watching furious Democrats scrambling to both sound the part of loyal opposition and trying very hard not to defend an Iran military program.
Israelis may be overjoyed to see that pressure from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had maneuvered Trump into suddenly supporting his two-decade old demand for U.S. bombs to halt the weapons development program, but clearly Americans are not in total sympathy.
We’re watching Secretary of State Mario Rubio twist pretzel-like to fit within the contradictory Trump Truth Social posted philosophies of keeping America out of the world’s wars by creating one.
America First either means stepping away from a significant role in world leadership, risking isolation, or finding American interests in all that we do. There is nothing in America First that means hoodwinking Americans or being less than forthright about what our intentions are.
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1 Comment
With the truth being a complete rarity with this administration you have to wonder what they are doing that we don’t know about and what they plan to do next. It is chilling to think of their plans which seem to have no oversight whatsoever.