Israel’s stunning raids on more than 100 Iranian targets to forestall threats of looming nuclear weapon construction may derail any diplomatic alternative towards controlling military arms development and distribution. And the world likely will see continuing warfare as a result.
But, on some level, it shows the purpose of maintaining a strong military presence. For once, the outstanding questions are not moral ones, but whether these continuing bombardments are proving an effective means to a less-nuclear end. It’s too early to tell whether strikes on at least one of three weapons development sites damaged production of weapons-grade fuel, but not too early to see that Israel is willing to suffer missiles in retaliation.
Contrast it with Donald Trump’s public positioning about our military, which he wants on parade display today as a sop to his own ego, and the deployment of thousands of National Guardsmen and U.S. Marines against our own population. The only goal in sight is the random removal of millions without documentation papers, regardless of their circumstances, in numbers far beyond those with criminal records.
Trump is using the U.S. military as a prop for domestic politicking and towards quashing any public dissent about him and his policies — including the lunacy of today’s military parade in Washington.
Even interviews with Guardsmen reflect the ambiguity over the deployments in Los Angeles — coming soon to a city near you — amid the very serious findings of a federal judge in San Francisco, now stayed until an appeal is heard Tuesday, that the whole deployment is illegal and without merit.
Layers of Meaning
Even as Israel was acting, Trump was dissembling, insisting that the U.S. is taking no role in the Iran attacks. Trump says he tried to dissuade Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from launching the Iranian attacks, to give his diplomatic effort more time. Clearly, Netanyahu thought that was wrong-headed and has his own political need to further unleash his military, even at the risk to Israelis from the Iranian drones that followed.
Trump tried to tell us that Iran blew up his potential deal and paid a price — to someone else’s military. How exactly does this hold together as reasoning? Either Trump is toothless and unable to affect an Israeli decision to use the very arms the U.S. provides, or he is complicit in attacking Iran, with only timing as a differential. But Trump can’t claim either peaceful intentions or omnipotence for “America First” thinking. Indeed, “America First” is making America irrelevant to decision-making by other militaries.
At least Israel, which has lost lots of support globally for its actions in Gaza and West Bank, puts its virtual existence on the line with its military along with its mouth. The military in Israel is no plaything for political posturing or ego-massage.
As a strategic matter, the Israeli raids were both more widely spread and more targeted at specific Iranian military officer and nuclear scientist assassinations against top leaders. The second round of bombs set a military airbase afire. But whether the key nuclear sites were sufficiently damaged to make a difference seemed a matter of political spin from Israeli and Irani announcements.
It also seemed clear that Israeli intelligence was able to mark specific locations, and to attack almost at will at a time when Hezbollah and other Iranian proxy forces are on their heels.
For all the global talk about an overly aggressive Israel military in Gaza, it was significant that no world leaders were coming to the rescue of an Iran that has remained reluctant and deceitful about its nuclear weapons development programs.
The harsh lesson for other conflicts around the world is that the desire to keep conflict from spreading is more important than the essentials of the specific targets of war. Rather, it seems as if Israel has done the world a favor by preemptively attacking Iran as a more reviled enemy.
Take it as a sign that our global moralities are slipping further into tribalism.
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