Just another Middle Eastern disaster
I'm sure this one will go much better than the last few
I appear to be the only person not clicking my heels with joy to the news that the United States has allegedly busted some bunkers in Iran. Just how busted those bunkers are, we cannot really say. Even if they are fully busted, it does not mean that Iran cannot just build some less bustable bunkers elsewhere.
There appears to be two options now: Either the Iranians cave in – the Israelis have tried to 'decapitate' the regime but its head still appears to be largely attached to its shoulders – or we enter a longer term conflict. With the White House calling for regime change, there is no other option.
Ah, regime change. Of course: topple the 'bad guys' – as that dolt Ted Cruz kept referring to leaders in his revealingly ludicrous interview with Tucker Carlson the other day, revealing the depths of US strategic thought (“we good, them bad!”) – that's never gone hideously wrong before.
For an anti-war president, Trump has painted himself into a remarkable corner. He's bet the house on this gamble paying off. His tweet that, having bombed Iran, it is now 'THE TIME FOR PEACE', is again borderline hilarious in its obscene audacity. It is like a man hurling a Molotov cocktail and demanding no retaliation afterwards.
After such shenanigans there is no reason why anyone should ever trust the United States during negotiations again. Prior to Israel's attack, and before America's entrance, it had promised to enter into talks with Iran, using them, it seems, merely as a ruse for planned military action. It undermines, fatally, any credibility in statements put out by the White House.
More crucially, it demonstrates beyond any shadow of a doubt that if you are in a government outside of Washington's favour, your only guarantee of survival is to acquire nuclear weapons. The logic now suggests that dodgy regimes worldwide will regard a stockpile of their own nukes as a prerequisite for guaranteeing survival.
Perhaps I am wrong it will all be fine, with Trump going down as the man who defanged Iran and brought peace to the Middle East by bombing the shit outta it – clearly a policy that has worked wonders for the USA in the past.
However, there is a large and growing potential for it to go disastrously wrong. This may be the beginning of a more protracted descent into conflict, during which we will see the already troubled days of the pre-13 June 2025 world as better days. It is alleged by some that Trump's rapid intervention came at the behest of the Israelis who, alarmingly, have discovered that their air defences are not working quite as well as they had hoped.
Should the Iranians not cave in, then there appears no off-ramp in sight.
Not that history has given any lessons to campaigns which seek to knock-out an opponent rapidly before it could martial its resources. Nazi Germany found that out famously on the Eastern Front. In a happy coincidence, Operation Barbarossa was also launched on 22 June.
Who knows where this all heads now. Another forever war? That's good: we were getting bored with Ukraine anyway. Another migrant wave from the Middle East? Energy prices pushed up to even higher than all-time-high highs?
Unlike most people, I do not have strong feelings on the Middle East. People like to support Israel/Iran/Palestine as if they're cheering on a football team. I prefer to leave intractable ethno-religious wars to those involved. It's not as if we don't have enough to be getting on with at home. It seems we cannot stop stoking the flames underneath our own feet.
Naturally, we're all involved now, having imported the world and its problems to our shores. Supposedly governments are growing concerned of reprisal attacks in the West – with sleeper cells being given their 'wakey wakey!' order. Another benefit of diversity rears its head.
The current mood in the air – one of cocksure certainty of imminent success – reminds me of the various manias that have overtaken society in recent years. Covid – just one more lockdown and we'll have this nipped; and Ukraine – the plucky little land that could, Slava Slava!
Such moments have the effect of numbing the mental faculties of many, blinding them to everything else that is going on in the world. When everyone starts saying the same thing, you know it’s a lie.
And we know how they both worked out. Covid was the most disastrous domestic policy decision in many decades, and hundreds of thousands have died in towns and countryside in the Ukraine which nobody, actually, gives a solitary shit about.
Iran though? I'm sure this time it'll all work out as planned.
Unlike other interventions in the Middle East this is not a war the US initiated. It is Israel fighting for its survival. As Natasha Hausdorf said, one can take the view that Isreal should not have been created, but like a pregnancy one can debate whether the child should be born or terminated but only up to delivery. After it is born it has the right to live.
Israel has suffered intifadas with over 1000 suicide bombings until they built the wall along the West Bank, and endless rockets from Lebanon and Gaza, the products of the death cult that is Iran. 7th October, that gleeful savagery, was their enough is enough point. The US has merely delivered the bunker buster bombs that show the US is serious about Iran not having nuclear bombs, but otherwise the war is between Israel and Iran.
Anyone who thinks that the Iranian mullahs who believe destroying Israel will bring the return of the twelfth imman can be reasoned with is as deluded as Obama and Biden. Trump has badly mishandled the messaging but support for Israel is not misplaced.
As to the fear porn about a wider middle east conflagration, other Arab states want to see Iran (and trouble making Palestinians) reigned in. No Arab state is taking Palestinain 'refugees' - they learnt their lesson about that long ago adn none want to see Iran get the bomb. There may be sleeper cells but then there is now an incentive to round them up.
Yes, there may be unforeseen consequences. Whether they are worse than the foreseen one of Iran getting the bomb remains to be seen. Israel is quite clear about what it sees.
2026 will mark the 250th anniversary of the American independence from the United Kingdom.
As per usual, all kinds of voices from the modern USA have been putting all sorts of poison out about the UK over the past 12 months. It's sooo USA.
Let's review the number of wars the USA has won since 1945: Zero.
Let's review the number of regime changes funded by the USA since 1945, with successful democracy: Zero.
One USA commentator recently stated the USA is a republic and is not cut out for empire.
Will the USA wake up?
Our empire is gone, but there is something about us the USA missed.
The events around 1948 are telling - the UK planned independence of Palestine by 1951 / 1952, but lest our American friends forget, every single item supplied from 1938-1946 was paid for. As usual the UK was out of cash, in part thanks to the multiple loans - so elements in the USA forced the UK to pull forward independence and to enable the formation of Israel, complete with multi-nation sing-a-long vocals.
The UK warned against this, the USA threatened to cut off loans. That's blackmail.
Like us or not, the UK had an ability to manage independence of another nation better than most.
The USA has never done this on behalf of another nation.