Amateur Hour Continues

The Persian Gulf. (Encyclopedia Britannica)

No one knows when the war in the Middle East will end. Government leaders continue to give multiple and often contradictory reasons for the attack and the strategic conditions that will end it. One thing is certain, we have a Commander-in-Chief that is unleashed, impulsive, and clueless. In his usual way of setting policy, and expecting it to be taken seriously, Trump set the terms of ending the war via Truth Social. In part he posted, “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” As if they needed more incentive, the Iranians will now fight to the bitter end. There will be no unconditional surrender unless Trump plans to literally kill nearly everyone in the country. As I have stated often in these spaces, wars only end when the loser chooses to end them. No matter how bad things are, they will continue to fight until the attacker goes home or there is a negotiated settlement. There have been no wars settled by unconditional surrender since World War II. As if setting policy via social media was not enough, Trump shows us just how unserious he is by also including in his post “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN (MIGA!).” Because, of course.

Ever the clever one, Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s spokesperson, when asked about what unconditional surrender means said, “When he as Commander-in-Chief determines that Iran no longer poses a threat to the U.S. and the goals of Operation Epic Fury have been fully realized, then Iran will essentially be in a place of unconditional surrender whether they say it or not.” Please see the above paragraph. There will be no unconditional surrender, Trump will just say it and go home claiming victory. Consequences be damned because the Iranians will not accept that as a permanent outcome. When asked by Time magazine reporters whether we should worry about retaliatory terror attacks on our homeland Trump replied, “I guess.” He went on to say “We think about it all the time. We plan for it. But yeah, you know, we expect some things. Like I said, some people will die. When you go to war, some people will die.” Well, that’s good to know.

Trump also claims that he will pick the next leader of Iran. Hubris or ignorance, you decide. Whichever you choose, he is of course fooling himself and trying to hoodwink us, the citizens of the United States in to believing that he somehow is the Master of the Universe. Let us remember that not only did Trump take out the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was also the spiritual leader for all Shi’ites. Saying that he will pick the next leader is akin to declaring that he will pick the next Pope. There are about 240 million Shia Muslims in the world (the largest sect with about 90% of all Muslims are the Sunni). The largest concentrations of Shi’ites are in Iran (about 68 million people), Iraq and Azerbaijan. There are also significant numbers of Shi’ites in Lebanon, Yemen and Afghanistan. To add to the equation, their leader was killed during Ramadan which takes place during the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, a holy month, and is believed to be the month where the Quran was revealed to the prophet Mohammed. None of them are going to let Trump pick the next leader.

The Washington Post reports that Russia is supplying targeting intelligence to Iran giving them the location of naval vessels, aircraft and other high value assets. The Secretary of the Treasury just announced that in order to keep the flow of oil going to Asia (the main buyers of oil coming through the Strait of Hormuz) the U.S. is issuing a temporary waiver for refiners, mainly in India, to buy Russian oil, which has been embargoed since Russia invaded Ukraine. So, let’s see, the longer the Strait remains closed, the more oil Putin can sell and thus save his nearly collapsed economy. And buy weapons to use against Ukraine. Are we sure Vlad doesn’t have something on his good friend Donnie? Nothing like acting in Putin’s interests to keep the war going while he makes money and helps to target Americans.

Meanwhile the disgraceful buffoon that calls himself the Secretary of Defense continues to strut and dance around while he brags about killing people. On a preview of an upcoming 60 Minutes interview he is asked about Russian involvement and said “we aren’t concerned about that.” He went on to say “the only ones that need to be worried right now are Iranians that think they’re gonna live.” Asked a similar question yesterday by a Fox News reporter he responded “What a stupid question that is to be asking at this time.” Such an articulate and deep strategic thinker. Recall that at a press conference this week he was asked about the American soldiers that were killed. The Secretary took the opportunity to berate the media for only reporting on the bad news in order to make Trump look bad. Because, of course, everything has to be about Trump.

One only has to know what the Secretary and the Trump administration think about the war right now is to look at what they are posting on social media. Most of their posts are memes splicing together scenes from video games, war movies and actual combat footage. Here is one example as reported in the Washington Post. “On Thursday, the White House also posted a video overlaying airstrike footage with the lyrics “Kaboom, kablow” from the viral rap song “Bazooka,” and another mixing clips of missile detonations with SpongeBob SquarePants. On Friday, the White House published another video referencing “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,” flashing the message “WASTED” — what the game’s players see when they die — atop missile footage showing trucks and people engulfed in flames.”

These are the people speaking for our nation. A school in Iran was bombed and killed dozens of elementary school girls and six Americans were killed in combat and our leaders think it is all a funny game.

Our military professionals are doing their job and doing it well. We pray that they are safe. Our government leaders are not only ignorant about the Middle East and amateurish in the formulation of strategy, but they also care little to nothing about our military men and women or the citizens of these United States.