Cromwell

You would think Putin would do something. After all, Iran has turned into a vital and reliable ally, and Trump is making him look like a wimp with his war of the week program. So why isn’t he reacting more strongly?

Because he is focused completely on Ukraine. He doesn’t have the resources or the bandwidth to open a second front, and he needs to keep Trump on board to apply pressure to the Ukrainians. For now, he will just have to grin and bear it, even if the Iran war is just the kind of egg-breaking American campaign that blithely endangers the whole world.

But look on the bright side, Vlad. Trump is destroying America’s case against your imperialist aggression. Russia is looking more respectable by the minute. And all those munitions Trump is using on Iran can’t be sent to Ukraine.

We have passed the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the Ukraine war. At this point in World War I, which it resembles in many respects, the slog in the trenches was over, and it was clear that the Germans were on their last legs. Can we expect similar developments in the current conflict?

From the Ukrainian side, no; conditions can only get worse. Putin can reasonably hold out hope that Trump will impose terms on the Ukrainians, or that Europe’s efforts on Ukraine’s side will be paralyzed by extreme right-wing parties. He can also turn the screws even tighter on his subjects if he is willing to accept the political risks. As a result, he can and will keep on fighting, regardless of the costs to his country.

In short, the most likely outcome is that the war will continue as it is now; the second possibility is a clear Russian victory.

Trump fired Kristi Noem today. She is probably wondering why; after all, she was totally loyal, and she followed instructions to the letter. The conspicuous cruelty that was such a big part of her regime came from Trump and Miller; she was just channeling their demand for dominance.

Two observations are pertinent here. First, with Trump, loyalty only runs in one direction. Second, being a faithful servant and doing his bidding got him in political trouble. Someone had to pay, and it sure wasn’t going to be him; he’s a winner, so someone else has to be the loser.

On a mostly unrelated note, Trump is asserting a right to pick the next Supreme Leader. Good luck with that, Jack. That makes about as much sense as the CCP picking the next Dalai Lama.

After reading innumerable articles about the purpose of the war, including Bret Stephens’ comments in an NYT column, I have concluded that the plan is as follows:

1. Bomb the crap out of Iran for about a month.

2. Figure out what to do next.

Carl von Clausewitz famously said that war was the extension of politics by other means. Going to war without any idea of what you are trying to accomplish is the opposite of that maxim.

The Texas primary pitted a PBP incumbent who has accepted his subservience to Trump and MAGA against a true MAGA believer with a boatload of personal baggage. The electorate is split evenly. The Democrats are hoping for a Paxton victory. Trump says he will endorse one of the two candidates and will demand that the other leave the race. What does it mean?

We’re about to find out how much MAGA is a coherent ideological movement, as opposed to a pure extension of Trump’s interests and will. If Paxton wins, we will also find out how popular that agenda is in Texas in November.

The Israelis want regime change—period. They think, probably correctly, that a secular and democratic Iran would be more interested in economic growth than ballistic missiles and nukes. Trump, on the other hand, has already lost interest in the democratic opposition; he probably realizes that true regime change requires an invasion and an occupation, so he wants to turn Iran over to a local equivalent of Delcy Rodriguez. That way, he can make a deal on missiles and nukes and then walk away.

Unfortunately, Trump concedes that he has already killed all of the potential Delcys, and things could actually get worse. Whoops! Now, what’s the plan, Stan?

Leaving Iran in ruins and in the hands of a more thuggish theocracy, and then cutting the grass at the behest of the Israelis, most likely.

As I’ve noted before, Vance’s real job in the administration is to be the chief ideologist of MAGA. That is, he has to take Trump’s arbitrary and often contradictory impulses and reverse engineer them into a coherent whole. It’s a tough task.

Possibly even more than Trump himself, Vance has built his political identity around avoiding foreign wars and regime change. What will he say about Iran? Will he simply lie and say the Iranians were about to build and deploy an ICBM capable of reaching America? Will he say Middle East wars and regime change are ok if we just do lots of damage from the air and leave the country in a physical and political shambles, with no improvement in sight? Will he say the Israelis made us do it?

I can’t wait to hear the answer.

As I’ve noted before, the Iranian political system is based on a bargain: the Revolutionary Guards get impunity, lots of money, and a religious justification for their thuggish behavior, while the religious leaders get the street muscle they need to keep Allah happy. The deal, ironically enough, resembles the tax cut for reactionary social policy agreement that keeps the GOP reasonably united.

There has been a lot of speculation that Khamenei’s death will result in a shift of power to the thugs. I think that will happen, but only within the framework of the existing deal. That’s what happened to the GOP, where the Reactionaries now drive the train and the PBPs follow; don’t expect anything different in Iran.

The regime wants to survive and to inflict some face-saving damage on the two big satans. That’s it. It can always build more missiles after the current conflict is over.

The problem, of course, is that Trump has now committed himself to be Bibi’s lawn guy, so the war is likely to resume at regular intervals for the foreseeable future.

Pete Hegseth, the American Secretary of War, announced today that the attack on the UK would probably continue for a matter of weeks. When asked why the danger from the British was imminent, he explained that America was only finishing the war, not starting it; after all, the British had resisted our independence efforts in the 18th century, and had burned the White House in 1814.

Hegseth also indicated that the war was necessary to keep the UK from building a nuclear weapon. When he was advised by a reporter that the UK had possessed nukes for about 70 years, the Secretary of War accused the media of dealing in fake news and then stormed out of the briefing room.

War supporters acknowledge that things could go seriously wrong. Their argument essentially is that the status quo also had risks, and that the war at least creates hope for a better future.

But hope, as the saying goes, is not a strategy, and it is perfectly possible that the regime could have evolved into something more acceptable in the face of regime division and public pressure after the natural death of the Supreme Leader. If you respond by saying that is also a strategy based on hope, I would note that it at least doesn’t require a war.

No one outside of Iran—and not many there—is going to miss Ayatollah Khamenei. Nevertheless, the war is controversial for the following reasons:

1. Neither historical precedents nor common sense suggest that a meaningful regime change is possible without a ground assault and an occupation.

2. If, somehow, meaningful regime change does occur, there is no guarantee that it will improve conditions for the Iranian people or the rest of the world.

3. Since there was no imminent danger from Iran, and the cost of the war is likely to be significant, the Constitution demands that it be authorized by Congress. The war is just another power grab by an authoritarian who wants to show the world that he is the boss.

And the case for the war? For that, see my next post.

The Supreme Leader got the rousing sendoff he so desperately wanted yesterday. To live to his late eighties and to be a martyr! It doesn’t get any better than that.

Khamenei was an obstacle to a peaceful and prosperous Iran for decades. He oppressed his people, not out of spite or personal ambition, but because he thought it was God’s will. Now that he is out of the way, can we expect improvement?

Probably not. My hope was that he would die quietly in his bed as soon as possible, and that an open succession crisis splitting the elite would ensue. That is unlikely under the current conditions. The elite will probably rally around a hardliner, and nothing will change.

Biden let Bibi pull his chain, but he never agreed to cut the grass in Iran for him. I believed that Trump’s vanity and desire to be the boss would lead to the same result, but I was wrong. We are now engaged in what is likely to be a fruitless effort to change the Iranian regime from the air for no obvious benefit to the US. Trump is now Bibi’s yard guy.

Now, the question is, what happens if there is no regime change? Do we launch the kind of ground war that Trump really hates? Do we make a deal and pretend we won? Or do we use nukes?

Don’t write off the last scenario.

We’re two months into 2026, but many of the car commercials are advertising 2025 models. The ads which do feature 2026 cars either focus on leases with low monthly payments or emphasize dealer discounts without disclosing the sales price.

What does this mean? That the car manufacturers are still trying to protect us from the impacts of tariffs, and when they can no longer do so, they are trying to hide those impacts.

This situation cannot go on forever. It is not sustainable in the long run. That means inflation driven by tariffs will be more prolonged than Trump’s supporters think.