Cromwell

Yesterday’s NYT story confirmed what everyone suspected about the origins of the war. Bibi was given unusual access and sold Trump a bill of goods; Trump was eager to go along; the people around Trump told him that most of the Israeli sales talk was rubbish, but they ultimately deferred to the great man’s golden gut; and the rest is history.

Two observations are pertinent here. First, this information was leaked by one or more (probably more) prominent members of our security apparatus, probably in an effort to avoid responsibility for the ongoing fiasco. Second, there is plenty of ammo here for critics of Israel who think the war was a mistake. We will be hearing plenty from them in the days to come.

In the end, it was TACO Tuesday. Trump and the Iranian regime agreed to a two-week ceasefire. The Iranians will permit unrestricted use of the Strait of Hormuz for that period, and Trump will stop bombing. The Israeli campaign in Lebanon will continue. What should we make of this?

The brief ceasefire just kicks the can down the road. The war, as of now, has accomplished less than nothing. The Iranians still control the strait, the enriched uranium is still there, the regime is still in place, and the Gulf states are still vulnerable.

Trump will spend the next two weeks searching for more leverage to bend the Iranians to his will. If, as I expect, he can’t find any, we’ll just go back to fire and fury.

He was the VP during an unpopular war for which his boss was justly blamed. Privately, he had serious doubts about the war, but he remained quiet in public, partly out of loyalty, and partly for his political survival.

At the last minute, when he was the nominee, he started to distance himself from the war. It was too late. He lost the election and never played a large role in politics again.

It’s HHH. Is it also J.D.? TBD.

Life in the time of Trump.

The war has not gone great.

Trump insists we’re winning

But Iran controls the strait.

Will the great man escalate

Or will he walk away?

Either way, our people lose.

That’s all I have to say.

The excesses of Trump 1.0 undoubtedly drove the center to embrace ideas that were subsequently labeled as “woke.” The 2024 election was partly a referendum on wokeness, however, and the woke lost. As a result, there has been no shift to the left this time, and the princes of wokeness have fallen silent. This will help the Democrats with swing voters in the midterms.

Does that mean wokeness will also be off the ballot in 2028? No. The activist groups will come roaring back to life during the primaries. They will have clout that goes far beyond their numbers. Whether it will be enough to win the nomination remains to be seen.

Pete Hegseth’s view of the world is fairly simple. The forces of light—Team Jesus—are under threat from the forces of darkness—everyone else. In order to avoid its own annihilation, Team Jesus is entitled to rain death and destruction on the rest of the world. To follow international law in an existential battle with the forces of darkness is a sign of weakness, not humanity.

How do the Israelis and our Arab friends fit in this equation? The Israelis are God’s agents in bringing about the end of days, although they will have to convert or be destroyed when it comes. The Arabs presumably are temporary fellow travelers who will be wiped out in the end as well.

I hardly need to tell you that Jesus didn’t support bombing anyone. This is the negation of Christian ethics. Don’t bother telling that to Hegseth, however; he would accuse both you and Jesus of exercising toxic empathy.

If Trump had been our president instead of Lincoln during the Civil War, how would he have changed history? Here are some possibilities:

1. His inaugural addresses would have featured malice for all rather than none;

2. He would have tried to kill Jefferson Davis;

3. He would have threatened the Confederacy with fire and fury, while concurrently negotiating a deal to guarantee the continuing existence of slavery; and

4. He would have threatened to take the cotton and the slaves, since the Confederacy had no oil.

Imagine the following Oval Office address:

”Whoops! I really screwed that one up, didn’t I? I let Bibi and Lindsey and Heggy convince me I was God. After Venezuela, the Iranians wouldn’t dare stand up to me. I would rain death and destruction on them, and they would surrender, just like everyone else. I didn’t have an exit strategy; I had a victory parade. It was all a big mistake.

Now we are stuck in a war with no good alternatives. If we escalate, the price of gas will skyrocket all over the world. Inflation will roar, the economy will cave, and countless Iranian civilians will die. On the other hand, if we just leave, the Iranians will be the masters of the Strait of Hormuz. They will be able to turn the screws on us anytime they want. That just kicks the can down the road.

Either way, you, the American people, will pay dearly for my mistake. I expect you to punish me for it in November. In the meantime, prepare to suffer for the foreseeable future, and just hope it will all be worth it in the end.”

Like Bibi, John Bolton supported bombing Iran before it was cool. Now that the only too predictable shortcomings of that approach have been exposed, he advocates pressuring Russia and China, imposing a blockade on Iranian oil tankers, aiding the Iranian resistance, and, of course, more bombing. Would that work?

The more bombing part I will leave to your imagination. Making a deal with Russia or China would require making concessions to them that Bolton would find appalling. There is no organized resistance in Iran to aid at this point other than the religious and ethnic minorities, which would create a new set of problems. Finally, taking Iranian oil off the market would drive prices up to an entirely new level, thereby causing tremendous economic pain all over the world, including here. Bolton seems to be oblivious to that part of the equation.

Avoiding lengthy wars in the Middle East was always a key part of Trump’s brand, but when the great man changed his mind, the base supported him, even if no one else did. That fact alone should tell you that MAGA is more of a cult of personality than an ideology.

This presents a serious challenge for Vance, who has an ideology, not Trump’s golden gut. Will the base follow him just because he really, really hates the left? TBD.

Trump wanted an AG who was both fanatically partisan and exceptionally effective. Bondi couldn’t pull off that impossible trick, so she settled for wrecking the DOJ.

Her successor will have the same fundamental problem. Will he pull back, choose his battles more carefully, and try to rebuild the office, at the risk of offending his boss, or will he be even less independent than Bondi? TBD.

If Trump manages to extend the war by a year or so, he could celebrate his great victory with a military parade under his new Arc de Trump. Wouldn’t that be perfect?

Logically, the festivities would conclude in the new ballroom, which is sure to be completed early and under budget.

The war is over, and we won a crushing victory. We just need to hang around for a bit longer, and then leave. The Strait of Hormuz will reopen naturally when we’re finished. Life will be great again very shortly.

Well, actually, we need to bomb even harder for a few weeks, but that will end the war. No escalation will be required.

Except that we are ready to escalate to the point of committing war crimes against Iranian civilians if the regime doesn’t give up.

Elements of all three of these narratives were present in Trump’s speech last night. Is it any wonder the price of oil has actually gone up?

That’s the problem with being unpredictable and keeping all of your options open. It keeps your own people and your friends off-balance, too.

After his trip to the Supreme Court, Trump is scheduled to appear on national TV tonight. From all appearances, he plans to declare victory and go home, leaving the theocracy in place and in possession of its enriched uranium and the Strait of Hormuz. Some victory, that.

Realizing that his fondest hopes for the war are about to go down the drain, Bret Stephens is calling on all of the war’s opponents to lobby Trump to finish the job. Good luck with that.

It was stupid for Stephens to trust a man like Trump to become a war president like FDR or Lincoln. Now he and his friends will have to live with the ugly consequences, which will probably include the weakening of NATO and a further lessening of support for Ukraine.

There is nothing in the language of the Fourteenth Amendment which supports Trump’s executive order. There is nothing in the legislative history, either. The case law is completely consistent with the traditional interpretation. In short, there is absolutely no principled basis for any of the justices—liberal or conservative, originalist or not—to rule in Trump’s favor. This is a slam dunk.

Nevertheless, expect Thomas and Alito to flaunt their MAGA credentials by doing so. My best guess is that Kavanaugh, who is now more interested in rewriting the Constitution than interpreting it, will join them. Susan Collins will be concerned.

Trump apparently plans to attend the oral argument to overawe the justices. If he does, it will just offend them and make him look like more of a loser when the decision is released.