Month: June 2025

On Trump and his new Iran war.

It has shaken his base to the core.

Will it have a quick end?

Will we send troops again?

Either way, you can’t say it’s a bore.

Elon Musk gets Trump on the phone. Trump takes the call.

M: How’s the most powerful man in the world today?

T: Great! I just kicked ass in Iran! They’ll be begging me for mercy soon. How’s the richest man in the world?

M: Not so great. My businesses aren’t doing well, and I’m feeling remorseful about some of the things I said about you. How did things go so wrong?

T: You made three mistakes, Elon.

M: Which were?

T: First, you proved to be a liability during that election in Wisconsin. I don’t need that kind of baggage. The job is hard enough as it is.

M: Wisconsin probably was a mistake. What else?

T: You lost track of the real rationale behind DOGE. It wasn’t about saving money; it was about showing the deep state who was boss. You did well with that, but then you started complaining about my big, beautiful bill because it increased the deficit. I don’t care about the deficit. I care about being the boss. Which leads me to the third mistake.

M: Which was?

T: You may be the richest man in the world, but I’m the boss, and I don’t tolerate any open dissent. You started criticizing me. That’s unacceptable.

M: I’m not used to being a sidekick.

T: Life is about who has the cards. I’m the president. I always have the cards. Always. Never forget it. The Iranians sure won’t.

M: Is there anything I can do to get back in your good graces?

T: Maybe. Maybe not. If not, you’ll always have the destruction of USAID. That’s your legacy–thousands of dead African children.

M: Empathy is the enemy. Even if I’m not in your ear, never forget it.

T: No fears on that score. (Trump hangs up)

Iran’s foreign minister is meeting with Putin today. In a sense, you might wonder why; the American air strikes are already over, and the Russians did nothing to deter them. But Russia can conceivably prevent America from widening the war in the future to include regime change. Even more to the point, the Russians could replace the lost nuclear capability. A nukes for drones deal could well be on the table here.

Unless Putin and Trump have a secret deal in place–Ukraine for Iran. That’s not totally out of the question, either.

As I expected, the damage caused by the American air strikes was significant but did not put an end to the Iranian nuclear program. What the Iranians do next will undoubtedly be the subject of considerable debate within the regime. Here are my predictions:

1. There will be no further meaningful negotiations on nukes. The government will move the program even deeper underground and commit privately to building a bomb as quickly as possible.
2. The immediate retaliation will be directed at American bases and will be fairly minimal.
3. Further acts of retaliation will take place over a period of years and with limited fanfare. The objective will be to cause as much pain as possible without provoking a massive response.
4. The current war will wind down in a matter of weeks. Trump will not escalate. He will, however, have turned himself into Bibi’s lawn guy. America is now committed to a sporadic war in the Middle East for the foreseeable future.
5. The regime will tighten its grip on the public, this time with popular support. A viable succession plan will be formulated. The chances that the system will be liberalized after the death of the Supreme Leader have been reduced.

In the end, Trump sided with Team Bibi’s Lawn Guy over Team America First. We will be feeling the repercussions of that decision for years to come.

Here are my initial reactions:

1. Launching a war of choice with no authorization at all from Congress is unconstitutional–not that he cares.
2. Trump’s claim that the attacks were completely successful is just typical sales talk. The fact is that he doesn’t know, and neither do we.
3. Trump’s hope that Iran won’t retaliate is a pipe dream. Nothing in the Islamic Republic’s history suggests it will lie down and call him “Sir.”
4. Most of the speculation about retaliation has revolved around attacks on American bases in the Middle East. That possibility doesn’t concern me overly much. The military will be prepared; they have been through this before.
5. The forms of retaliation that really concern me are attempts to shut off shipping in the Persian Gulf and cyberattacks. Those would have significant economic impacts that all of America would feel.
6. If the retaliation is relatively unsuccessful, would Trump choose to disregard it? Probably not; continuing opposition from a weaker party generally causes him to double or triple down. Just ask Harvard.
7. This is not Iraq; I don’t believe Trump will send in ground troops. But any escalation on his part will have unpredictable results, and in any event, he is committing us to cut the grass for the foreseeable future.
8. Bibi has won. This is the day he has been waiting for over a period of decades. America will now pay the price for a war that is overwhelmingly in Israel’s interests and only tangentially in its own.

The war drags on while Trump decides what to do next. The Israelis are running out of targets with a plausible connection to the Iranian nuclear and missile programs. Will they go for regime change next just out of boredom and a lack of other options?

If that is the plan, it isn’t working. It appears that the Iranian nation is rallying around the government in spite of its unpopularity, just as one might have expected. If regime change is to occur, the outside world will have to provide powerful carrots as well as sticks.

He was a child of privilege with a strong sense of noblesse oblige who rose to be the leader of his land. A romantic at heart, he had a childish affinity for war and empire. He frequently bucked the system, sometimes with success, and sometimes not. He had great faith in his own destiny and that of his country. Literate and charismatic, he used the media of his day to great effect. By any reckoning, he was one of his nation’s greatest chief executives.

Is it Churchill or TR? Actually, it is both.

Donald Trump doesn’t want to hear the truth. Still less does he want to hear her interpretation of ambiguous facts. Her job is to figure out in advance what he wants to hear and to meet his expectations. Admittedly, this is a difficult task with someone as capricious as Trump–nobody would have guessed he wanted to hear that Iran almost had a nuke–but she volunteered for the job, so she isn’t entitled to any sympathy.

She’ll be gone soon. Mitch and Lindsey won’t shed any tears. Nor should you.

Donald Trump has an unprecedented opportunity to bring peace and stability to the Middle East. Will he take advantage of it or make America Israel’s lawn guy for the foreseeable future? TBD.

What would I do in his position? I would take my case directly to the Iranian people. I would tell them that Iran can have normal–even friendly–relations with America, the EU, and its Arab neighbors if it is willing to give up its nuclear program and its missiles and stop financing its proxies. The choice would be peace and prosperity, or a grinding perpetual unsuccessful war with no meaningful assistance from Russia or China. Is that such a hard choice?

Ayatollah Khamenei, of course, might well pick the grinding perpetual unsuccessful war even if it puts his regime at risk. If he does, it is up to the Iranian public to override him. If that doesn’t happen, Iran will be responsible for what happens next.

Trans activists insist that gender is an inherently fluid concept and that trans people are consequently as normal as the rest of us. They further argue that anyone who disagrees with this self-evident proposition is a bigot on the same moral level as a slave owner. Since their position is inconsistent with the laws of nature, thousands of years of human practice, and my own experience as a completely cisgender person, I reject the argument entirely.

MAGA, on the other hand, views trans people, regardless of their other personal characteristics, as the modern equivalent of heretics; they are inherently evil and dangerous to the rest of society, and they need to be stamped out. Government regulation which identifies them as lesser beings and makes their lives as miserable as possible is, therefore, necessary and appropriate.

Trans people commit suicide at higher rates than the rest of us. If you’re MAGA, why not encourage it to help get them out of the way? Why not push for TASA–the Trans Assisted Suicide Act of 2025?

That would be inhumane, of course, but remember–empathy is the enemy for MAGA.

It has to annoy Trump, who is only a president, every time he identifies Ayatollah Khamenei as Iran’s “Supreme Leader.” It bugs me, so why wouldn’t it bug him? He runs the world, after all; if you don’t believe it, just ask him.

So here’s an idea to resolve our differences with Iran–Khamenei could agree to give up his title and acknowledge Trump as the “Supreme Leader” in exchange for an end to the war and guaranteed American protection in the future. Think of King John becoming the vassal of the Pope as a precedent.

Given Trump’s vanity, it could work.

A more liberal Supreme Court would have looked at the recent record (trans people didn’t exist until recently, so there is no long pattern of official discrimination) and created a new suspect class for trans people. There was never any possibility the current conservative body would do that. In addition, there was a plausible, if not overwhelming, argument that the disputed classification in this case was based on age, not sex. Finally, the medical profession is not united on the proper care for teens with gender identity issues, even though trans extremists like to pretend it is. As a result, the Court’s decision in this case was completely predictable, and while I do not welcome it–I would prefer that medical decisions be made by doctors without coercion by either the state or influential activists–I am not outraged by it.

Trump seems increasingly inclined to pile on and attack the Iranians. His comments may just be an effort to add to his negotiating leverage, but what if they’re not? What are the pros and cons of entering the fray?

The principal benefit is that the Israelis have gained control of the skies to the point that an attack on Fordow is close to risk-free. A successful attack would unquestionably set the Iranian nuclear program back several years. That would eliminate the direct danger to Israel and the potential second-level threats to the United States for quite some time.

But risks remain. There are no guarantees that the bombs would work. Even if they do, Iran will still retain some degree of nuclear expertise and funds to purchase new nuclear assets from bad actors on the market; in other words, the setback to the program will only be temporary. In the meantime, the Iranians will have a menu of retaliatory options. Gas prices will go up dramatically. There will be plenty of economic wreckage. And, of course, we will be committing ourselves to be Bibi’s lawn guy for the foreseeable future; this will be yet another war of indefinite duration in the Middle East.

On balance, a diplomatic solution is still the best option.

He said it was in order to focus on the Israel-Iran conflict. There is probably some truth to that. But I can’t help thinking that part of it is simply that he can’t stand being in a room with the rest of the G7. He would much rather hang with the S6.

Netanyahu is relatively indifferent to the fate of Gaza, but he cares very deeply about putting an end to the threat from Iran. With his extreme right-wing allies, it is precisely the opposite. So how do they compromise?

By fighting concurrently on both fronts, of course.