Oh, what a splendid, little war.
The United States, having little better to do with its time, money and energy, is, alongside Israel, embroiled in a weeks-long conflict with Iran over that country’s nuclear capabilities, which may or may not exist, that no other sane country wants anything to do with.
Republicans have, of course, fallen in line.
Rep. Andy Barr, R-Lexington, the U.S. Senate candidate and self-humiliating fool who has turned to everything except plastic surgery and donning a tangerine-colored mop wig to transform himself into President-cum-Dictator Donald J. Trump’s doppelganger, is, of course, full speed ahead on the hostilities, maintaining the Lord of Mar-a-Lago is “perfecting’’ former President Ronald Reagan’s doctrine of “peace through strength.’’
“President Trump, with Operation Midnight Hammer and now with Operation Epic Fury has created massive amounts of leverage for the United States to achieve a lasting, endurable peace with a world that doesn’t have a nuclear Iran, a world that no longer faces Iran with ballistic missiles or drones or a navy,’’ Barr said on Maria Bartolomo’s right-wing fest on Fox News. “Anyone who believes Operation Epic Fury has not been an epic success is either living under a rock or has late-stage Trump Derangement Syndrome. This operation has been a remarkable success at defanging the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.’’
(By the way, significant of nothing, don’t you just love the cute names they give to these encounters where people are actually killed?)
Lowering the IQ of the debate even further in a way that only he can, Rep. Jamie Comer, R-TheFrankfortLoop, the Jubilation T. Cornpone of the U.S. House of Representatives, argues, unconvincingly as ever, that Democrats oppose the war because “they want the country to fail.’’
“They want the economy to suffer, they want to do anything that they believe will be to their political advantage,’’ he said on, you guessed it, Fox News.
Most Republicans, Comer said, are “like me’’ (God forbid), “they really don’t like having to spend more money on defense than we already spend but these are consequences we had over the last four years with the Biden presidency. We had a weak foreign policy. We let our adversaries gain strength all across the globe and now we’re going to have to fight back.’’
Comer added in order to help pay for the war in Iran congress will seek cuts in domestic spending to keep from further ballooning the debt, which is now more than $39 trillion, thanks in part to escapades like this. That, of course, results in fewer dollars for Medicare and other such programs.
Barr and Comer offer the Republican idea of truth – Trump, fearful of Iran’s nuclear capabilities, gallantly skipped over the idea of congressional consent and attacked the country forthwith, spending billions of dollars in an attempt, as he himself put it, bomb them back to the stone age.
The effort, Trump insisted, was a massive triumph, declaring victory before hostilities ceased. The real result is, perhaps, something of a stalemate, with Trump relenting to a two-week ceasefire amid talks of an agreement.
Frankly, one of the big problems unraveling this Middle Eastern gordian knot is that it’s nearly impossible to determine who’s telling the truth. The Iranians abandoned any semblance of trustworthiness 47 years ago with the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran. Its more recent activities, including a desire to develop nuclear weapons, an endeavor that would certainly threaten Israel and complicate the global power structure, only bolsters that reluctance.
And then there is the United States, specifically Trump, whose association with “truthiness,’’ a word coined by Stephen Colbert, is on undeniably shaky grounds given his propensity to lie even under the most innocent of circumstances.
It is truly depressing to realize the president of the United States, who received the endorsement of 77 million voting Americans, can’t be trusted. You will recall, for instance, that Trump claimed an earlier foray staged against Iran on June 2, 2025 resulted in an “obliterated’’ Iranian nuclear facilities, impeding the effort by decades if not longer. Yet, the primary rationale given for the most recent sorties is to, you guessed it, obliterate Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
You can’t believe a word the dude says.
So, one day after declaring the U.S. would commence with historically heavy bombing, resulting in a situation where, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,’’ he reversed course at the last minute and agreed to a 14-day ceasefire to negotiate an agreement to end hostilities based on a 10-point plan presented by Iran itself.
It was, Trump said, “total victory’’ and that Iran would not be allowed under an agreement to enrich uranium.
“The reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded all Military objectives, and are very far along with a definitive Agreement concerning Longterm PEACE with Iran, and PEACE in the Middle East,” Trump said on Truth Social, his social media site.
The Iranians don’t see it that way. A statement from Iran’s Supreme National Security Council read, “The enemy, in its cowardly, illegal, and criminal war against the Iranian nation, has suffered an undeniable, historical, and crushing defeat.’’
The big issue, uranium enrichment, appears to remain unresolved despite Trump’s tough-boy rhetoric. And the U.S. may have been driven to the table over Iran’s seizure of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping channel, leading to a rise in oil prices.
In other words, U.S. relations with Iran remain a bloody mess.
Permit me to acknowledge that I make no claim to any expertise on military conduct or the internal dealings involving the U.S. and Iran.
Suffice to say the globe would be a better place without a militant Iran. It doesn’t appear, however, that the ruling mullahs will ultimately be dispersed, resulting in little change in attitude or philosophical leadership.
And the dispute remains over the administration’s claim that Iran was close to developing nuclear weapons. The federal government created an assessment last year that asserted Iran is years away from the ability to produce long-range missiles.
In the end, therefore, any agreement may conclude Iran’s march toward nuclear capabilities. Then again, maybe not. The Strait of Hormuz may reopen, but Iran might begin assessing tolls for passage, inflating again the cost of gas at the pump. Meanwhile, the numerous mullahs killed in U.S. air strikes are being replaced by other, similarly radical mullahs. As Pete Townsend might note, “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.’’
Not much to show. A popular uprising against the beleaguered Iranian government didn’t develop. And the whole durcheinander could have been avoided if Trump, during his first term in May 2018, hadn’t withdrawn from an Iranian nuclear deal brokered by the administration of his predecessor, former President Barak Obama.
At the time Trump pulled out of the pact, he claimed it was “a horrible, one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made,” Obama responded by characterizing Trump’s action was “so misguided’’ that it could lead to a war in the Middle East.
That’s right, folks. Obama predicted that by killing that deal, labeled the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Trump was inviting war in the Middle East.
And here we are.
That Obama deal, negotiated by then-Secretary of State John Kerry and representatives from five other nations, granted inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency total access to Iran’s nuclear energy facilities. In return, Iran was granted relief from long-term economic sanctions. At the time Trump put the kibosh on the deal, international inspectors, along with U.S. officials, maintained that Iran was in compliance with the accord.
In other words, the plan met its stated objective.
After Trump pulled the plug and reimposed sanctions, then-Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced his country would start “enriching uranium more than before.”
And there you have it.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-VA, ranks among those who have thrown the claim of unnecessary war in Trump’s lap. He has maintained it’s illegal since the conflict has not received congressional approval and violates the War Powers Act.
“Has President Trump learned nothing from decades of U.S. meddling in Iran and forever wars in the Middle East?” asked Kaine, a member of both the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee. “Is he too mentally incapacitated to realize that we had a diplomatic agreement with Iran that was keeping its nuclear program in check, until he ripped it up during his first term?”
According to The Hill newspaper, a Capitol Hill outlet, Trump primary reasons for axing the pact — several nuclear restrictions sunset after about 15 years, inspectors couldn’t check out some military sites and didn’t address other factors like Iran’s ballistic missile program.
While there were reasonable objections, it was an agreement that required compromise from both sides. European allies remained steadfastly behind it. Withdrawal cost a war and, already, billions of dollars.
Follow Trump’s lead at your own risk.