Credit where it's due: David French

David French is an interesting person. A deeply religious (to the point of nuttiness) person who truly tries to live his life as his Christian faith dictates (my disagreement stems from his belief that I, a non-believer, needs to grant him and his cohort some extra room and grace, while he shits on us non-believers. I will add that he is nowhere near as bad as Ross Douthat[1] but his long history of suing people who don't give truck to religion.

Still, given all that, today his "Newsletter" is pretty spot-on:

Mr. French starts strong, pointing out that Trump, for all his rhetoric that he wouldn't start any wars, has not just begun a war (apparently because as Lil' Marco stated "Israel was going to attack Iran, and we were going to get blowback, so we had to strike with Bibi...) but is bumbling his way to this being a quagmire that make it seem like Afghanistan and Iraq were walks in the park.

His summary is solid, and probably the best light for the progress thus far:

Here is the present situation, in a nutshell: The United States and Israel have established absolute air dominance over the nation of Iran. In a few short days, our combined forces have destroyed Iran’s ability to protect its own airspace, have killed much of Iran’s senior military and civilian leadership, and have sunk much of Iran’s navy.

...

The intention of the air campaign is clear: to destroy the regime’s capacity to harm its neighbors while also creating the conditions for a revolution on the ground.

If that’s the extent of the military mission, the military is accomplishing it with remarkable efficiency. Iran is being badly battered. Even if the war ended today, it would take years for the Iranian military to fully recover from the losses it has suffered so far.

While Iran’s drones and missiles have inflicted damage on American forces and our allies, that damage is far less than what the U.S. and Israel have inflicted on Iran. There are no confirmed reports of Iran shooting down any American or Israeli aircraft (it has destroyed a number of drones), and it hasn’t yet sunk a single American or Israeli warship.

Yay, winning, right?

But, while that all looks and reports as solid progress, it hasn't been a sea of roses tossed at the coalition of the US and Israel for liberating the Iranian population, ushering in a new era of freedom.

In fact, Iran, whilst has been absorbing body blows to its industries and military, and the killing of an ever-growing list of leaders, is still a theocratic, repressive regime that thinks nothing of killing tens of thousands of their citizens for protesting, and they've learned to decentralize their military into a myriad series of independent control groups that do not rely on central command and control, leaving them able to – even in a seriously degraded state – strike back, not just at the US and Israel, but the other gulf nations, shaking their images as safe havens for the elite über wealthy who enjoy the amenities and the lack of a tax burden.

And, thus, the action is not going well.

From French:

So why, then, is Trump lashing out at American allies? Why was he “shocked” that Iran struck Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait in response to American attacks?

Perhaps the answer lies in a Wall Street Journal report from last Friday. According to The Journal, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned Trump that Iran might attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz and Trump shrugged off the threat and launched the attack anyway.

“He told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait,” The Journal wrote, “and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.”

Man, it would be amusing, even funny, if this wasn't so tragic.

We now know that Iran didn't capitulate, the regime isn't at risk of falling, and in fact there's a deep bench of truly awful mullahs for them to pull from.

And Iran has done the unthinkable, essentially blocked the Strait of Hormuz, able to cause grief at will, and the US Navy isn't built for an escort service across this hazardous passage.

All while Trump is venting his spleen that his NATO allies and others aren't jumping in to this fight that he didn't even bother to inform them about, let alone lobby to join the operation. Trump must think that the European countries are lead by morons.

I know I am talking about David French, but I need to pull from the incomparable Anne Applebaum from her latest in The Atlantic (gift link) titled "Everyone but Trump Understand's What He's Done":

Donald Trump does not think strategically. Nor does he think historically, geographically, or even rationally. He does not connect actions he takes on one day to events that occur weeks later. He does not think about how his behavior in one place will change the behavior of other people in other places.

He does not consider the wider implications of his decisions. He does not take responsibility when these decisions go wrong. Instead, he acts on whim and impulse, and when he changes his mind—when he feels new whims and new impulses—he simply lies about whatever he said or did before.

YES, SO MUCH YES! We've known this for a decade at this point, but the frustration is watching world leaders and the elites twist themselves into knots to try to detect a through-line to Trump's actions and statements.

There is none. It is 100% id, all the time. The comparisons to an impulsive toddler is not spurious, it is how Trump behaves.

Again from Ms. Applebaum:

This week, something broke. Maybe Trump does not understand the link between the past and the present, but other people do. They can see that, as a result of decisions that Trump made but cannot explain, the Strait of Hormuz is blocked by Iranian mines and drones. They can see oil prices rising around the world and they understand that it is difficult and dangerous for the U.S. Navy to solve this problem. They can also hear the president lashing out, as he has done so many times before, trying to get other people to take responsibility, threatening them if they don’t.

Read the whole thing, it is worth your time.

Let's finish with Mr. French. His conclusions are quite good, and he's clearly arguing with his cohort group who so wants to agree with the action in Iran:

Trump’s recklessness has left the United States with few good options. Indeed, the dilemma America now faces is a perfect illustration of why Trump should have taken his case for war to the Congress and the American people before he fired the first missile.

I’ve had friends ask me, “Well, if he didn’t think Congress would approve, what do you expect him to do? Sit on his hands?” The answer is simple: The Constitution doesn’t give the president the power to disregard Congress. So, no, don’t go to war if you can’t get Congress to approve.

And if a Republican president can’t get a Republican Congress to support his war, perhaps that provides even more reason to doubt the wisdom of the conflict.

Let's leave it with that. If Trump couldn't get his completely servile, spineless majorities in congress to approve this, or to make the case to the American people, that is damning indeed.

So, for once, I didn't hiss and spit while reading his column. That's as good as it will get.

1 - pronounced "Douche-Hat"