So, we're at war.
This is not what I wanted to write about today, but I guess we're gonna have to go there.
I woke up late for me this morning, about 04:00, and the first thing I see is that we have struck multiple sites in Iran in conjunction with Israel.
And I have lots of jumbled thoughts. I have heard a lot of people argue that Trump wasn't that stupid (srsly, you're going with that?!?!?), that he would know that this would be a quagmire that makes Iraq and Afghanistan seem like walks in the park.
Of course, there were the signs. The breathless ramblings of the idiots Witkoff and Kushner who were "surprised" that all this agglomeration of military hardware surrounding Iran wasn't making their Islamic Republic regime anxious for deal? You know, all that "art fo the deal" bullshit that the MAGA crowd loves to banter around.
My only surprise is that it wasn't timed to coincide with Trump taking the podium at the SOTU.
No, the tangelo tyrant is still sulky that the Nobel committee didn't gift him the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. And he views his snatch-n-run operation in Venezuela as a blueprint here.
Lob a few bombs, open the doors for the Israeli's, and be fêted as a savior by a repressed society.
Sounds somewhat familiar...
I have some thoughts, even though I am not a foreign policy wonk, nor do I do professional punditry...
The Bombing
In Decemner 2025, the Behind the Bastards[1] podcast did a 4 part series on "The Men Who Might Have Killed Us All":
I recommend this, because it is a detailed history of doomday weaponry, and the backstory of how they came to dominate the military strategy.
The first two episodes are particularly salient. They talk about the rise of aviation, and how early thinkers thought that future wars would be basically big bombers flying over populated countries, and blowing the shit out of them until they acquiesced.
But something else happened. First, the bombing wasn't really safe. Turns out that big airplanes with large payloads of explosives are pretty easy to see (detect), fairly slow, and vulnerable to being shot out of the sky.
Second is that when a country and its people are being bombarded, they don't do the "logical" thing and surrender. Actually, they become hardened, and fight with a vigor that is almost otherworldly. Look at the Vietnam war, and the tonnage of conventional bombs we dropped. Also, look at Ukraine today resisting the Russian attacks.
Anyhow, I do recommend the entire 5 episodes, because they also talk about our nuclear stance. That is to launch on warn. Meaning: We detect a launch by any nuclear power, and we fire all we got. The president has literally minutes to make a decision, and while most of our presidents have been sober, rational actors, the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has a little bit of impulse control.
What is clear is that two carrier groups off-shore running bombing sorties will not achieve anything meaningful. And even if (when) they take out the current Mullahs, the power vacuum will be filled with the IRGC, and frankly, this is very very bad. They are the source of power in Iran, and they make our current ICE and CBP seem like Boy Scouts.
No, a decapitation strike will not allow a good regime to ascend to power.
The long slog
If it was up to Trump alone, he would no doubt lob some missiles and launch some surgical bombing runs with smart munitions, and then hang the "Mission Accomplished" banner on the USS John McCain, and call it a day to go back to whinging about his coveted Nobel Peace Prize.
But that isn't going to be possible. Unlike Venezuela, Iran has a much larger population (about 2.5 Texas' worth), a lot of regional influence, money that they've used to finance terror and militant groups with reach in many areas that we have assets (bases, equipment and personnel) that will be juicy targets.
The IRGC is not going to be a pushover, and neither will Bibi Netanyahu let this once in a lifetime chance to rid himself of the risk of Iran slip though his fingers.
The immediate aftermath is going to be societal chaos. Lots of violence, resistance and nationalists will clash, it will make the fight against ISIS and the Taliban seem easy.
To wrest some control is going to require boots on the ground. And Israel is not large enough to handle this solo. No, American soldiers will need to be mobilized and deployed.
And they will be juicy targets for the IRGC, who are experts at guerrilla tactics and operations, as well as their ability to train generations of fanatical fighters.
This is not going to be a one and done, because Bibi has hung this boat anchor around Trump's neck. It is not Israel's fight with our support, it is our fight, in alliance with Israel. And that is not going to go over well with the general US population.
Regional Allies
The most interesting thing to me is going to be watching how our other "allies" in the region respond. We have spent decades (pretty much since the end of WWII) courting and grooming our relationship with the Arab world. Mostly because of the wealth of the petroleum under their shifting sands, but also because there are a lot of post WWII carved up countries that we (and the Brits mostly) created.
We have bases in the KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), Qatar, Iraq, among others, and we have strong diplomatic ties. We have been working to integrate the Israelies to be a member (if not trusted partner) in these alliances. And to be frank, many of them view Iran as a retrograde embarrassment, so they "tolerate" the tit-for-tat Israel fights with the Iranian proxies. But a full out conflagration? That might stretch tempers and temperments to the breaking point.
If this conflict does what I think it will, and chill the cooperative mood in the wider middle east theater, this would be bad. Look, I hate Crown Prince BoneSaw as much as anyone, but a lot of bad can come from this.
And for Trump? He's stuffed his pockets with fabulous wealth from these same regional power-players. A luxe 747? $500M in crypto grift?
It is shocking that Trump would risk that to be the lapdog for Bibi Netanyahu.
Oh, and who will be in Iran's corner? Russia and China have allied themselves both for weapons and oil. No risk there, amirite?
The dark horse
Of course, my cynical side has to go there: Is this just the escalation of the distraction theater from the Epstein files? I wrote this in January:
Geoff Anderson
And this would be that on steroids. The revelation that potentially damaging 302 reports of a credible enough victim to warrant three interviews in 2019 is pretty fucking close to the smoking gun.
Who the fuck knows.
Update: I found this gem by Gloria Horton-Young on Substack Notes:
Gloria Horton-Young
Final Thoughts
I meant to dash off a few thoughts and I got to 1200 words really quick. Alas, this is a really scary time, the Cheeto-Dusted tiny-fingered shit-gibbon is slipping mentally, physically, and he is surrounded by sycophants that woould make ChatGPT blush, and he has the nuclear football ball no impulse control.
What could go wrong?
(post 798)
1 - I recommend highly that you subscribe and listen to Robert Evans and the BtB podcasts.
