Waking Up To War (No Nobel Peace Prize For YOU Donald!)

There’s nothing like waking up to learn your country has chosen to start a war. It’s not like we didn’t know this might happen, and even likely. It’s almost unheard of for any country to engage in the kind of military buildup we have (near Iran) and pull back rather than literally pull the trigger. But the U.S. and it seems Israel too have launched airstrike on Tehran and other places in Iran. Iran of course has shot back.  Despite the fact Trump didn’t ask for and Congress didn’t grant any authorization for it we are now in a shooting war.

If I’m not mistaken Congress was set to take up a War Powers resolution early next week. Now it seems moot. Whether they do or don’t, Trump’s not going to care what Congress has to say. IF all he does is spend a few days (or even a week) and expend a small number of billions trying to intimidate Iran AND this doesn’t spiral into something far bigger though it stinks it won’t matter in the long run whether Congress acts or not.  While we are justified in being worried this might be a very short-term thing. Sabre rattling followed by drawing it followed by taking one swing and opening a wound. Let’s hope that’s all it is. The two things to watch for are 1) Does this stretch out more than a week, and 2) Are there combat troops waiting in ships that might be deployed onto Iranian soil.

I mention that latter part because if Trump’s goal is regime change that’s what it’s going to take. Even if the intel is so good and the missiles are accurate (and hit their targets) killing the top leadership won’t affect regime change. I wrote about this already late this past week – even if you killed most of Iran’s government leaders we’d still have to contend with their Revolutionary Guard. In other words new political/religious leaders would step into the vacuum.

However, since this is Trump we are talking about it’s possible he thinks a short show of force will bully them into submission. Dream on dude – all you’ve done is get Iran’s back up, and it’s citizens are, like Iraq’s unlikely to support our troops being on their soil for more than a week or two. Neither would I believe most countries in the region. If we want to use military force to affect regime change and engage in nation building it won’t go any better than Bush 43’s attempt in Iraq did. In fact this would work out worse. But make no mistake, to cause true regime change and a different Iraq than the world has had to contend with for decades will take a major commitment of ground forces. In another life when I was a Marine infantryman the saying went you could bomb the hell out of a place but it wasn’t yours until you sent in grunts to plant the flag. (and rip down the other guy’s)

I think I’ve laid out the possibilities and things to look out for. So far it’s just airstrikes. We can hope two things: First it remains a war of aircraft and missiles and second, cooler heads prevail. Quickly.  That Iran wouldn’t respond at Israel and U.S. assets/bases in the region was a ridiculous notion. If they had fired first with negotiations at an impasse we/Israel would have shot back. So, naturally Iran is shooting back. Both our ships in the region and our bases are pretty well protected but especially regarding the latter there are going to be casualties. As for our ships I’m not too worried but I do worry for the aircrews that will have to fly strike missions over Iranian soil.  Watching the news I saw a nauseating clip of Trump trying to pretend he cared when he talked about ‘some of our brave pilots might be lost.’

He droned on about their ‘selfless’ actions but we know what he truly thinks – that they are suckers, and if they get shot down losers. Hell, he’s literally said so – don’t forget his questioning John McCain’s service. In that instance Trump was waxing about why McCain was talked about as a hero and said “I like guys who didn’t get shot down.”  Yep. For Cadet (now President) Bone Spurs those risking their lives as I write this don’t matter sh*t to Trump. And as I’ve talked about if we get into troops on the ground the meat grinder in Iraq is what we can expect. Only worse.

I read an interesting article from Slate discussing how we got to this point. It’s premise seems to be that Trump has turned down a viable and pretty good offer from Iran. Why? The author suggests because it’s close to the deal struck during Obama’s administration. Perhaps even a tiny bit better. Trump of course would never, ever accept only being as good as Obama on something. He should be so lucky but apparently he was.  However THAT simply wouldn’t do for the asshat that considers himself the bigliest, toughest dealmakere ever.  His ego simply wouldn’t be able to handle it when people started pointing out Trump’s new ‘deal’ with Iran was pretty much what Obama got us!

It takes a few minutes to read the linked article but lives, a lot of them including and especially those of U.S. military personnel so please make the effort.  To summarize it starts about Trump during the SOTU saying he’d rather there be a diplomatic agreement to Iran not building a nuclear bomb. That they will say Iran promise “they “will never have a nuclear weapon”—words, Trump claimed, that “we haven’t heard.” However Iran has spoken those words numerous times. Whether they can be trusted is a separate question but under the deal Obama made they allowed for inspections to prove they were keeping their end of the bargain

In fact, Iran is actually a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which makes the same pledge.  The more complex issue is about enriching uranium.  As the linked article goes on to explain even though it shouldn’t be this is the actual sticking point. In recent negotiations Iran has actually offered to suspend uranium enrichment for three years. (The end of Trump’s term. Hmmm) After that it would resume at a rate of 1.5% a year. This is actually less than under the Obama deal which set the limit at 3%, and agreement it should be noted Iran was sticking to before Trump ripped the thing up.

In the eight years since he did so Iran enriched about sixty percent of its stockpile, which HAS put them in a position to if they chose get to the point of enriching enough to make a bomb not in years but in months. Or were. Trump didn’t ‘obliterate’ their capability last year as he claimed but the U.S. did set it back. How much, some estimates are for years, some say not so much. But it takes a certain amount of uranium to be enriched to upwards of 90% purity to make an atomic weapon. So at first glance saying Iran shouldn’t be allowed to do ANY enrichment seems like a no-brainer. Here’s the problem:

The thing is this: The NPT allows signatories to enrich uranium for “peaceful” purposes, such as electricity or medical research. In fact, Article IV of the treaty enshrines enrichment as an “inalienable right.” The nuclear deal that Iran signed with the United States and five other countries in 2014 limited this enrichment to purity levels of 3.5 percent. (It takes 90 percent enrichment for uranium to be “weapons-grade.”) By the time Trump tore up the deal, Iran was abiding by it, according to inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran had also dismantled much of its stockpile of “highly enriched” uranium.

Well, as I said because Trump tore up the deal the U.S. (along with other counties) reached Iran has enriched a lot of it’s uranium. We and everyone else has every justification to be worried and get them to stop. And that’s the point of the linked article – we had a very good offer on the table that would allow meaningful monitoring/inspections like before to ensure Iran’s enrichment of uranium was limited to amounts needed for peaceful purposes! Enrichment of small amounts of uranium is allowed under international law as set forth in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty the U.S., Iran and some 190 countries are signatories to. The holdouts (never signed the deal or pulled out) are  India, Pakistan, Israel, South Sudan, and North Korea.

So Iran hasn’t asked for much on this. There are other sticking points. Like Obama, Trump objects to Iran having some of it’s weapons that have conventional capability including short to short-medium range ballistic missiles. Also their supplying weapons to some countries and groups. Yes, supplying known, actual terrorists needs to be stopped. However like any other nation Iran claims the right to supply it’s allies. That’s a more complicated matter to address but at least we’ve been negotiating. Or were.

In the end it’s quite possible Trump thinks he can get a better nuclear deal than Obama did (and as I said he’s been offered one that’s slightly better already) AND stop much of Iran’s conventional weapons capability (some of which is defensive) AND stop them from engaging in state-sponsored terrorism. All by raining down missiles/bombs in a show of force. THAT isn’t going to accomplish any of those goals. It will only make  progress on any of them more difficult. The question is how much is Trump willing to risk:

Vice President J.D. Vance said this week, in an interview with the Washington Post, that there is “no chance” the U.S. would get embroiled in a long, drawn-out war with Iran. Good to hear, except for two things. First, Vance doesn’t necessarily know what Trump is thinking. (It’s worth recalling that in the administration’s early days, Vance said “obviously” the most violent protesters in the Jan. 6 riots shouldn’t be pardoned—right before Trump did just that.)

Second, as the old saying has it, the enemy gets a vote in shaping how a war unfolds. If Iran’s leaders think the attack could undermine their regime (and Trump has spoken in favor of regime change), they might unleash a massive attack against Israel and U.S. military bases, which could spur Trump to step up his attack, and onward and upward the violence spirals. Uncontrolled escalation is a particular danger when the leader starting a war hasn’t thought through what he wants to gain from it.

The linked article asks why Trump was in such a rush and it’s a fair question. If it’s yet another attempt to distract from the Epstein files or raise his in the toilet approval ratings it’s one helluva gamble. This could in a matter of hours (and not many) suddenly spiral out of control and we’d be on our own fighting a major regional war. Yes, we’d have Israel but Israel’s help is dependent on the U.S. helping THEM.

In any case, whether authorized by Congress or not we are in a war. Limited in the first day in size and manner of fighting.  We can only hope, and those who are religious can pray it remains relatively limited and that it turns out to be little more than a huge and expensive form  of Trump flexing our military muscle to bully Iran.  Cross your fingers. Then call your Congress Critters. Since Trump is (just heard on TV) calling for regime change Congress needs to clip his wings and fast.

Friends, I know everyone begs you for money. I promise, among all those asking for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest working. We’re a group of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. The rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the chance to keep telling the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula

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