So the bombs fell yesterday evening and overnight, and while it is true that a state sponsor of terrorism like Iran should never have nuclear weapons, that doesn’t mean it was the only answer. Ironically, all authorities – including Grok – note that Iran was complying with the non-nuclear agreement put in place by the Obama administration. In other words, they weren’t building atomic bombs until after Trump ripped up the agreement. Apparently, he and Bibi believe that they don’t need agreements when they can eviscerate suspected sites overnight. So long as one doesn’t care about innocent civilian deaths, one supposes that is true – overnight at least. But we often don’t factor in the costs that may come later. The agreement may seem worth ripping up to the Far Right, but will they still believe so if and when there is a terrorist attack on American soil?
We don’t know. Yet. But one is probably coming, that and war between Lebanon and Israel. By all accounts, it is highly unlikely that Iran could ever put troops down in Israel. So they will do as they always do: war by proxy. Lebanon will almost surely attack Israel. It is hard to see how any of this benefits Israelis, given the reality that Iran was already in compliance. This is especially true when one could always bomb the hell out of Iran if there was ever any reason for them not to comply.
The net is exploding with comments – pardon the awful pun.
Trump apparently doesn’t want commerce with other countries; just war.
— Stephen King (@stephenking.bsky.social) 2025-06-22T00:44:22.941Z
NARRATOR: The War Powers Resolution does not let Trump do this
— Asha Rangappa (@asharangappa.bsky.social) 2025-06-22T03:20:27.227Z
“I’m voting for Trump to avoid World War 3” they said.
Above is one of the real problems. Russia is Iran’s biggest ally, and thus, this puts us squarely in Russia’s crosshairs. Granted, Russia can’t even win a war against Ukraine right now, but they have very real missiles that can sink aircraft carriers. It is unlikely that Russia wants a fight with us, but the attack certainly eviscerates all moral authority we might have mustered in terms of strong-arming peace in Ukraine. Moreover, with war in the Middle East, we have far less ability to keep China out of Taiwan. China has been acting as though they are going to invade Taiwan at some point – now is as good a time as any. Wars are unpredictable – the consequences almost impossible to foresee. Perhaps years away, they are hard to link, but just as real.
We should have seen this coming:
I hope everyone who farmed clicks by arguing that trump was anti war in some sense is proud of themselves
— Adam Serwer (@adamserwer.bsky.social) 2025-06-22T00:07:53.576Z
Trump also supported the Iraq War
— Judd Legum (@juddlegum.bsky.social) 2025-06-22T10:26:41.472Z
Above, of all of Trump’s promises, this is the one he decided to break. I admit that I didn’t see it coming. Trump is fundamentally a chicken on many things. And though he certainly shouldn’t be bombing Iran, this was uncharacteristic of him – a broken promise and an aggressive one.
Congress may or may not get involved. There is reason to not give Iran a heads up by going through Congress; there is no reason not to go to them now.
Trump announces attack on Iran. No congressional approval. At the hands of the self-proclaimed "anti-war" president.
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen.bsky.social) 2025-06-21T23:51:50.220Z
The images of trump in his war room wearing his MAGA red hat are sickening.
— Steven Beschloss (@stevenbeschloss.bsky.social) 2025-06-22T02:37:05.042Z
The US-Iran war would not have happened if Trump were president
— Darth Putin (@darthputinkgb.bsky.social) 2025-06-22T01:55:44.931Z
Trump Has Never Been Anti-War; He’s Not Even Anti-War inside the USA talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump…
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm.bsky.social) 2025-06-19T17:17:47.346Z
"Trump has spent the last five months vowing that the Ukraine-Russia war would never have happened if he was president, vowing that the Israel-Gaza war would never have happened if he was president. And yet the reality is that not only has he not avoided war, but he’s plunged us into a new one."
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen.bsky.social) 2025-06-22T01:20:17.561Z
Again, we should have seen this coming – at least I should have. In some ways, Trump is a conventional Republican:
crashing the economy and starting a war in the Middle EastDonald Trump has finally become a conventional Republican after all
The Left is already furious, as noted above. Not that Trump cares. He has never even tried to be president of the entire country, even in matters involving whole continents. But the U.S. only has one president and, more importantly, only one military. Our thoughts should be with U.S. servicepeople now under the “dome” in Qatar, Bahrain, Syria, and elsewhere. They are real targets now.
We will worry about the rest of us and terrorism down the road. One cannot help but think that it’s coming, perhaps sooner than later. He should never have ripped up that agreement.
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I worked in the nuclear industry and know that verification of compliance is difficult to achieve. It depends on inspectors having full access to all nuclear facilities at all times, and a full accounting of all fissile material in the program. Iran went to great expense to build an enrichment facility deep underground at Fordow. If they went to that trouble to conceal their activities, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine they had ruses and hidden facilities to fool the inspectors.
Regime change would have allowed unrestricted access to Iran’s nuclear facilities, and a means of safely decommissioning their weapons program. Now, with the strikes, some of these facilities may have become radioactive messes that will take decades and billions of dollars to clean up, and it will be impossible to account for all fissile materials.
Iran may have built nuclear weapons facilities and stockpiles of enriched uranium that have never been detected. A cooperative regime in Tehran may still be necessary to find those facilities and to track down materials that may have been diverted. And it’s not just enriched uranium that poses a risk. It’s also nuclear waste that could find its way into dirty bombs and the hands of terrorists.
All good points but I believe that the scientists at the UN well know the dangers and hiding activities and yet said that Iran was in compliance.
They had virtually no reason not to comply with all the incentives.
The agreement was at least as good as this IMO
jason
I’m just waiting for the attack on US soil. There’s one coming from any number of countries now that he has done this. It’s just a matter of when and where.
I feel there was NO REASON for us to have done this. I detest the fact that Trump has done this. I don’t want to say “we” have done this because “we” haven’t. Trump did this.
I wonder how many of those military personnel hate themselves for being forced to follow orders to bomb Iran. I would think that anyone who has been trained could *not* see what the results of this will be.
We are SO fcked. As if we didn’t have enough problems! There are tariffs to worry about and inflation and shortages and, and, and. Damn.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the nuclear agreement an exchange for the US to ease sanctions on Iran? If so, we had Iran voluntarily complying and each side getting what it needed. This would be an example of how adults solve things, with no lingering resentment hanging around. Now, look what we get.
In response to the surprise expressed by one commenter that Trump would attack Iran, “Trump is fundamentally a chicken on many things. And though he certainly shouldn’t be bombing Iran, this was uncharacteristic of him” — Trump is still a chicken. It is well known that he wanted to negotiate with Iran , but Netanyahu literally blew that up. So Trump is afraid of crossing Netanyahu, too. Now Trump says Gabbard is ‘wrong’ on Iran nuclear intelligence (namely, that they were not building a bomb) — but all U.S. intelligence agreed with her. So did Trump until a few days ago. Now Trump is parroting Netanyahu’s propaganda, and so is Gabbard. Trump is as manipulable as putty.