I was comfy on the couch, nursing a beer next to my wife and watching the last episode of Dept Q on Netflix when I heard the news. My phone lit up. The United States had bombed three nuclear facilities in Iran. B-2 Stealth bombers lifting off from Whtiman Air base in Missouri flew to the Middle East to drop bunker busters because, to paraphrase, “Iran was close to having a nuclear bomb.”
I’m a bit disappointed. Not in the B2s or the Air Force, but how easily the blob appears to have coerced its desired outcome from an Administration elected to end wars, not start them.
No, I do not trust the “weeks away” narrative, and neither should you. If I had to guess, Trump heard it from Israel, which, as I suggested yesterday, may be in a bit of a pickle. If the missile bunkers can’t be penetrated and all the launchers destroyed, Israel lacks the resources to prevent them from hitting targets in Israel. To borrow from Colonel Munro in the movie The Last of the Mohicans, they’ll “pound us to dust.”
And well on the way to doing that, already.
A few hours after that was published, the B-2s, having been in the air for many hours before and to no one’s knowledge but a few, the US executed targeted strikes on Iranian Nuclear capacity.
The B-2 bombers conducted a series of strikes on targets in Iran, a senior Defense official confirmed.
Those targets were Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan in Iran, the president revealed in a social media post just before 8 p.m. ET, saying it was a “very successful attack.”
That appears to be it for the moment, but we are left with the same two problems we’ve always had. The argument that some adversary is near to deploying a weapon of mass destruction and the risk of terror threats triggered a result.
We don’t know how many military-aged young men were allowed in under Biden and Harris, but our geopolitical enemies would have been crazy not to take advantage of a porous border. There are some and perhaps many. Iran’s proxies are calling for revenge, but there is a distinct possibility that all of this is theatre.
Iran is alleged to have known about the “one-off” strikes days in advance and allowed time to evacuate personnel (and material, it would seem). Suggestions that it was a surprise attack would then be part of the performance. Everyone knew it happened without resistance, and the question is, is this just about saving face and setting a foundation for a deal that wouldn’t happen unless Iran allowed the US to blow up some infrastructure?
There’s a lot of mud in this water, but the uniform distrust of all government, foreign or domestic, should continue to be rule # 1.
So, if this is a play with bombs, what does Iran get to blow up in return before they agree to end hostilities, and does that include Israel? The mullahs can claim a more than successful eye for an eye after all the damage they’ve done there?
So, what’s up, and what’s next?
Trump is about the art of the deal, and it isn’t the first time he’s used munitions to play this dance with Iran. And it would be significantly out of place to enflame tensions with nuclear potential just weeks after helping to prevent a nuclear conflict between Pakistan and India.
I am also curious what the blob gets out of this, if Trump is playing 4-D chess with Iran and Israel, on the way to a cease-fire and the Middle East Peace he has promised he’d try to deliver.
The Netflix series Dept Q, by the way, is excellent.
