Some people are still trying to defend liberal / centrist Democrats for being angry that Trump didn't annihilate Iran. You know, they didn't really want the war, they were just angry because he didn't have a plan. Trump never has a plan; he's always just winging it, he can't remember what he said from one end of a sentence to the other, and he just expects everyone else to have the same convenient amnesia.
But not having a plan is not these Democrats' main complaint. The core is that Iran hasn't been crushed yet. As Senator Shaheen complained, "Iran still has 50% of their missile capacity. They still have enriched uranium. And they still control the Strait of Hormuz. The President had no credible strategy going into this war, and it's clear he still doesn't have one to accomplish the goals he set out." What does one have to do with the other? Under international law, Iran has the right of self-defense (hence the missiles), and also the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes (despite all the bipartisan alarmism, there is no evidence that Iran has enriched uranium for weapons).
Senator Chuck Schumer used the same talking points: "Iran still has its nuclear stockpile. Its nuclear ambitions are still unchecked, if not accelerated". Because Trump pulled the US out of the JCPOA, and Biden didn't rejoin it, Iran is no longer bound or "checked" by the limitations it imposed. Its leaders may well have decided that getting nuclear weapons for self-defense, like so many other countries, is a good idea (though to repeat, there still is no evidence that they were doing so). Nor does the US have any right under international law to bomb Iran to make it comply with our imperial demands.
As one online weirdo put it, "if i was a prominent democrat politician i would be saying stuff like 'Israel is fucking up your amazing peace & ceasefire deal on purpose mr. president! they think you're a sucker, show them who's boss!' instead of like 'He didn't even nuke iran lol. Is he gay??' but whatever [i guess]" It's true, as Senator Chris Murphy complained, that Trump is incompetent - but so is the Democratic leadership. This is an old complaint of mine, going back at least to the Obama years, that these cute, supposedly media-savvy solons -- at least they have hired media-savvy staff -- are so tin-eared, so clueless, so unprepared. Obama was consistently surprised that the Republicans wouldn't play nice, and instead of thinking creatively about how to stymie them, he would just let them have their way.
But like, you know, "by backing down, Trump also, you know, risked damaging his own credibility." I mean, the President promised to wipe out Iran, and it looks really bad if he doesn't keep his promise. It's not that these people want war, though they do, it's that a promise is a promise and America's word is its bond.
I suddenly remembered the biblical book of Jonah, because we atheist leftists can quote scripture to our purpose. Everybody knows about Jonah being swallowed by a big fish and then being vomited up onto dry land, but how many remember the context? Briefly, Jonah was a prophet, which was a thing in those days, and Yahweh told him to go to the non-Israelite city of Nineveh and threaten it with destruction if it didn't repent. Jonah ran away, because if the Ninevites repented the prophecy would be falsified, and in the course of his flight he ended up in the belly of the great fish, which brought him to Nineveh and spewed him out. So Jonah went in and proclaimed, "Yet thirty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!"
The King of Nineveh heard, and commanded general repentance, so Yahweh changed his mind and didn't destroy Nineveh. Jonah was very upset by this. He left the city and built himself a booth in whose shadow he sulked. Yahweh caused a gourd plant to grow up overnight and give him some shade, then made it wither and made Jonah uncomfortable. Drama queen that he was, he said he wanted to die.
And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death. Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?
This is obviously out of character for Yahweh, who would ordinarily be perfectly happy to kill 120,000 heathen children plus adults and "also much cattle," so you know this story is a fable. But it's a good one, and its point is relevant today. Don't worry, I'm not getting religion. But I'll use any material that is pertinent.
