An Elephant's Faithful, One Hundred Percent

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.  

But We Think the Price Is Worth It

 

As I write this, it appears that the world may have dodged a bullet: Trump has put off his threat to wipe out Iran.  But no one should suppose that he won't change his mind in a week or two, and the reports I've seen so far don't say that Israel has agreed to pause its aggression against Iran. (Or Lebanon.  Or Gaza. Or the Occupied Territories.) Any ceasefire will just give the US and Israel time to arm themselves for further atrocities.

I haven't written about this war before, largely because it's just too depressing.  I'm not alone in this: many commentators I respect have been reduced to sputtering outrage at Trump's conduct.  Doug Henwood, for example, mostly posts one- or two-word grunts on Twitter/X, like "Gross," "Disgusting," "Shameful," "Ugh," etc. over reposts of other people's material. Some do better, but after awhile it comes down to detailing how Trump's a deranged criminal.

It's better than the corporate media's fondness for pussyfooting around.  The political scientist Corey Robin quoted the New York Times on Facebook this evening: "One big question: Experts say Trump’s threatened attacks could be unlawful. It comes down to: What defines a civilian target?"  Later he added, "The New York Times has been hemming and hawing for days about whether killing civilians is a war crime or not. What if civilians are surrounded by 'military-age males?' What if a power grid upon which civilians and hospitals depend has a 'dual use' for military purposes? So complicated, so nuanced, so grey an area. But now comes the prospect of imposing a toll on the Strait of Hormuz. And what is the NYT headline? "How Tolls in the Strait of Hormuz Would Undercut International Law'".

NPR has been about the same.  The other day one of their talking heads fretted about the effectiveness of a ceasefire: would Iran respect it?  He didn't wonder whether the US or Israel would "respect" it; maybe because the answer is so obviously No.

I don't know what it would take to stop Trump and Netanyahu. With one or two honorable exceptions, the mainstream Congressional Democrats have been busy complaining that Trump didn't ask their permission before he went to war. Of course they would have given him that permission, so what difference would it make?  Many of them have wanted to destroy Iran for years.  They might pretend to distinguish between Iranian citizens and "the Regime," but they're willing to sacrifice Iranian lives in a good cause.

In another Facebook post, Corey Robin spelled out parallels between Trump's war and George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq.

1. A hard-right Republican president comes to power denouncing the more "internationalist" and "establishment" Republicans and Democrats who see the United States as policeman to the world. (Don't forget, this was one of Bush's promises when he ran in 2000: he wouldn't do nation-building, he wouldn't be the world's cop, he would be "humble," he would have a narrow view of US national interest.)

 

2. A small group of influencers—neocons in Bush's case; the Israelis, in Trump's case—make the case for war to the president on two logically incompatible grounds: a) the enemy regime is poised to be so militarily powerful, that if the US waits any longer, the enemy will be able to land a devastating blow against it; b) destroying the enemy regime militarily will be staggeringly easy.

 

3. Top-level US intelligence and military officials say that this advice is nonsense, totally lacking in evidence. Additionally, they repeatedly ask, what if you are able to destroy the regime, what comes next? How are you going to run the country?

 

4. Eager to destroy an enemy that has been a thorn in the side of the US for decades, the president ignores the intelligence and military establishment, displays scant concern about what comes next, and takes the country to war. 

 

5. Republicans and conservatives scratch their heads. How did a president who came into office promising not to be the world's policeman wind up taking the country to war.

 

Structurally, the two important features to focus on are these: 1) the distinction between a radical right and moderate establishment right in the Republican Party is nonsense; 2) Congress and both parties have long abandoned their role in limiting the power of the president when it comes to war.

One of the most depressing things about this is that, twenty years later, there are still pundits and politicians who defend Dubya's war.  Even if Trump's war were to end now, the long-term consequences, especially for the Iranian people and other civilians killed or hurt or displaced, will continue indefinitely, because neither Trump nor his successor will have any interest in cleaning up after it, and since there have so far been very few US casualties, most Americans will happily sink into lethargy and amnesia.

Thank You for Pressing the Self-Destruct Button

It turns out this meme backfires on itself, as so many do.

I didn't notice at first that it's partly an exhortation to vote for the lesser evil if that will "shift your country as much closer to your ideal as possible."  That's pretty funny right there, since Dem loyalists were furiously denouncing the Lesser Evil option so recently.  I guess that if you don't actually say the words, it's okay.  (But if you say them three times quickly ...?)

The main thing, though, is that the meme amounts to a denunciation of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the DNC, and Democratic partisans.  Clinton most of all, though, who put her determination to be President ahead of every other consideration, including the probability that Sanders had a better chance of beating Trump.  Her ego, her entitlement, her notion that it was her turn now.  I can't think of a better example of "extreme individualism."  To ensure that she won the nomination, she played dirty, which some of her fans even thought amusing.  It's their party, after all, one such person wrote, which at least was honest: the party belongs to its elites and big donors, not to the rank and file who do the scut work of making phone calls, knocking on doors, driving voters to the polls -- let alone the voters themselves.  It's not about you, you individualist with your silly notions of government by the people.   Don't believe the fairy tales the elites told you, that elections are meant to choose the best candidate for office.  Don't believe the fairy tale drummed into your head since childhood, that American values and ideals have anything to do with the running of our government.  It's like the Bible: you're not supposed to take it literally, just have faith in your leaders.  Just don't reject the fairy tales during election season, or in the hearing of the real owners of the party.

I guess I'm more or less functional again, after spending a day walking around feeling stunned.  I needed to write to find out what I thought about Trump's victory, but I wasn't sure I wanted to know what I thought.  I stayed off Facebook yesterday, and timidly logged in today.  Before long my liberal friends' reactions had me angry again, and I was back in the fray.

Most notable, as I expected, were Democrats blaming everybody but themselves for the debacle. Paul Krugman was apparently leading the charge, but I hear Rachel Maddow was in there too.  If I'm not mistaken, that was one of the tendencies that drove Germany into the hands of the Nazis.  Did Germany lose the Great War?  It wasn't their fault, it was the Jews and the homosexuals and the Reds stabbing the Fatherland in the back, and women spitting on Our Troops.  Did Hillary lose this world-historical election?  It wasn't her fault, it was the Bernie Bros and Julian Assange and Jim Comey and all the haters who made voters stay away from the polls.

Most entertaining are the Dems who yell "Don't play the blame game!" when their own attempts to play the blame game are rebutted.  We can blame everybody, but don't you dare blame us -- that's being judgmental.  We aren't being judgmental, we're just pointing out who stabbed Hillary in the back...  Really, they are acting as we were warned Trump's followers would react if he lost.  I imagine I'll be seeing a lot more of that.

Meanwhile, what to do?  I don't have any answers, but some writers are making sense.  There are others, of course, but these two were close to hand.  It's alarming that so many liberals and progressives and near-rightists and neoliberals are freaking out, lashing out almost randomly, but that was only to be expected.  I can't go on, I'll go on.