Week 60
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Susie Wiles said in that long interview a month or so back that her job is to enable Donald Trump to do what he wants. It appears that that is the goal of pretty much everybody around Trump.
Trump wanted to hit Iran, and lo and behold, the military is using up its missiles to please him! As we’ve seen repeated many times this week, though, the enemy gets a vote, and apparently the Iranians haven’t signed on to the goal of encouraging Trump’s id. Shocking.
As the stories came out about the White House deliberations, though, the military (presumably) did feel stung enough to leak that it wasn’t them who ignored this Gulf of Hormuz thing. They specifically pointed to the President, but as long as they are carrying on this improv war, they’re culpable too.
Boots on the ground may be coming up, even after Trump said that an air war would be enough, maybe to seize Iran’s enriched uranium, maybe to seize Kharg Island, or whatever Trump decides that day. The fact that it is taking several days to bring in the Marines from the Pacific points to yet another unanticipated part of the unanticipated war. It seemed so simple in Venezuela, particularly if you view the world through a bully’s eyes.
The pace and horror of events is wearing on me, and I’m sure on everyone else. The devastation and killing of Iranian citizens who are guilty of nothing more than, at the most, supporting their leaders hasn’t made much of the news, but I suspect the people whose homes are being destroyed and relatives killed are just trying to get along, like Americans.
The White House continues to produce videos that depict this as a video game.
I’ve tried to focus on particular issues throughout the ADHD President’s term, so you don’t see a lot from me on, say, Jeffrey Epstein. This week, I’ve talked to or messaged with a number of reporters. Rob has been doing a crazy number of interviews. That adds to the personal distractions.
The wearing-down means I no longer have patience for certain types of foolishness, including the media’s willingness to consider Trump a rational actor. Others are giving up that pretense as well. Our own Dan Nexon has a very good article in the latest Foreign Affairs on that very subject.
Trump is flailing, but unfortunately he is in a position to disrupt our lives with that flailing. The markets and others who might constrain him are still fantasizing that he will deliver on his promises of more money and freedom to use the r-word. But he has brought other actors into his fantasy, and they are not cooperating.
I try to keep myself tethered to reality, which for me means staying away from snark, which I find twists my thinking into unhelpful emotions. I also like to look at the way other people have looked at problems, even if I don’t agree with them. There are no simple answers at this point, and my posts reflect that. I saw some commenter distress with that in one of my posts last week. We’ve never been here before. We’ll need to come up with a lot of new answers. I’d rather look for them than bemoan our terrible situation.
Speaking of reality, after I wrote my posts about Iran’s not having nuclear weapons and the foolishness of an attempt to seize Iran’s enricheed uranium, I got requests from a number of reporters. I’m pleased with Dan Vergano’s article in Scientific American, for which he interviewed me and others.
Trump and Congress (remember them?) could end a lot of this at any time.
Follow the court-watchers for the details of the lawsuits. Chris Geidner (LawDork, Bluesky), Roger Parloff (Lawfare, Bluesky), and the Just Security tracker.
Let’s stay away from hypotheticals, as usual. Post your pets.
148 more weeks to go. What are you doing? Big No Kings protest coming up in two weeks!
Previous weeks: Week 10, Week 20, Week 30, Week 40, Week 50, Week 51, Week 52, Week 53, Week 54, Week 55, Week 56, Week 57, Week 58, Week 59