Simplicius believes the damage to the Iranian nuclear program from the Israeli attacks was insignificant, and that the real goal was what I and many other suspected, which was to trigger an Iranian response that hit hard enough to give AIPAC cause to run crying to President Trump about the need to invade those mean ol’ Nazis in Iran.
The plan all along was obviously to goad Iran into an overwhelming response that would somehow incite the US to enter the war on behalf of Israel, in order to finish off Iran. The nuclear program was likely a false target, the real objective being the total overthrow of Iran’s leadership and the fomenting of civilian uprisings throughout the country to bring Iran to heel under a Western puppet-led government.
Now Trump stands poised on the knife’s edge of one of his most historically critical decisions—whether to betray the mandate of the American people and consign his second term and dwindling legacy to the trash heap of history, or to pull back on the strings of Miriam Adelson and other donors and show a spine in standing up for the real ‘America First’ vision he promised to all. As of this writing, there are reports of urgent meetings in the Pentagon surrounding precisely the issue of Israel’s request for the US to officially enter the war to ‘finish off Iran’.
Yanis Varoufakis writes:
This is Trump’s Waterloo. He posed as the Leviathan who would bring a stealthy Peace, a smart Deal that averts a war with Iran. Then, with one more gross violation of international law, Netanyahu puts him in a little box: For either Trump knew of the attack, in which case he is no more than Netanyahu’s stooge. Or he didn’t know, which begs the question why he didn’t know and how will he react to being treated like a fool by Netanyahu. Either way, Trump’s strongman, dealmaking image is now toast. Either way, he goes down in history as yet another US President that Netanyahu bent to his genocidal will.
The entire non-Western world is now watching this pivotal turning point moment with bated breath: Trump can either make a move to redeem at least some lost hope for America’s global leadership, or instead pound the final nail in its coffin, forever edifying the rising Global South as to the true nature of the immoral, barbarous, and unprincipled West. It is a metaphysical crossroads: Trump will either stay true to his quasi-spiritual mission of world betterment, or he will drown the US in the blood of neocon imperialism… I have it as 70/30 chance that saner heads prevail in the US with Trump electing to not enter the war, but we’ll see how it develops.
At this point, I think it’s important to remember that there are multiple Trumps and it is intrinsically misleading to put too much stock in anything that is said by any of them, but most particularly by the short, fat one controlled by Clown World. All the competing word-spells are irrelevant, all that matters is the courses of action actually taken by the various parties.
Nor should we put too much stock in Israeli crocodile tears about missile strikes on Tel Aviv after the way the IDF has flattened civilian buildings from Gaza to Beirut and Tehran. It is both nonsensical and contemptible to declare “this is war” and hit another party, then whine when the other party hits back.
In war, the enemy always gets a vote. And if the US is foolish enough to get further involved, there is no reason to assume North Korea, Russia, and China won’t follow suit. China probably won’t, but I wouldn’t bet on North Korea and Russia staying out of it.