An alternative title might be, “Defense Intelligence Talks, Bullshit Walks.”
Mango Mussolini is fit to be tied:
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back on the report’s conclusions, while not denying its existence. “This alleged ‘assessment’ is flat-out wrong and was classified as ‘top secret’ but was still leaked to CNN by an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community,” Leavitt wrote on X.
“The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump, and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran’s nuclear program,” she wrote. “Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.” …
Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Illinois), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told The Washington Post there is widespread belief in Congress that the embarrassing content of the assessment is the reason why the Trump administration decided to delay the classified briefing. ““They don’t delay briefings that have good news,” Quigley said.
Quigley declined to discuss the contents of a classified briefing he received earlier this week. But he said that for years he’s been told by U.S. intelligence officials that any aerial attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would not have a lasting impact.
“I’ve been briefed on the likelihoods of how this would play out for years, and I was always told you have to finish the job with troops on the ground,” he said. “Nothing has changed my mind on that.”
They say with Donald Trump that accusation is confession. Having warned during the 2024 campaign that Joe Biden, then Kamala Harris, would trigger “world war three”, Trump is now offering a perilous test of that proposition. In his statement on Saturday night, Trump pronounced his military strikes on Iran a success. America’s bunker-busting bombs had obliterated Iran’s nuclear capacity, he said. It could take a while to find out whether both Iran and Israel — the prime actors in a show that Trump did not script but in which he is now taking a starring role — will share the US president’s assessment. But Trump is hoping that his awesome display of power will bring the curtain down on the war. That is not his decision to make.
Whatever happens next, it is worth recalling how Trump got here. Ten days ago, Benjamin Netanyahu torpedoed Trump’s nuclear negotiations with Iran with a series of devastating missile strikes. Israel’s prime minister said that Iran was weaponising its nuclear programme and posed an existential threat. Most others, including the US intelligence community, do not share Netanyahu’s diagnosis. Having his desired deal scuppered by Israel’s move, Trump quickly associated himself with it. He demanded Iran’s unconditional surrender and said that he could take out the regime’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, at any point. Iran did not submit to Trump’s demand. His de facto declaration of war on Saturday night was the outcome.
It also bears stressing that nobody, including Trump, knows what will happen next. It is easy to start a war, especially if you command the most powerful military on Earth. But wars only end when one side gives up. That age-old warning about the fog of war is particularly relevant to today’s Middle East, in which there are often more than two warring parties. The enemy of your enemy can turn out also to be your enemy. Having once been lectured by a younger Netanyahu, Bill Clinton said to an aide, “Who’s the fucking superpower here?” Trump’s brief televised address following the strikes was meant to showcase his command of the situation. In reality, Netanyahu has been dictating events. But even he cannot predict how Iran will respond.
Netanyahu’s interests are not the same as Trump’s. Israel’s leader has made it clear he wants regime collapse in Iran. Trump wants Iran to surrender. The first would be precipitated by a strong Iranian response that left Trump no choice but to escalate — a prospect he threatened in his address. The second would involve a token Iranian retaliation that enabled Trump to declare mission accomplished. How this unfolds, and who gets to diagnose whether Iran’s actions are token or lethal, is largely out of Trump’s hands. This leaves him as the most powerful military actor in the Middle East but potentially a hollow one. Power is about the ability to shape events. Trump is largely their prisoner.
Whatever happens, Trump’s bombing of Iran has defined his presidency at home as well as abroad. This is Trump’s war now. Iran’s submission would reverberate to his advantage in many ways; a full-blown war could sink his presidency. Among the ironies, Trump’s Iran strikes are being cheered on by many of the “Never Trumpers” who had been warning so starkly of Trump’s autocratic impulses. They are prepared to risk the power-aggrandising opportunity that war will offer Trump. Another irony is Trump’s Maga allies, such as Steve Bannon, are among the biggest sceptics of this latest, and potentially most dramatic, chapter in the “forever wars” that Trump has vowed to end.
Only a fool would take Trump at his word, which he serially breaks. But it is safe to say that his ambition of winning the Nobel Peace Prize is unlikely to bear fruit. Without consulting Congress, and in probable contravention of international law, Trump has taken a fateful gamble. Whether he has fully digested this fact or not, he is now committed to seeing this through to the end. Iran and Israel will have at least as big a say as Trump in deciding when and how that happens.
I apologize for sharing my speculation—because my speculation probably doesn’t add much to your knowledge. But I’ll say this: it is speculation based on past behavior and based on my logical extrapolation of past behavior.
Netanyahu set him up. Netanyahu played him like a fiddle. And he doesn’t like that.
He has said for a very long time that he hates getting involved in conflicts in the Middle East.
And attacking Iran looks like it’s going to lead to a very long conflict.
Today, many talking heads are talking about the events in Los Angeles as a step on the road to authoritarianism—and an attempt to distract from Team Trump’s many failures.
All true.
And yet there remains an elephant in the room for Team Blue.
As a movement, we do not yet have a coherent and politically viable answer about
How to deal with the undocumented people currently present here,
or about
What the rules and procedures for political asylum ought to be,
or about
Apart from people with legitimate asylum claims, how many—and who—should be permitted to enter the United States.
Not to have coherent and politically viable answers to these questions is political malpractice.
Facing MAGA 