“That’s the Way It Is”

Donald’s war of choice, from bad to worse

Among the dead, U.S. servicemembers, clockwise from top left: Capt. Cody A. Khork, Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, Sgt. Declan J. Coady and Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, who were killed in the strike on the Kuwait base. [Photo credit: US Army Reserve/Reuters]

The Pentagon has announced that more U.S. forces are deploying to the Middle East as the war with Iran escalates. Let’s call it what it is: Donald’s war with Iran.

In his first public remarks since the strikes began on Saturday, Donald said the campaign could last four to five weeks, possibly longer. He claimed the United States is systematically destroying Iran’s missile systems, crippling its navy, and preventing any nuclear capability. He refused to rule out putting boots on the ground and warned that a much larger wave of strikes is still ahead.

Military officials have described the operation as being in its early stages and would not say how it might end. The reason, presumably, is that they do not know.

The fighting is already spreading. Hezbollah has fired rockets from Lebanon into Israel, prompting Israeli strikes near Beirut. Jordan said it shot down two Iranian warplanes that entered its airspace. Iran has launched missiles and drones toward Gulf nations and Israel. Three U.S. aircraft were downed by Kuwaiti air defenses in what the Pentagon described as an apparent “friendly fire” incident. The crews were rescued, but the fact remains that three fighter jets were brought down by an ally. Oil prices are climbing. Markets are rattled. Realistic fears of a wider regional war are rising based in part on Iranian leaders’ claims that they are not negotiating and are preparing for a prolonged conflict.

In the wake of a classified briefing on the situation in Iran and the Trump regime’s “plans,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal told reporters,

I just want to say I am more fearful than ever, after this briefing, that we may be putting boots on the ground.

Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts posted this online immediately after.

I just left a classified briefing on Iran, and here’s what I can say. It is so much worse than you thought. You are right to be worried. The Trump administration has no plan in Iran. This illegal war is based on lies, and it was launched without any imminent threat to our nation. Donald Trump still hasn’t given a single clear reason for this war, and he seems to have no plan for how to end it, either.

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According to The Washington Post, U.S. intelligence assessments had concluded that Iran was unlikely to pose a direct threat to the U.S. mainland within the next decade. In other words, Iran does not pose an imminent threat to the United States. Donald ordered the sweeping attack anyway after weeks of cajoling from two key regional allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia. While Donald publicly voiced support for diplomacy with Iran, he was merely going through the motions, because privately Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman called Donald multiple times over the past month urging U.S. military action.

Donald’s decision to launch a war of choice marks a dramatic break from decades of American restraint in avoiding full-scale regime change in a country of more than 90 million people. Iran is a complex and deeply stratified society. The American attack ignores history and the realities on the ground.

While Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other higher-ups were killed in the initial joint strike, Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, the preferred choice among Iranian hardliners, is almost certain to succeed him. The likelihood of this has been increased by the mind-numbing fact that, as Donald admitted, the strikes also killed all of those identified as our government’s preferred choices to replace the existing regime.

Most of the people we had in mind are dead. We had some in mind from that group that is dead. And now we have another group. They may be dead also. Pretty soon we’re not gonna know anybody.

It is difficult to overstate the recklessness and insanity of that statement or the extent to which this demonstrates just how ill-prepared the commander-in-chief and the Pentagon were for this potential quagmire they’ve gotten us into.

When asked an eminently reasonable question about how long this operation might last, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said:

[Donald] has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it may or may not take, four weeks, two weeks, six weeks. It could move up; it could move back. We’re going to execute at his command the objectives we’ve set out to achieve. And what he has shown an ability to do that other presidents can’t quite seem to have the aperture to do. . . . So, you can play games about four weeks, five weeks. He has all the latitude and I’m glad he does because there’s no better communicator than our president expressing those things.

Leaving aside the absurdity and contemptuousness of Hegseth’s remarks, it’s clear, and unsurprising, he is out of his depths. Making matters much worse, however, is the callousness with which these people approach the horrors of war. To date, more than 1,000 deaths have been reported including six U.S. service members.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs has warned that more losses are expected. Donald, as empathetic as a serial killer, said this:

There will likely be more before it ends. That’s the way it is. Likely be more.

“That’s the way it is,” is just another way of saying, “it is what it is,” a popular expression in my family. When Donald said that in an interview with Jonathan Swan on August 3, 2020, after Swan pointed out that a thousand Americans were dying every day from COVID, it sent a chill down my spine. Whenever my grandfather, my aunt, or one of my uncles said, “It is what it is,” it was always tossed out with a cruel indifference to somebody else in despair.

Even as Donald, Hegseth, and others in the Trump regime prove themselves to be cartoon villains, these very small men are heroes in their own minds. And, tragically, they have the power to visit untold horrors upon the people of this world as if they were merely playing a very violent and inconsequential video game. Many people know better, if only they would do something about it.