Welcome to my house. Here I am watching MSNBC and drinking my coffee (photo above).
The news is telling me (click audio on top of page) that the country may be at war with Iran any day now.
I did have some thoughts about the pros and cons of the US entering the war, which as we know would begin by trying to destroy the Iran nuclear site at Frodo.
I wrote the following as a comment to Sabrina Haake’s Substack “Israel is pulling us into a forever war.”
This is a complex matter and I have said before that I doubt Trump will dispassionately analyze the long term consequences of getting into a war with Iran. Check out what eight experts have to say: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/06/18/us-attacks-iran-expert-predictions-analysis-00413901
I am hardly an expert but what I have been thinking wasn't even addressed by any of the experts. It seems to be an accepted given that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon which they can use to threaten Israel.
Is it worth risking a prolonged war in the region to have the US enter the conflict?
I haven't heard anyone explain how a nuclear exchange between the two nations would play out. Because they are so close to each other it seems like mere seconds for one country to retaliate a missile launch from ground based missiles which might or might not have a nuclear warhead. Even worse, a nuclear bomb if small enough could be smuggled into Israel.
The only way to guarentee the MAD (mutually assured destruction) scenario would be for Iran (who we assume will be the aggressor) knowing that Israel had a way to blow their country off the map with their nuclear weapons in retailation of a nuclear attack. I don't know for certain if they have their version of SAC with nuclear armed bombers always in the air but I assume they do. I just checked and I see that Israel has subs which I would guess are armed with nuclear missiles. https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/israel-submarine-capabilities/
This is all crucial since Iran would know that if they attacked Israel and managed a first strike their country would be still be destroyed even if it was an hour later and much of Israel was leveled.
So my question boils down to why can't we view this as similar to the situation with India and Pakistan, both nuclear armed and unable to attack each other, and to what it has been between the US and Russia ever since both had nuclear weapons? There is no country that can attack the US (or Russia and China) using nukes with impunity.
I can see the point of view of the Iranian leadership knowing that Israel (though they never admit it) can use their nuclear weapons against them. I don't see Israel as ever doing this even if provoked more than they already have been, but this doesn't mean that Iran's leaders will ever accept that their arch enemy has nukes and they don't.
Update: An then there's this via RawStory, a reminder from David Frum:
"One obvious move that the Iranians would have, for example, if the United States struck at them, would be to activate terror networks inside the United States," Frum continued. And standing against those terror networks, he said, are "an FBI, that has laid off all the counterterrorism professionals, headed by jokers. You’ve got a Department of Homeland Security that has spent ... millions and millions of dollars on an advertising campaign to say thank you, Trump, again, with a kind of play-acting director. You've got a Defense Department who is under leadership that no one would put this Defense Department under on the way to war. It just doesn't add up." https://www.rawstory.com/trump-frum/
Earlier this morning I read this in The NY Times (subscription).
Excerpt:
On the 10th floor of a federal building in Lower Manhattan, there is a holding area where immigration authorities have typically held a few dozen immigrants at a time for a few hours before transferring them to detention centers.
But as the Trump administration expands its immigration crackdown, the space has become overcrowded and people sleep sprawled on the floor, sometimes for days, according to those who have spent time there.
Descriptions of the conditions at the center, the New York City field office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, have prompted several congressional Democrats to demand that they be allowed inside for oversight purposes. Those demands have been denied.
These two peices of news led me to post what I did on BlueSky.
My first message, sent out into the cosmic world of cyber space where in a mystical world it would fall from the heavens and thaw out the ice cold hearts of every ICE agent, was prompted by the aritcle about their NYC headquarters.
The second about stupidity should be understood in the broadest definition of the word. I use it to mean that any decision made purely on emotion and not rationality and logic is ipso facto stupid. All decisions to not be stupid must be made with due consideration given to both short and long term consequences.
The message is meant for everything Trump and everything MAGA, not only as related to what Trump decides to do about Iran.
There is almost nothing Trump has done since being elected that is not stupid. He either does things based on his mood of the moment, or when he even thinks rationally it involves only what will happen in the short term, not the long term. For Trump and some of his decisions short term could be as short as one day. For other it could be a week or two. He is making decisions now that we can see will have a negative, even catastrophic, effect a year or two from now.
Addendum:
I bought my stupidity kills stickers in a store, but you can get them on Amazon here.
Don’t forget that if you comment I will probably reply if I am not in prison.
Read all my previous Substacks. Okay read some of them.
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