There is no greater danger than underestimating your enemy — Lao Tsu (5th century BCE)
Ready! Fire! Aim!
So The Donald and Tough-Talk Pete, in cahoots with No Boundaries Bibi, figured all they had to do to “conquer” Iran was “cut the head off the Iranian snake” — that is, kill the country’s Supreme Leader and some superior officers. But they failed to see that Iran’s government was a very different kind of reptile, a hydra, the creature from Ancient Greek mythology that grows two new heads for every one severed.
In retrospect, the U.S./Iranian negotiations that preceded the war appear to have been an intentional ruse on the part of the U.S. to stall for time while our military completed assembling a massive strike force near Iran in preparation for a surprise attack on that country. At the same time that U.S. negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff were meeting with Iranian diplomats, they were working closely with Israel behind the scenes. Simultaneously, the U.S. was moving a virtual armada of aircraft carriers, battle ships and warplanes near Iran. Then, in a surprise move, the U.S. broke off negotiations, claiming the Iranians said they had enough enriched uranium to build 11 nuclear bombs (they did not say that, because it is not true), and were only stalling for time while they developed more weapons of mass destruction. What was really going on, it seems, is that the U.S. negotiators were stringing Iran along while they were preparing to draw first blood in a major military action that quickly morphed into a war.
Two days after the U.S. broke off negotiations, its ally Israel, aided by CIA intelligence reports, killed Iran’s Supreme Leader in a surprise bombing attack. (In the process, Israel killed the guy Trump wanted to appoint as the Ayatollah’s successor to run a U.S. puppet state there — à la our move in Venezuela.)
So, the United States and Israel started this war with a decapitation action, with Trump stupidly assuming that Iran’s capacity and will to resist American aggression would die with its ruler. (This might be because Trump sees himself as America’s Supreme Leader, with all power centered in him, and believes that the country would be a helpless, chaotic mess without his wise guidance — a fantasy scenario he projected onto Iran.)
But look at the map above. Iran is roughly the size of Alaska, with significant mountain ranges, meaning there are many places for guerrilla outfits to hide. It is home to 90 million people, most of them Shia Muslims who have grown up learning that the United States is the Great Satan.
Their theocratic ruling elite, consisting of an Imam class and a heavily armed, fanatically loyal Revolutionary Guard cadre of about 50,000, already had a mechanism in place for replacing the 86-year-old Ayatollah, who would probably die soon in any case. Within a week after our shock-and-awe bombing and missile attack, they did exactly that, installing his son as the new Supreme Leader.
And while the U.S. has largely succeeded in degrading Iran’s capacity to make conventional war using missiles and drones, it has not come close to eliminating its abillity to fight an asymmetrical war of attrition — closing the Straight of Hormuz to oil shipments and thus destabilizing the global economy; attacking U.S. assets, including military bases and AI data centers throughout the region; destabilizing Shia-majority Iraq where U.S. citizens have been told to leave the country in the wake of an attack on American Embassy; and fomenting a regional war that has quickly become a global crisis.
All in two weeks. Little Iran! Who knew?
Actually, anybody who thought for two minutes about the potential ramifications of attacking Iran would have known. Anybody who has ever heard the phrase “never underestimate the enemy” would have known.
But The Donald and Tough Talk Pete? Not so much. Trump wanted a quick win to deflect from the Epstein files and his administration’s failed policies. Pete wanted to show everybody that Real Men Is Tough.
And here we are, locked into this horrible mess for the foreseeable future.
It’s like we’re all on a bus with a drunk driver careening at 90 mph toward a sharp curve in a high mountain road. Should we hold on? Jump off? Pray?
It seems that all that’s left for We the People to do is exercise our First Amendment right to protest this craziness. So, be sure to show up at your local No Kings rally on March 28 — and bring your middle fingers.
