Donald Trump on Tuesday began referring to “we” in the context of Israel’s ongoing airstrikes against regime targets in Iran.
“We now have complete and total control of the skies,” he said. And then, a few minutes later, “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding.”
If there were any lingering questions as to whether the administration had discussed joining the Israeli bombardment, Trump answered them. On social media, naturally.
In the same message, he called Khamenei “an easy target,” but said the ayatollah was “safe” for the time being. “We are not going to take him out, at least not for now,” Trump said. On the off chance anyone was confused about the meaning of “take him out,” Trump clarified: “(kill!)”
Earlier Tuesday, JD Vance published a near article-length message on Elon Musk’s “X.” It read like a preemptive attempt to explain away the rather glaring juxtaposition between Trump’s long-standing promise to extricate America from “forever wars” — particularly those in the Middle East — and what could be the most provocative US military operation since George W. Bush invaded Iraq.
“He may decide he needs to take further action to end Iranian enrichment,” Vance said, of his boss, adding that Americans “are right to be worried about foreign entanglement[s].” But Vance urged US voters to give Trump (“my friend,” as he called the big man) the benefit of the doubt. “I believe the president has earned some trust on this issue,” Vance said. “I can assure you that he is only interested in using the American military to accomplish the American people’s goals.”
It’s possible — but not guaranteed — that the American people will soon learn their “goals” include flying a B-2 over Qom and dropping a 30,000 bomb on a mountain at God only knows what cost to taxpayers. Not that cost is the most relevant concern here. That’s almost surely what “further action to end Iranian enrichment” meant in Vance’s message. The only thing the US can do that Israel can’t is destroy Iran’s mountain nuclear enrichment site, Fordo.
Other possibilities include the US joining Israel in more conventional strikes on regime targets, although I don’t know what the point would be. Israel can do that just fine on its own. Indeed, I’m not sure there are (m)any such targets left. At some point between Monday and Tuesday, the IDF killed Ali Shadmani. He was serving in several capacities after his immediate superiors were all killed late last week. Suffice to say this is a bad time to get a promotion in the IRGC.
It’s worth noting that Trump likes big bombs. He famously dropped a GBU-43 (a cousin of the GBU-57 most experts say is necessary to destroy Fordo) on ISIS’s Afghanistan affiliate in 2017.
The child in Trump surely wants to blow up a mountain and nothing’s stopping him. A few members of Congress were moving this week to restrict his latitude, but it won’t work. This is yet another example of the risks associated with the post-9/11 US presidency — it’s an office imbued with almost dictatorial powers when it comes to national security.
Also on Tuesday, the IAEA revised its assessment of the damage done to the Natanz nuclear site in Iran. Initially, the watchdog said only the above-ground infrastructure was destroyed. Now, they say the subterranean enrichment halls suffered “direct impacts.” Israeli warplanes hit the site on Friday in the first round of airstrikes.
It’s reasonable to ask if Benjamin Netanyahu roped Trump into bombing Fordo. He might’ve told Trump the only way for “us” to finish the job is to destroy the facility. That all of “our” work over the past four days would amount to unfinished business if “we” don’t cave in a mountain side.
Ahead of a national security meeting in The Situation Room Tuesday, Trump demanded “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” from Khamenei. He didn’t specify what that would entail.
If Trump does decide to drop the GBU-57, the least he could do is call John Bolton and offer him the opportunity to ride it all the way down to Erebor.
It’s hard to surrender (unconditionally) to a fighter jet flying overhead at 30,000 feet. The only way to surrender is to boots on the ground. Where will those come from, and how long will they stay? Long enough to build a Trump Tower in Bandar Abbas?
He wants Iran to call him and beg for mercy — where that means promising to stop doing anything even remotely provocative, from enrichment to proxy cultivation — but it’s plainly too late. Khamenei’s in a bunker, everybody who matters in the IRGC is dead, they’re running out of missiles, Natanz is destroyed (apparently) and on and on. Israel wanted to push this past the point of no return before Trump had a chance to think about it, and they have. I don’t see a path out of this with Khamenei at the helm, and there’s no way Israel’s going to accept a setup where a successor is just another hardline cleric which, given the nature of the role, means there won’t be a successor. Maybe Israel would be willing to entertain some kind of arrangement where Iran’s allowed to have a “supreme leader” in name only — like a King/Queen of England-type deal where the new guy serves in a ceremonial role while the legislature has all the power. But this is going to be a very difficult transition. It’s not as if there are just a few hardliners. “Hardliners” in this context means a huge share of the political class. Maybe they’ll all morph into reformists at gun-point, but somehow I doubt it.
That said, I do have faith in Iranians’ capacity to figure this out. This is hardly Gaza or Syria. It’s not Venezuela either. They already have a civilian government, it just wasn’t allowed to make any important or binding decisions before. And they have plenty of administrative capacity, lots of experienced diplomats, plenty of energy to sell and plenty of countries willing to deal with them. Of course, you could’ve said most (or even all) of that about Iraq too, and that didn’t work out well, with the irony being that Iranian interference was a big reason why the Iraqi democratic project struggled to get traction.
Anyway, I don’t think a post-Khamenei Iran will be a failed state. I really don’t. Knock on wood.
“The only thing the US can do that Israel can’t is destroy Iran’s mountain nuclear enrichment site, “Fordo”.
“If Trump does decide to drop the GBU-57, the least he could do is call John Bolton and offer him the opportunity to ride it all the way down to “Erebor“.
Scholars have noted that Erebor and The Lord of the Rings are both structured as quests to a distant mountain, but that the quests have very different motivations. Further, the mountain is a symbol of adventure in The Hobbit, and of Bilbo’s maturation as an individual, while to the Dwarves, it stands for the gain of beauty in return for loss of life.
I don’t know if anyone else has seen it, but Israel has been running a 90-second ad on YouTube for a few days now explaining operation “Rising Lion” to the American people. It is an over the top campaign ad, complete with war maps, featuring Netanyahu himself doing the voice-over.
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Trump’s gotta compensate for getting dissed at the G-7 and his crappy birthday parade. Sounds like”Bunker Buster” to me.
I hate how much this could be right.
This is a curious move, I still can’t figure out the angle, why the interest to join all of the sudden? Usually Trump only reacts and switch directions when there is a clear benefit to (him) or his image. I guess he might be trying to force a last minute deal under the threat of bombing Fordo and ending the regime, but this move would (at least on paper) appear to be unpopular with a lot of his base. Something we don’t know yet could be driving this development.
Maybe it’s Occam’s razor – he just doesn’t want Bibi to get all the credit.
I think that too – narcissism and ego. He can’t stand someone else calling the shots, getting the credit, being the boss. He pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, wants that to look like 3D chess not a mistake that led to a war. And maybe he thinks there’s a commercial opportunity in it.
More broadly, Trump has no allegiance to anyone, including his MAGA base. To him “MAGA” is just a marketing pitch and he only cares what MAGAs think if he needs to care.
Also, he has an Iran hang up in general. It’s one of those things he can’t let go of.
Or needs their support to pass his BIG Beautiful Bill.
His base will turn on a dime and claim John Bolton was right all along and regime change was the only choice. Intellectual consistency is not a trademark of the MAGA crowd.
Will we get to see before and after pictures of the target?
I thought DJT was attempting to rein in Netanyahu and was distancing us from what was going on over there in general.
Now it’s we control the skies. We know the location of and can kill the head of a government that’s in this conflict with Israel but will hold off if we get total surrender.
The cognitive dissonance is overwhelming my brain.
H-Man, he will do it, not fully recognizing the consequences, which seems to be a dominant characteristic of his decisions. He, at least, is attempting to thwart any claims that he slaughtered innocent civilians because he warned them to leave Tehran before dropping the big one.
I have no insight and only slightly more real understanding here. But thanks to my yellow cake doubt scars, I have, I think, the simplest possible question: Is there 110% tippy top confidence, no chance in hell, that Iran may somehow have some residual or heretofore unknown actually deliverable nuclear capacity? I mean all signs point to no, despite the persistent “in 6 months” warnings, but then again, a lot of traditional signs (and conventional wisdom) have gone sideways lately. This seems like the kind of fundamental question we’ll learn later, if we’re still alive, that there were warnings and serious uncertainty on that score but they somehow got lost in the mail, or otherwise ignored until it was too late.
And if whatever capacity gets obliterated or at least destroyed, how are we not avoiding a potential nuclear catastrophe in Iran with the uncontained destruction of these facilities, some of which don’t seem that remote?
They can’t hide any of their top people from Mossad, including their nuclear scientists and they can’t even keep visiting leaders from their proxies safe for one night in Tehran but they can hide a deliverable nuclear weapon from the Israelis? I kinda doubt it. Netanyahu sees nukes that aren’t there; it seems unlikely he’d miss one that is.
The Daily Beast always has great headline writing. Today’s offering: “Trump Boasts ‘Nobody Knows What I’m Doing’”
Totally off topic, but I laughed harder, in an all-dead-inside way, at this one: “ICE Barbie Visited Biohazard Lab With RFK Jr. Before Hospitalization”
I refuse to believe Trump has any plans to attack Iran until Pete Hegseth divulges them to a random journalist using the Signal App.
Trump Boasts ‘Nobody Knows What I’m Doing’”. Including Trump.