No doubt President Trump thought Iran would be an easy pushover win, bringing him a cheap glory to match his pretentious aesthetic sensibilities, much like Putin’s War began with letters to President Putin’s Army officers from the war’s namesake to take their dress uniforms with them when they attacked Ukraine, for use when Ukraine surrendered.
Both Presidents have proven incompetent war clairvoyants. In Trump’s case, this just happened:
• Houthis enter war: Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels waded into the expanding Middle East conflict, announcing that they fired two missiles at Israel. The movement previously disrupted shipping lanes in the region, attacking vessels in the Red Sea in retaliation for Israel’s war against Hamas. [CNN]
While very few analysts wanted this war, I suspect this development surprises only a few of them, and rewards the balance with the bitter pleasure of Well, we were right. Wars are rarely as simple and predictable as overconfident amateurs like to predict. Sympathetic nations full of young men eager to prove their manhood allying themselves with the nation suffering the aggression, earned or not, is just one of the many unintended consequences of starting a war.
So are we seeing a war spinning up into a bigger war, a war for which we’re neither prepared nor properly armed? Will we have to accept a truce?
Maybe we can send Trump to his self-made enemy with a note pinned to his jacket saying, Do not return.
VP Vance had best be prepared to move into the position of President. This may happen in a big hurry.
Who’s next? From the same CNN report:
• Strait passage: Iran will allow 20 Pakistani ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said. Pakistan has been acting as the mediator for negotiations between Iran and the US.
Pakistan also has nuclear weapons. Their chronic adversary, India, does as well, and has been under the control of virulent nationalists since around 2014, give or take. While Pakistan is trying to mediate Trump’s War, it’s not unknown for a mediator to join one side or another.
The next month should be very interesting.
