Well, President Trump had his time with the Israeli-Iranian crisis. Whether it was good or bad for him I don’t know. I rather have the feeling that he largely enjoyed it, but not entirely. He may really not have wanted to go to war at first, then drifted, rather quickly toward a decision to commit at least one action which might be considered an “act of war.”

I am going to reflect on this process, that is how he made up his mind and what the results may be; then I want to speculate what this means for the Middle East and particularly our country and its relationship with that chronically unstable area of the world. I may even comment on politics-a little bit. My sources studied quickly for this article are mainly CNN and its reporting of yesterday and today, the NYT and a few other things pulled from the media. I wish to point out there is a remarkable and thorough article in today’s “Times” by five different reporters, one of whom is Maggie Haberman, my favorite NYT writers and one of the best people to appear on CNN for commentary. They should use her more.

When Israel began its air war on Iran over a week ago, many of us blanched and thought, “can’t we stop him here?” Some of those who did this appear to have been within the Administration and the party; even the MAGA part of it appears to have been split for awhile. This was addressed but not to the doubters’ satisfaction when Steve Bannon visited the White House.

What we have here is an indication of both some continuity and some change in the Republican Party and how it relates to or wishes to relate to the rest of the world. Going back nearly a century earlier, note that there were Republicans who in the 1930’s supported, no doubt with varying degrees of enthusiasm, FDR’s belief that we had to help the democratic/individual freedom countries of Europe(UK and France) against Germany, Italy and other would-be world conquerors.

But the majority of Republicans, again with some variance in conviction or willingness to talk about it, leaned toward isolationism and believed or at least wanted to believe that Hitler was no great threat to the US and we should stay out of it. These people came out as isolationist in the “American First” movement which started after war broke out in Europe. So there was, as I have noted earlier, a strong tendency toward isolationism which was likely, if somewhat vaguely, the opinion of most Republicans and some of this is still alive in the GOP in people such as Bannon, though they tend a little more now than then towards the “nut case right” position. It was largely, but not entirely, the more moderate Republicans who felt the US had to deal with Hitler.

Donald Trump’s leadership is in an odd Republican position here. On most things, particularly cultural issues, he tends(sometime more than just “tends”)to the right and the more conservative wing of the party, commonly know today as the MAGAS. But on some things, he tends to be “moderate,” at least in comparison. And you never know–even if you’re one of his advisors–‘which Trump is going to show up for which occasion(although studying his actions carefully might yield a clue).

Though he can be outlandishly hostile and combative on many issues, he does not appear to be fond of getting into wars, for the most part. He clearly does not want history to associate his name with anything like the drawn out American commitments to Iraq and Afghanistan. But does this line him up with the MAGA;s or what’s left of the non-MAGA Republicans? This is not easy to determine since the conservative Republicans have varied over the decades from isolationist to voracious interventionist(Vietnam, for instance)and back.

In the current case it appears that whatever he said, Trump had pretty much decided he would intervene in Iran a week or so ago. He was careful about saying this which was likely a good idea. He also may have seriously considered staying out for a while. When the whole thing began the US official position was that Israel had every right to defend itself and that the US would always support that right. But nothing was said to indicate the US would be an active ally in fighting with Israel. This pleased the MAGA/isolationist group of Republicans and Bannon was, I imagine, the one closest to the President who pushed this idea.

But the evidence seems to indicate that he actually decided that he would likely jump into the conflict about a week before he actually did so. This was a complicated effort including no doubt hundreds of people and a great deal of equipment. It required planning and the planning started then, even before the final “go” was a sure thing,. And it does appear that the military part of this, what our troops, sailors and flyers actually did, was very well carried out. The US military machine is working well.

While keeping a public position that could be interpreted as interventionist or not and not easily defined, Trump slipped more and more to the interventionist camp and finally was certain this was what he wanted to do, So he did, with what final results it is difficult to say and may remain difficult for some time to dome.. Obviously our B-2’s got through and dropped a number of the huge “bunker buster” bombs on Iranian nuclear works areas. We do not know yet if this “worked” or to what extent it did.

Trump was characteristically bombastic in his first statement to the world(mainly TV audience)when he announced the strikes. Never one to go for moderation, he claimed the utter destruction of Iran’s ability to become a nuclear power now, or(perhaps)ever. He offered nothing like real proof but he alleged the big bombs had taken out all of Iran’s ability to enrich nuclear material and create nuclear weapons.

The next one to speak on TV about this was Defense Secretary Pete Hegsith who incredibly looked good for once, at least compared to Trump. He backed Trump in declaring Iran was finished as a nuclear threat, but he was less bombastic about it and seemed, if not uncertain, a least a little doubtful. He appeared to be exercising something I’ve never credited him with having much of before, a modicum of good sense and restraint

After the Secretary came Gen Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As the Joint Chiefs have done quite often in recent years, he provided an agreeable amount of cool analysis and humility about what he knew for sure. The Joint Chiefs have come to serve as ballast to the bluster of politicians. Anyway, he supported the President in declaring that the targets they had hit on the ground had been obliterated. He did not, however, claim that Iran was finished as a nuclear power and indicated that some of this may take a while to study and analyze before it is possible to say how effective overall the strikes were.

All of the above seemed to be the case until this morning, when it became apparent that Iran and Israel failed to follow completely the cease fire demands Trump had laid down for them. The President, leaving early for a NATO conference, held an angry new conference in which he denounced both countries with what sounded like sincerity or at lest effective acting. He then went off, apparently in a foul mood, to talk to our (mostly)European allies in NATO. It’s not hard to guess what the number one subject is likely to be, although there are others(Ukraine and China at least) which will get, I would think, some attention.

Checking the internet again about a minute ago for further developments, it now(about mid-afternoon Tue the 24th) appears that Trump’s fury has had little immediate effect and that things are not much changed from a few hours ago. A fragile and tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Iran seems to be holding -so far.

Pursuant to all of this I wish to direct our attention to two immensely interesting and important articles in today’s NYT. The first is by Antony Blinken, Secretary of Sate(and good one, I think)during the Biden Administration. His headline is that he thinks Trump’s bombing of Iran was a mistake but he hopes that it worked. This sounds contradictory, but it’s not too hard to guess what he means. He gives a thorough but not overlong resume of US Iran-relations and various issues in dealing with their nuclear threat. He concludes, I think correctly, that Trump is responsible for a lot of this mess himself by pulling the US out of(and thereby ruining)the Obama-era multi-nation treaty that had boxed in Iran’s nuclear development and slowed it to a snail’s pace.

He also has his doubts about how effective the strikes will turn out to be, plus a few other issues. But he ends by saying, that whatever the faults of the action, now that it has been taken, he hopes it works. The rest of the world, certainly the Middle East, Europe and the US, cannot have a nuclear armed and aggressive Iran run by people with ideas similar to those of its current ruler and most of his predecessors since Iran became a republic.

The other article I want to mention is by historian Michael Kimmage, and no, I wasn’t familiar with the name before. Today is the first time I’ve heard of him. But it is well worth making his acquaintance. He has an article on Putin’s leadership of Russia which he sees as a disastrous failure. Putin simply pursued incorrect policies and wound up getting a united front in Europe against him and other undesirable things. If you have the slightest interest in the end of the cold war and the Russia Putin has brought forth and apparently badly damaged, read this article. I liked it very much. We must all hope he’s right.

Now, to close I have a few thoughts of my own(based of course on other peoples’ reporting and interpreting)on Trump’s actions against Iran.

++He will likely get away with it in that he is not gong to be impeached or prosecuted for any of this. Another impeachment may happen to him, but this is not the one and not the time. This is true in part because–

++Whether this was unconstitutional and/or illegal is a very complex question. If anyone tries to sort it all out it will take a long time and lead to a great deal of argument and posturing regardless of the point of view of the enthusiast, pro- or anti-Trump who might do that. On the illegal issue, it would be hard to prove because the War Powers Act perhaps is not clear enough about certain things including what constitutes an “Act of War”. On the constitutional issue, there is also a lack of clarity. Does this amount to a High Crime or Misdemeanor? What does the Constitution actually say about the military? Only Congress can declare war. But the President is commander-in-chief. I shall not pursue this further now, not wishing to try your patience or mine.

+++It may be quite sometime before even the most fair-minded and non-fanantical observers are able to figure out if this raid really “worked.” No doubt it did significant damage and greatly disturbed the Iranian leadership, but are they really seriously impeded in their desire to get or at least seriously threate to get a nuclear weapon?

+++Will this turn out to be a diplomatic victory or setback? Or maybe a mixture of those two things? There are indications some other nations were happy enough to see someone take a strong swipe at Iran. But how many will say this in public, particularly if it is not an obvious success? The line of people waitng to do that might be short.

+++Finally, how is it possible to tell if this should be considered right or wrong, a success or a disaster, or a whatever? I have no direct answer but I do have a couple suggestions and thoughts

–To be success there must never be a retaliation that causes American casualties

–To be a success there must be no long term damage to the US economy and/or US wealth

–to be a success there must not be widespread international condemnation of the US–

–to be a success this must not cause long term interruption of any of our alliances or international trade arrangements

–to be a success it must have obviously done long term serious damage to Iran’s capacity to develop nuclear weapons–this one is the most important and more indispensable than any other one

This matter is still developing–it is now shortly after midnight and therefore Jun 26th–The last few hours have seen reports of early estimates from our own intelligence that indicate not enough damage was done to set back –Iran’s nuclear program for more than a few months, not the years we were hoping for and the President seemed to be claiming

It is only fair to point out that at least some of this information was “leaked” to the media and therefore automatically suspect in its reliability–but the more we hear the more the reports agree and there is a ring of truth about them–I am going no further with this for now–it should be interesting to see what the first official reports say and what the media think of them–

During his campaign against Kamala Harris, I decided that “hypocrite” and “liar” were the two words that most described Donald Trump. I am willing, almost anxious to change my mind but it takes evidence. I see no reason at present the re-arrange my thinking. Good night one and all. I have no idea what the news will be when the new day begins, but check it out.