"Iran has been severely weakened from the past week’s worth of attacks, but still possesses some asymmetric capabilities that could be directed against the United States. Plus, reporting suggests that Trump does not believe that the DoD’s bunker-buster bombs will work on Fordow. Under these circumstances, Trump is unlikely to take the risk."
I was happy to read this piece the other day and enjoyed it. If I might retrospectively point out an error in the reasoning that I very much did not appreciate until re-reading it today: you assume that Trump both *understands* and *cares* that Iran has asymmetric capabilities, and you assume that his belief that the bunker-buster bombs won't work is a *stable* belief.
I think the takeaway from this whole shebang has to be the same old boring reality that Trump, always and everwhere, will do only and precisely what he needs to do in order to feel good about himself (and to lash out at those who make him feel bad about himself).
"Readers should remember that if I am ever so foolish as to make a prediction about the Middle East ever again."
Nah, I think not. It is simply that most of what trump says and does defies reason, bears no relationship to evidence, whereas a good chunk of us cannot even imagine how to think and operate without logic and evidence.
I wonder where his madness will take us, and take the rest of the world too!
Yeah. I thought that Trump was going to build the Wall when he was elected the first time. Trump is unpredictable, but we still have to try to predict what he will do because Trump is currently residing in the White House, rather than a more appropriate setting, such as an institution designed to care for the mentally ill.
Last November a large group of voting citizens learned that they could be very wrong about a huge amount of stuff including unfortunately the 2024 American election for President.
Me? I was wrong about it all. Most hurtful was the state legislature which governs (?) Arizona gained votes for the Trump party.
I had hoped not to be wrong about everything more than once.
Retired now, I have learned that rule 1 is, don't be so hard on yourself.
The NY Times link for "according to two Israeli officials with knowledge of the intelligence, that Iran had moved equipment and uranium from the site" goes to an article with no mention of officials, equipment, or uranium. They need to work on their internal citations. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/22/world/middleeast/israel-us-strikes-iran-mood.html
A good rule of thumb is that Trump will do whatever satisfies his psychic needs at that specific moment, with no regard for laws, history, geopolitics, etc. He dropped bombs on Iran because he was watching on the teevee and the people on the shows were saying how strong it made Israel look.
"Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and Republican congressmen". - Donald Trump
It's increasingly difficult to forecast Trump's behavior because he increasingly acts with no restraint thanks in part to SCOTUS (Trump is now the second POTUS they have installed) and his newly minted Billionaire status.
"Just say you agree to the cease fire and leave the rest to me." Breathtaking in its audacity.
As you note, maybe it holds and that would surely be a relief for the millions of Iranians and Israelis who've spent the 11 days in terror.
But for Trump the world and its people are but widgets in his drive to manufacture consent.
“But my chief concern is not immediate retaliation but Iran deciding that their mistake was trying to be a near-nuclear power rather than a nuclear power.”
One of Trump’s rare virtues is that he understands a language of power politics that is utterly foreign to most westerners. Iran has demonstrated that they can be bullied; for as long as the threat of further bullying remains credible, the mistake they have to worry about is of aspiring to be even a nuclear *adjacent* power.
This seems like Kabuki - elaborate acting on both Trump’s and Netanyahu’s part. Choreographed. Definitely seems worthwhile to wait to castigate yourself until the dust settles. As for Trump getting any credit, that the world didn’t burn isn’t much of an acknowledgement.
Trump is constantly selling his nothing as if it’s something, and he treats women like pieces of furniture…like Don Draper. It’s called the Mad Men theory of international relations.
These last couple weeks have seen a set of definitive national failures, side-by-side.
In the United States, a definitive failure of Constitutional War Powers, a definitive failure of executive judgment, a definitive failure of coherence or consistency or discipline in carrying out an 'America-First' foreign policy for a constituency invested in it that twice provide the President's margin of political success, a failure to exercise sovereignty and not get manipulated into war, however limited or extensive it turns out to be, at the timing and convenience of a foreign power. [There's more failures, but by actors with much less power, and scarcely the same responsibilities of POTUS and the majority Party in Congress, so I've no room to expound on them.]
This did not come instantly, we've seen hints of this direction as far back as Trump #1, and certainly in personnel appointments in both Trump#1 and Trump#2. But the events of last weekend put quite a final exclamation point on it.
For Iran, this marks the definitive failure of their strategy of trying to achieve either regional mastery, 'liberation'/'resistance'*, or 'deterrence' through being a 'threshold' near nuclear weapons state or use of proxy groups and terrorist capabilities for harassment, 'stalking', and occasional lethal action.
Unlike radical Sunni Islamists of the Al-Qaeda or ISIS type, who seek to maximize their publicity and relevance by maximizing the body count of available approved victims, Iran has over the last 25 years generally preferred terrorist brinkmanship and posturing to lethal operations, sort of like it never went all the way on nuclear weapons. Lethal operations by its operatives and proxies were clearly not the most they could have done, whereas AQ and ISIS generally threw everything they had into killing people.
This mix of Iranian aggression and timidity probably reflected genuine caution and fear of what would happen in the event of unlimited escalation, but was probably rationalized by the idea that by demonstrating terrorist capabilities, but holding back full lethality, Iran was somehow establishing "deterrence". By often 'putting a laser' on the enemy, but not shooting, or 'shooting to miss', Iran believed it was showing strength, like a stalker.
But any deterrence it provided was worthless. It attracted hostility from Israel and the Gulf States. Provoked decades of sanctions. Made Israel and its supporters veto the nuclear deal and rescind it. Made Iran more of a target than ever. A punching bag. A punchable country.
Signs of failure and bankruptcy of Iran's approach as a deterrent became ever clearer as Axis of Resistance reaction to the Hizballah decapitation operations of recent years were not proportionately damaging, continued through the fall of the Asad regime, and then through the Israeli strike campaign on Iran this month.
Iran's persistence in confrontation without withdrawing from it or escalating can only be described as masochistic.
Iran can only 'win' in a perceptual sense, by transforming the conflict into one much more damaging for itself, a ground war on its home turf. The US and Israel can mainly deepen their losses or suffering by cooperating in that endeavor by engaging in ground operations or setting unattainable or ambitious goals like regime change. They may well do it. Israel probably would not and could not on its own, but two heads together can be dumber than one.
*resistance implies stopping an enemy from doing something to your side, Iran's direct and proxy actions have done none of that. Things called 'resistance' sponsored by Iran or non-Iranian Islamist radicals, whether they natively speak Persian, Arabic, or another language, actually translate into reality, and into plain English, more accurately as 'vengeance' and 'retaliation' - of which Iranian direct and proxy actions have provided small doses from time to time.
On the topic of frontrunning, a Detroit mobster offered a bit of wisdom to Raylen Givens of Justified during a bloody succession battle: "In this business, if you want to stay alive you bet on the horse that's in front."
Dan keep it up or your reader will set you up as a University President, your greatest fear.
Dan's punishment for being wrong has been announced....
From your original piece:
"Iran has been severely weakened from the past week’s worth of attacks, but still possesses some asymmetric capabilities that could be directed against the United States. Plus, reporting suggests that Trump does not believe that the DoD’s bunker-buster bombs will work on Fordow. Under these circumstances, Trump is unlikely to take the risk."
I was happy to read this piece the other day and enjoyed it. If I might retrospectively point out an error in the reasoning that I very much did not appreciate until re-reading it today: you assume that Trump both *understands* and *cares* that Iran has asymmetric capabilities, and you assume that his belief that the bunker-buster bombs won't work is a *stable* belief.
I think the takeaway from this whole shebang has to be the same old boring reality that Trump, always and everwhere, will do only and precisely what he needs to do in order to feel good about himself (and to lash out at those who make him feel bad about himself).
"Readers should remember that if I am ever so foolish as to make a prediction about the Middle East ever again."
Nah, I think not. It is simply that most of what trump says and does defies reason, bears no relationship to evidence, whereas a good chunk of us cannot even imagine how to think and operate without logic and evidence.
I wonder where his madness will take us, and take the rest of the world too!
Yeah. I thought that Trump was going to build the Wall when he was elected the first time. Trump is unpredictable, but we still have to try to predict what he will do because Trump is currently residing in the White House, rather than a more appropriate setting, such as an institution designed to care for the mentally ill.
Gad.
Last November a large group of voting citizens learned that they could be very wrong about a huge amount of stuff including unfortunately the 2024 American election for President.
Me? I was wrong about it all. Most hurtful was the state legislature which governs (?) Arizona gained votes for the Trump party.
I had hoped not to be wrong about everything more than once.
Retired now, I have learned that rule 1 is, don't be so hard on yourself.
Put yourself in trumps mind. Ask yourself "how can I waste a billion taxpayer dollars while achieving far less than Obama?"
The NY Times link for "according to two Israeli officials with knowledge of the intelligence, that Iran had moved equipment and uranium from the site" goes to an article with no mention of officials, equipment, or uranium. They need to work on their internal citations. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/22/world/middleeast/israel-us-strikes-iran-mood.html
I was honestly astonished myself that Trump YOLO'ed this one.
A good rule of thumb is that Trump will do whatever satisfies his psychic needs at that specific moment, with no regard for laws, history, geopolitics, etc. He dropped bombs on Iran because he was watching on the teevee and the people on the shows were saying how strong it made Israel look.
"Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and Republican congressmen". - Donald Trump
It's increasingly difficult to forecast Trump's behavior because he increasingly acts with no restraint thanks in part to SCOTUS (Trump is now the second POTUS they have installed) and his newly minted Billionaire status.
"Just say you agree to the cease fire and leave the rest to me." Breathtaking in its audacity.
As you note, maybe it holds and that would surely be a relief for the millions of Iranians and Israelis who've spent the 11 days in terror.
But for Trump the world and its people are but widgets in his drive to manufacture consent.
I feel like Netanyahu kept telling Trump “only a strong man would bomb Fordow. Only a great man would bomb Fordow”
“But my chief concern is not immediate retaliation but Iran deciding that their mistake was trying to be a near-nuclear power rather than a nuclear power.”
One of Trump’s rare virtues is that he understands a language of power politics that is utterly foreign to most westerners. Iran has demonstrated that they can be bullied; for as long as the threat of further bullying remains credible, the mistake they have to worry about is of aspiring to be even a nuclear *adjacent* power.
This seems like Kabuki - elaborate acting on both Trump’s and Netanyahu’s part. Choreographed. Definitely seems worthwhile to wait to castigate yourself until the dust settles. As for Trump getting any credit, that the world didn’t burn isn’t much of an acknowledgement.
Trump is constantly selling his nothing as if it’s something, and he treats women like pieces of furniture…like Don Draper. It’s called the Mad Men theory of international relations.
These last couple weeks have seen a set of definitive national failures, side-by-side.
In the United States, a definitive failure of Constitutional War Powers, a definitive failure of executive judgment, a definitive failure of coherence or consistency or discipline in carrying out an 'America-First' foreign policy for a constituency invested in it that twice provide the President's margin of political success, a failure to exercise sovereignty and not get manipulated into war, however limited or extensive it turns out to be, at the timing and convenience of a foreign power. [There's more failures, but by actors with much less power, and scarcely the same responsibilities of POTUS and the majority Party in Congress, so I've no room to expound on them.]
This did not come instantly, we've seen hints of this direction as far back as Trump #1, and certainly in personnel appointments in both Trump#1 and Trump#2. But the events of last weekend put quite a final exclamation point on it.
For Iran, this marks the definitive failure of their strategy of trying to achieve either regional mastery, 'liberation'/'resistance'*, or 'deterrence' through being a 'threshold' near nuclear weapons state or use of proxy groups and terrorist capabilities for harassment, 'stalking', and occasional lethal action.
Unlike radical Sunni Islamists of the Al-Qaeda or ISIS type, who seek to maximize their publicity and relevance by maximizing the body count of available approved victims, Iran has over the last 25 years generally preferred terrorist brinkmanship and posturing to lethal operations, sort of like it never went all the way on nuclear weapons. Lethal operations by its operatives and proxies were clearly not the most they could have done, whereas AQ and ISIS generally threw everything they had into killing people.
This mix of Iranian aggression and timidity probably reflected genuine caution and fear of what would happen in the event of unlimited escalation, but was probably rationalized by the idea that by demonstrating terrorist capabilities, but holding back full lethality, Iran was somehow establishing "deterrence". By often 'putting a laser' on the enemy, but not shooting, or 'shooting to miss', Iran believed it was showing strength, like a stalker.
But any deterrence it provided was worthless. It attracted hostility from Israel and the Gulf States. Provoked decades of sanctions. Made Israel and its supporters veto the nuclear deal and rescind it. Made Iran more of a target than ever. A punching bag. A punchable country.
Signs of failure and bankruptcy of Iran's approach as a deterrent became ever clearer as Axis of Resistance reaction to the Hizballah decapitation operations of recent years were not proportionately damaging, continued through the fall of the Asad regime, and then through the Israeli strike campaign on Iran this month.
Iran's persistence in confrontation without withdrawing from it or escalating can only be described as masochistic.
Iran can only 'win' in a perceptual sense, by transforming the conflict into one much more damaging for itself, a ground war on its home turf. The US and Israel can mainly deepen their losses or suffering by cooperating in that endeavor by engaging in ground operations or setting unattainable or ambitious goals like regime change. They may well do it. Israel probably would not and could not on its own, but two heads together can be dumber than one.
*resistance implies stopping an enemy from doing something to your side, Iran's direct and proxy actions have done none of that. Things called 'resistance' sponsored by Iran or non-Iranian Islamist radicals, whether they natively speak Persian, Arabic, or another language, actually translate into reality, and into plain English, more accurately as 'vengeance' and 'retaliation' - of which Iranian direct and proxy actions have provided small doses from time to time.
On the topic of frontrunning, a Detroit mobster offered a bit of wisdom to Raylen Givens of Justified during a bloody succession battle: "In this business, if you want to stay alive you bet on the horse that's in front."
Trump (eventually) bet on Israel.
2. China put a kibosh on Iran’s entertaining any mining of the Strait of Hormuz.