Tag: Middle East

Forty-Seven Years of Insanity and Counting

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Well, Trump says the Iranian war is over.  Hmmm.  How does that work?  Does Iran stop attacking its neighbors and does that mean Israel and Hezbollah are ready to stop trading missiles too?  I saw gasoline below $4/gallon today.  Is that because of these headlines today or is that just the latest price bouncing off of lower demand?

Of course, I’d love for this to be the end of this war.  It would give the Republicans a big boost in November and would almost certainly deny Democrats the Senate.  But it just doesn’t seem likely to me that Tehran will just back off and play nice.  It’s just not in their DNA.  But of course, I’ll give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt and wait and see if he’s pulled off a coup with this announcement.

I’ve always wondered just how dysfunctional the Iranian nation is.  Back in the 1980s they fought a war with Iraq in which a million young Iranians died during “human wave” attacks against a mechanized Iraqi army.  The stupidity of something like this can’t be overstated.  But now the next generation of Iranians seem to be completely directionless.  They despise the mullahs and hate their religious extremism and mismanagement of the economy but they have been brutalized by the Basij Resistance Force to such an extent that they’ve withdrawn back into their homes and have failed to organize any resistance of their own.

Think about this country, since 1979 their whole people have been led by lunatics whose whole plan is to restore a theocratic government that fell apart almost a thousand years ago because it has never had a reliable way of choosing new leaders and because its tenets are not conducive to a thriving society.  But at the same time, the strongest faction in the country is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.  The actual power in Iran is in their hands and they are in control of both the armed forces and the Basij Resistance Force that they use to control the general population and crush dissent.  And they’ve become so strongly ensconced that really the only way to pry power from them would be to send in an enormous army and defeat them on the ground.  And everyone knows we’re not going to do that.

So, what we have is a perpetual stalemate.  Iran spends its oil money on building bunkers in their mountains and filling them with missiles and drones.  And they use these weapons to supply Hezbollah and Hamas with the means to kill Israelis.  I guess the day could finally come where Iranians just get so fed up with their miserable lives that they rise up and murder the Basij agents with their bare hands.  Or the Israelis just get so good at technological warfare that they manage to infiltrate all of Iran’s bunkers and blow them all up at the same time and follow it up with exploding cell phones that kill the entire Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in one fell swoop.

But until one or the other of these two fantasies come true Iran will exist to nauseate the world of normal people that just want a sanity to prevail.

18MAR2026 – Iran Again

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Anyone who has been reading this site for any length of time knows that I’ve had enough war to last me a lifetime.  George W Bush was the one who saw to that with his horrific Iraq debacle.  So, what’s going on in Iran is not something I want to see continuing until disaster inevitably strikes.  But at the same time, me ignoring it doesn’t really make it go away.  So, I think I’ll make an observation today.  And that point is, the Israelis really know how to find their enemies and blow them up.

Today it was announced that they not only found and killed Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council but they also managed to blow up Gen. Gholam Reza Soleimani, the head of the Revolutionary Guard’s Basij force along with the whole top level of his command structure who were meeting with him.  Now this is just a few weeks after they blew up Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran.  And reports are circulating that his son who is now the Supreme Leader was also gravely injured in that attack.  Apparently, the Mossad has more than just good surveillance in Iran.  They either have an extensive network of informants or they’ve managed to embed electronic surveillance everywhere around Tehran.

What I read today is that they’ve placed bounties on the heads of all the most important Iranian leaders and informants are managing to provide pinpoint locations for these unlucky leaders.  And that is exactly what is needed.  The Basij force are the low-level thugs that the IRGC sends out into the streets to mow down protestors with automatic weapons fire.  And even these low-level goons are starting to feel the heat.  Somehow the Israelis have managed to attack Basij checkpoints on the streets of Tehran with armed drones.  I can imagine that tactics like these over the course of a few months could turn the Basij into an organization with a membership problem.  Shooting unarmed protestors is any thug’s dream job.  Standing around at a street corner checkpoint waiting for a drone to blow your head off is much less desirable.  The day may come when Iranians can be organized into a militia to take back their country from the ayatollahs and thugs.

Well, anyway that is the center of Trump’s and Netanyahu’s plan.  It sounds exciting on paper.  My only problem with it is this.  Are the Iranian protestors brave enough to organize and protect themselves with guns?  I’m sure the US and Israel would be happy to provide them with a few hundred thousand rifles and ammunition.  But where will they find the Iranians to organize themselves into a standing army?  The problem is that the Iranians who are willing to form an army already are the army.  The IRGC and the Basij are those Iranians.  We may be able to degrade the leadership and destroy a lot of the military assets of Iran’s armed forces.  But we can’t kill all of them.  So, we need a new Iranian army.  Are their men to form it?

Trump and Iran

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So, I feel like I’ve been down this road before.  I remember when George W Bush said we had to go into Iraq.  And I was gung-ho.  We’d blitz Saddam and drag him off and then give Iran the same treatment and the world would be peaceful and quiet from then on.  And we’d do it by remote control like some big old video game where everyone comes home in one piece and that would be the end of that.

Well, that’s twenty plus years ago and we’re all a lot older and wiser now, I thought.  So, what the hell does Donald Trump think he’s going to do with this Iran thing?  Iran is bigger and uglier than Iraq was.  Sure, half of its people hate their own government and are celebrating the bombing of the Republican Guards and the death of Ali Khamenei.  All of that sounds great but when the missile launchers and the other long-distance weapons have been neutralized but the bad guys are still the ones with all the machine guns killing civilians what happens then?  Are we going to send in the Marines?  And what happens when the body bags start coming home?  That would be the end of the Republicans for another decade.

What occurred to me was that maybe the CIA and Mossad can funnel guns to the people who want to get rid of the Islamic State.  If they have enough actual men who are willing to go head-to-head against the Republican Guards then a small team of trainers from these intelligence agencies could stand up a credible force within Iran to overwhelm the Islamic State with the help of targeted aerial attacks from the Israelis and Americans.  But is that really going to happen?  I’ve read that Mossad is already on the ground in Iran and has been for years.  That explains how they’ve been able to sabotage things like the Iranian nuclear program and Hezbollah’s cell phones.  Maybe they really will be able to topple this regime in the next few weeks.  It’s definitely possible and Israel has an existential reason for wanting the Iranian regime to disappear.  If the Islamic State were toppled tomorrow, Hezbollah and Hamas lose their paymaster and greatest ally.  Most of the violence in the Middle East loses its sponsor.  Without the mullahs it’s even possible that Lebanon could become a normal country again.  And a peaceful and prosperous Iran would change the whole balance of power in the Middle East and might even stabilize the whole region.  Think of the amount of misery that would disappear from that tortured region.

Well, those are all the good words I can think of for a situation that is fraught with peril.  I just hope Trump knows exactly what he is doing and what to do in every one of a thousand scenarios that could happen in that insane corner of the world.  When I think of all the possible ways things can head south very fast and very badly It makes my head ache.  Okay, Khamenei is dead.  Good.  Now what?

Did Donald Trump End the Arab-Israeli War?

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You know, the longer I live on this planet, the less I think I know about reality.  I can remember as a small child in grammar school hearing about the various Arab-Israeli conflicts.  And it was always assumed that only the wisest and most sober of men would ever be able to untie the Gordian knot that was that conflict.

But Donald Trump will do it?  Look, I love Trump.  He’s some sort of bizarre cross between P T Barnum and Pericles by way of Madison Avenue.  He’s the first American politician since Andrew Jackson to side with the regular people.  He towers over his enemies like a colossus.  But how in the name of everything reasonable can he end an intractable war between peoples who hate each other so viscerally that death is preferable to compromise?  And yet, if the news is to be believed, Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first step of the Trump Peace Plan; return of all the hostages alive and dead and Israeli stepping back to some first line of withdrawal.

But how many different ways can this process fail?  The list is infinite.  Even with complete good faith on both sides I can imagine endless scenarios that could upend this effort.  And when in the history of the mid-east has there ever been good faith on both sides?  Never.

Now in Trump’s favor, this negotiation includes many Arab and Moslem countries acting as surrogates to prod Hamas toward ending the war.  There is a desire on the part of almost all of the middle eastern countries to end the ceaseless cycle of attacks and counterattacks that makes this whole region of the world hell on Earth.  Could this finally be the day when sanity and the will of the vast majority of people there manage to smother the fire of violence under their collective bodies and end this disgusting abomination of death and hatred?

I’ll have to confess, I just can’t come around to believing it.  It would require these people who have done horrific things to each other for more than half a century to somehow find a miraculous solution to their problem.  It’s as if both sides are forced to navigate through a minefield that both sides have mined but neither side still has reliable maps of.  At any moment disaster can strike and any disadvantage on either side can inspire the other side to press for a kill shot.

The whole thing sickens and disgusts me to the point where I just want to forget it exists and move forward without ever thinking of it again.  But the last time I did that, planes started flying through buildings in New York.

So here we go again.  Good luck Donald Trump.  I guess if anyone can pull off the deal of the millennium it would be him.  But I almost think he’ll have more success with Ukraine than Gaza.  Sure, they’re almost as crazy there but as bad as it is I don’t think the level of hatred between the Russians and Ukrainians can ever come close to the savagery of what happened two years ago.  Maybe a little prayer would help.

Waiting for Friday

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Five down, two to go.  And tomorrow is the killer.  Well, here goes nothing.

I was gonna review, “The Fifth Element.”  I hadn’t seen it in a long time so I couldn’t remember my overall impression.  Well, I rewatched and remembered.  It’s a movie that has a few “elements” that are interesting or fun but there are enough factors that are awful to make the sum negative.  Gary Oldman has a small but pivotal part as a villain and as always, he is great fun.  Bruce Willis plays Bruce Willis as he always does and he has a few fun moments but it’s a very silly movie so he can only succeed at moments.  The movie itself is a live action fairy tale/cartoon with very broad humor and very wooden characters.  Chris Tucker’s character was among the most bizarre.  But in fairness he was also one of the funnier aspects of this comedy(?).

I’m sure some folks will enjoy this exercise in science fiction fairy tale but I have to give it a thumbs down.  There were just too many annoying factors to allow me to wholeheartedly embrace it.

So, President Trump is really playing up the international agenda this month.  Even his enemies are intrigued by his efforts to talk to the Iranians and normalize our situation with the Arabs.  Of course, the pundits on the Left were horrified by Trump’s speech where he said he is backing away from nation-building and demanding the Middle East adhere to Western mores and customs.  But from my way of looking at it, that’s exactly the message we should be putting forward.  “You live your way in your country and we’ll live ours over here.”  Seems reasonable to me.  But Capon and Books got the vapors hearing it.

As for his efforts to get a ceasefire in Ukraine, I tend to doubt it will come to anything.  The Russians don’t want to give the Ukrainians a breather.  Apparently, they’ve calculated that they will finish off enough Ukrainians before the Ukrainians finish off enough Russians so that Kiev’s defense will collapse this year.  The question is whether Trump has the sense to just walk away from the whole thing and let it end sooner than later.  But looking at the tiny geographic gains that account for thousands of deaths a week on both sides is gut-churning.  Well, I don’t see any change before the fall.

As for the fact that Joe Biden has some kind of cancer; well, he’s eighty-two.  Is it surprising at that age that cancer has come on the scene?  I think as we get older that possibility becomes more real every day.  The only question I have is when did he actually get the diagnosis?  Three, four years ago?  Well, I don’t celebrate his ill-health but I consider him an evil man and maybe this is a good time for him to think about his finish and maybe consider making amends.

I saw that James Comey was trying to get his name back in the news by acting like a moron.  In my youth in Brooklyn, we would have described someone like that as a lousy scumbag.  And that would be playing it down.  I think having the IRS audit him a few times just for fun would be very appropriate.  Just a thought.

Well, that’s enough for today.  Waiting for Friday.

15OCT2024 – Same Old, Same Old

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So, I don’t have so much to write about tonight.  I watched a bunch of political news.  It was sort of fun because Mark Halperin’s “2WAY” show was quoted in a bunch of secondary journals.  Halperin has a sort of Zoom call with several journalists and politicos along with just the random public.  His claim to fame is that he has a bipartisan approach and allows anyone to express their opinions as long as it doesn’t get heated.  Well, anyway a few days ago he did a piece where he stated that his sources inside both campaigns agreed that the campaign sponsored polls showed that the voters are trending steadily for Trump.  And in fact, it looked like Pennsylvania might be out of play for Harris.  Well, when this got out the Democrats started freaking out.  People like James Carville started screeching that Harris needs to get out there and tell everyone that Trump is Hitler and he is preparing the death camps right now.

So that was a lot of fun.  But who knows if these polls are all that important.  After all voter fraud is so much more definitive so I don’t want to get all excited about these reports.  But as I said it was fun watching the Democrats running around in circles with their hair on fire.

I saw that Elon Musk has gotten involved in the Trump campaign to some extent.  That’s good.  He has a lot to lose if the Deep State goes after him but it’s good to see that he respects the idea of freedom.  And after the recent feats of technical magic by his SpaceX team, I’m feeling especially friendly toward this particular African American.  People are kidding that Musk will be the power behind the throne if Trump gets back in the White House.  I kind of doubt that but he could be very helpful to Trump.  He might start by telling him which CIA and FBI contacts were the most important in trying to silence regime enemies on Twitter.  And he could lend a lot of technical assistance to whatever efforts Trump needs to employ to streamline the government.  After all, Musk fired 80% of the Twitter payroll and managed to run the company at least as well as it ran before.  And a lot closer to being a paying operation.

But of course, none of this will matter at all if Harris ends up in the White House.  It was reported that during an interview with Tucker Carlson, Elon asked (jokingly?) how long a prison sentence he would get if Trump loses.  Well, maybe not prison, but I could see them bankrupting him.  I’m sure they could do that.  And they probably will if it fits with their plans.

On the international fronts, the Ukraine conflict grinds on and the Middle East is slowly ramping up to a full-blown war between Israel and Iran.  Maybe it won’t involve us.  I hope it won’t.  I have too many grandsons that I need here and now.  But it’s a complete crap shoot.  Nobody knows anything and everybody is sick of war, except the neo-cons in the State Department and CIA.  They’re never tired of war.  Well, let’s hope we dodge this one.

So that’s my report.  More of the same.  I hope to have some horror movie reviews coming up soon.  That should put me in a better mood.

Lawn Football

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I’ve got nothing to write about tonight.  I was on a long errand today and it kept me from looking around or thinking much.  About the only thing I did do was read some of the war headlines.  The Russians continue their slow relentless pummeling of Ukraine.  Currently they’ve cut off the southeastern city of Vuhledar (or Ugledar to the Russians.  These Slavic languages are challenging for a poor Westerner).  And after pounding it with artillery until it looks like the dark side of the Moon, they’ve offered the 1,500 defenders a window of opportunity to surrender.

The Ukrainians (or the Americans) have destroyed several very large ammunition bunkers that were very deep into Russian territory with advanced long-range missile technology.  The story is that the missiles came from the Baltic states.  Russia responded by saying if they are attacked by advanced NATO technology they will respond with up to and including nuclear weapons to even the score.

And today the Israelis pounded the underground headquarters of Hezbollah trying to kill Nasrallah their leader.  It’s probable that Hezbollah and Iran are weighing their options for retaliation.  Some people are saying that Israel is deliberately attempting to provoke Iran into a major attack to draw the United States into a larger war.

Well, where does that leave us?  Is Biden (or whoever actually calls the shots) trying to start a war with Russia and/or Iran?  Are some factions in the government (CIA?  State Department?)  trying to start WW III?  Are other groups (the Pentagon?) trying to prevent it?  Is this wag the dog for the election or is this really start a war for the election?  I have to confess I can’t figure it out.

Obviously, I’m interested, but for the life of me I can’t figure out if this helps Harris or Trump.  All I do know is that there is a more than negligible chance that they will trigger at least a limited nuclear exchange.  Now how crazy is that.  After avoiding nuclear war for eighty years when madmen like Stalin and Mao had their hands on the trigger, we’ll be shepherded into nuclear Armageddon by Dementia Joe Biden and Kamala “Cackles” Harris in order to try and make the country forget just how badly they’ve run the country for the last four years.  It just seems like a terrible joke to play on a country that used to be somewhat sensible and well-run.  The Democrats always claimed that a psychotic Republican, like they pretended Nixon and Reagan and Trump were, would be the one who goaded the Russians into a nuclear exchange because of “cowboy” military posturing.  Instead, the neocons in the State Department pushing their color revolution template into Ukraine seem to have crossed a line in the sand that even a moderate like Putin couldn’t ignore.

Well, what can you do?  All these things are in the hands of the Democrats for at least the next four months and if they imagine that brinksmanship is to their advantage then brinksmanship it will be.  I just didn’t have anything else to think about tonight so I thought about this.

Kamala Harris with the nuclear football.  Might as well hand it over to the guy who cuts the lawn.  If he can survive operating power tools, he’s gotta be smarter than her.

Israel Attempts to Decapitate Hezbollah

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Israel uses “tens of tons of explosives in a missile attack on the underground headquarters of Hezbollah outside Beirut.  Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was believed to be in the building complex struck by the attack.  Based on the photos if he was there he’s almost certainly dead.

It appears that Israel is not interested in a limited response.  They seem to be preparing for a major confrontation with at least Hezbollah.

I guess the question is will it also include Iran?

Things may be getting out of hand.  I wonder what are the chances we can stay out of this thing.  Well, we’ll find out pretty soon.

 

 

 

 

Israel Frees Four Hostages in Raid on Hamas Captors

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Four Israeli hostages were rescued alive by troops from Hamas captivity in a daring operation in the central Gaza Strip earlier today, the military announces.

The rescued hostages are named as Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv. All four had been abducted by Hamas terrorists on October 7 from the Supernova music festival near the southern community of Re’im.

Special forces had simultaneously raided two Hamas sites in central Gaza’s Nuseirat. At one location, Argamani was rescued, while Meir Jan, Kozlov, and Ziv were at the second location.

The rescued hostages are all in good condition, according to initial medical assessments. They were taken to Tel Hashomer Hospital for further evaluation.

Amid the operation, heavy airstrikes were carried out in the area against Hamas sites and in support of the ground troops. Hamas health authorities reported a “large number” of casualties.”

Most of the mainstream media sites are playing up the Palestinian casualties incurred during the rescues.  Yeah, I guess being a kidnapper or a kidnapper’s neighbor isn’t the safest decision you can make.  Pro-tip, live far away from Israeli captives.

Kudos to the IDF for pulling off a difficult mission.  Regrettably there was one IDF death.

What If?

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I was following some of the Pro-Hamas protests.  There is a “hunger strike” going on at Princeton.  One of the goofy kids there was a scrawny girl who said she has been on the hunger strike for almost one hundred and five hours.  She hasn’t had any solid food in all that time.  So, I guess she’s living on Gatorade and orange juice.  And I thought, “Well, she’s gonna lose some of those extra pounds she’s been trying to lose for the beach season.  That’s a plus.  And then they started telling us of all the innocent people in Gaza; women and children that were starving and being killed by bullets and bombs.

And that’s true.  While the IDF and Hamas shoot it out, the human shields that Hamas has emplaced will be killed.  Now that’s a horrible thing.  But when Hamas went on a rampage back in October, they were killing men, women and children.  And they weren’t trying to shoot IDF soldiers hiding behind these people.  They searched them out in civilian towns and murdered them face to face.  They killed parents in front of their children.  The murdered infants and then cut their heads off.  They raped women and then killed them for good measure.  Then they took some of these victims back to Gaza to add to their stock of human shields.

So, if the Israelis want to prevent the next massacre how do they do that without capturing or killing Hamas?  And if Hamas, as a policy, hides in the mass of Gazans how do you fight them without killing those they hide behind?  When we burned down Dresden and Hiroshima, did we separate out the women and children?  No.  Shouldn’t the Hamas fighters confront the IDF face to face, man to man?  Are they cowards?  And shouldn’t the “innocent” Palestinians sneak away from Hamas and leave them to their fate?

Most of these questions have no good answers.  War is horrific even when it is only soldiers involved.  What can you say about women and children dying in war?  There are no words.  But what do you do with an enemy that murders your women and children as a policy.  That makes the need to destroy this enemy an existential imperative that overrides most of the moral sanctions against extreme actions.

I wish there were a magic strategy that could be used against Hamas without harming a single Palestinian civilian.  If there were one, I’ll bet the IDF would be using it right now.  But there isn’t.

You know, I wonder what answer I’d get if I asked one of the “starving” hunger strikers a hypothetical.  Now, under the strain of extreme starvation maybe she couldn’t muster the clarity of thought to answer me but I’d ask, “What if you lived in a neighborhood and you had a family living next door that really hated your family?  They were poor and dysfunctional and hated you because you were rich and happy.  And let’s say that several times the police were forced to come and arrest members of this family for attacking one of your siblings.  And let’s say that one day the worst members of this family went crazy and broke into your house and killed your parents and raped your sister and cut your baby brother’s head off and kidnapped you little sister and took her back with them to their house.  And you called the police and told them what had happened and they went to the house where the killers were but they came back later and said that they couldn’t do anything because there were small children in the other house including your sister so it was too dangerous to attack them.  So, they were just going to issue a warning to the killers not to do it again.”

How would that be?  Would that make everything all right?