That’s Not My War Dog! (Canva Image)
Regime change in Iran. Next!
Sniff, sniff, dig, dig…
Decapitation. Next!
Sniff, sniff, dig, dig…
Degrade military infrastructure. Next!
Sniff, sniff, dig, dig…
Open the Strait of Hormuz. Next!
Sniff, sniff, dig, dig…
Send in the Marines. Next!
The United States of America spent twenty years and over a trillion dollars trying to get regime change in Afghanistan. What did it wind up with after all of that?
Last time I checked, the Taliban were still in charge over there.
Does anyone think that regime change in Iran will be easier than it was in Afghanistan? I mean, does anyone with a brain think that?
It doesn’t take a genius to work it out.
We sent soldiers to Afghanistan. Lots of them. Too many came back dead, wounded, or traumatized. One would have been too many, but the casualties added up to a much bigger number.
So far, we’re only sending bombs to Iran. A notorious variety of bombs, but they all do the same thing. They blow stuff up. In the process, they kill people.
Now I have this idea that, if you’re going to kill people, you ought to have a good reason for doing it. A really good reason. A reason good enough that the killing is justified. That is, not murder. We all agree that murder is not okay. Don’t we all agree on that? I mean, if we are sane.
We don’t need to consider the opinions of insane people…unless and until they are cured or unless they happen to be in charge of the government.
The US government has floated a series of reasons for bombing Iran. One by one, each reason-balloon has deflated. Another soon goes up only to burst in the atmosphere of reality.
Iran sits on the east side of the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow passage for ships that carry twenty percent of the oil consumed by the world. Iran has mined the strait and easily lobs bombs at oil tankers going through it.
Iranians are clever people, and you don’t need to be that clever to hit a slow-moving oil tanker with a bomb. People who own or insure oil tankers don’t like that much risk. Consequently, the Strait of Hormuz is closed (or not) according to the will of the Iranian military.
This morning, I read that now the reason for the war against Iran is to open this strait. I understand this news to mean that, if the Strait is reopened, the United States of America will decide the war has been won, and it will stop lobbing bombs into Iran. I could be mistaken, but that’s my interpretation of the morning news.
The reason for the new reason is that the President of the United States of America would like to declare victory. He has always insisted that, if he’s in the game, he has to win it. I’ve never seen anyone insist so vehemently that he always wins as does the current President.
But the war against Iran is not going so well. Iran keeps sending squadrons of drone bombs into the lands of its neighbors, and some of them are landing with the intended results. Yup. Those bombs are blowing up stuff and killing people too.
Citizens of the United States of America are not pleased. They don’t like war as much as their government does. But their opinion of war gets a lot more unhinged when the war goes badly and the reason for it is unfathomable. If it causes prices to rise at the gas station and the grocery store, public opinion starts to look almost like domestic insurrection. MAGA can even begin to suffer from doubt.
So, the President wants to say, “I won!” and get out.
He’s worried about the midterm elections in the fall. Congress may flip to the Democrats if his poll numbers stay in the tank. The war against Iran is not helping his numbers. Not at all.
But the Iranians are kind of upset about all the bombs the President ordered his military to drop on them. They say, “Not so fast. We know how to make drone bombs. A lot of them. They don’t cost much. And they do a pretty darn good job of blowing stuff up. You’ll never halt our production enough to stop us from lobbing them back at you. We’re going to show you that we are every bit as tough as the Afghanis. And in case you’ve forgotten, we have hidden away enough enriched uranium to blow up a sizable portion of Israel if we have a few months to put the parts together.”
So, let’s be frank. The Iranians are just acting like any people do when their country gets bombed. Londoners got bombed by Hitler. Did that work? North Vietnamese got bombed by Americans. Did that work? Afghanis got bombed by Americans. Did that work? Ukrainians are getting bombed by Russians. Is that working?
The funny thing is, before the United States and Israel started lobbing bombs into Iran, the Strait of Hormuz was working perfectly for everyone. So, the government’s updated goal is just to get back to where we were before it blew up that school in Tehran and killed over a hundred girls?
How is that not fucking insane?
We could blame it on corruption, I suppose. But then the bombing would be murder.
The war dog is a dangerous pet to let loose. It’s hard to put him back in his kennel. Even if you manage that, the neighbors won’t soon forget the damage he did to their dahlias.