We Are At War With Iran!

I got my warning of this from a Substack piece by Truscott.

NARA RG342-B-52 Bombardier Panel, 1955, US Airforce

On Thursday, I read a Lucian K. Truscott IV Substack piece to my husband. It is titled A world of hurt. In it Truscott said that he had intel that Trump would bomb Iran this weekend. I was frightened that we would go to war with Iran, and I was frightened that Iran would retaliate on the plane I was flying on from Friday to Saturday back to Europe. Of course my worry was unrealistic in terms of time frame, but it was the awareness that our planes will be less safe to fly in, because there is a greater likelihood that someone will want to bomb them.

Next thing I know, I am reading Truscott again, at 3 am Central European time and his latest piece is now titled, He did it. The U.S. is at war with Iran. I missed his piece yesterday because it was a travel day for me. It took a lot more time to get to the airport in Chicago, due to road construction, than it did for me to get from Amsterdam to my city in Germany. So, there was no time for reading or Substack. I did not hear this news from anyone else. After reading Truscott, I quickly found a piece in the Associated Press that confirmed what he had said. Their article is titled, US has struck three Iranian nuclear sites, Trump says, joining Israeli air campaign.

I am not an Iranian expert, but I was told by other people that Trump had said he would wait 2 weeks to decide what to do. I read that Trump did not include Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth or Head of the National Intelligence Community Tulsi Gabbard in his war room meetings. I assumed that Israel had told Trump, no more Hegseth, because he spills the beans about everything to his wife on Signal. I also assume that every nation who has an interest in the situation would have hacked into Hegseth’s Signal calls at the moment that Donald Trump posted he would consider bombing Iran.

Truscott is not the only person I read who stressed that wars like this we are unlikely to win. I was reading Martin Belderson in his weekly report on Ukraine said, “Most wars last for [more] than a year. An awful lot last five years or more. Some continue for decades.” So, there are some people convincing the US president to drop bombs on Iran, and easy peasy, lemon squeezy, it will all take care of itself. He talks about it as if with the bombers safely out of Iranian air space it is over. However, this is really just the beginning of US fully jumping into the war. Something that Ukraine could not achieve Netanyahu did. Trump knows that his MAGA base does not want him getting into war with Iran. I guess he assumes they will accept it because it is too late to stop it now. Will MAGA feel a patriotic obligation to back this unfunded war, just like they back his unfunded budget bill going through Congress?

Meanwhile, the “two weeks” that everyone was making fun of did not seem funny to me, because I knew that bombing Iran was likely going to happen this weekend. Euro News reports that foreign ministers from Britain, France, Germany and the EU foreign policy chief met with Iranian representatives, and it sounded as if this was opening up a dialogue. Trump treated it as if it did not happen. I assume that is because he had already made up his mind to bomb Iran no matter what. Did a poorly attended military parade on his birthday turns into a claimed military success by Trump a week later. How does he even measure success here? Bombs were dropped and the pilots are no longer in Iranian air space. Okay, by that standard there is success. However, in terms of effectiveness we don’t know. These sites have not been inspected by the Nuclear Regulatory Agency for 3 years, who knows if they are still in the same locations. What will Iran do in return?

Trump does not know how to do diplomacy. Does he realize that is not something he can be successful at so he avoids it. He also does not know how to do war. Does he realize that flying planes over Iran and dropping bombs is not the beginning and end of this “war” and Iran will not now capitulate as he expects them to do, just like Russia expected that of Ukraine. I am sure that many members of the US military are feeling distress at the cavalier way in which Trump announces the bombing on Truth Social. What does Trump think success means? He needs to define that. Is it Iran agreeing to end their nuclear program? Or, is it regime change like Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu has declared is his goal?

Sunday June 22, the US went to war with Iran. That is 5 months and 2 days after Trump took office again. Will we still be in this war long after Trump is gone from office? Who will have to die to support this move of a man who appears to be in mental and physical decline. Who will suffer? Get ready to march. This may be the meeting ground between the Democrats and the Republicans. Many of the Republicans did not want this war either. And, isn’t Congress supposed to approve our going to war? Who will hold Trump accountable? Even if he gets told that what he did he does not have the legal right to do, it is too late, we are already in this war.