Wayne O'Leary

In the end, it was a bit of a disappointment, even, no doubt, to the MAGA faithful. America showed its military might and technical proficiency in June’s bombing of Iran on behalf of Israel, but Iran is still there. There was no “unconditional surrender,” as called for by Donald Trump, and no coup de grace.

Administration talking heads repeated the words “totally obliterated” like a mantra in regard to the fate of Iran’s nuclear capacity, but until they were pressured to conform or else by the outraged Trump and his Defense Seretary Pete Hegseth, Washington intelligence officials weren’t so sure.  Objective international estimates of the Iranians’ ability to reconstitute their program still range from months to years — six months to a year was the initial conclusion of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu was disappointed, too. Reports suggest he wanted Trump to dispense with his one-and-done strategy and continue massive bombing.  Netanyahu worked assiduously for several decades and through several U.S. presidents to achieve his heart’s desire:  incapacitating Iran with American help. Trump was the one eventually sold on the idea, and then he stopped short of totally destroying Bibi’s nemesis once and for all, calling instead for a cease-fire and putting his dibs in for the Nobel Peace Prize. This must have galled the Israeli prime minister no end; after all, he’d attacked Iran himself with the apparent idea of drawing the Americans in to finish the job with their superior technology.

Another unfortunate ingredient spoiled the stew. Instead of waiting for the Iranians to strike first, which they apparently had no intention of doing, Netanyahu, followed by Trump, initiated what were euphemistically called “preemptive strikes.” Since when have sneak attacks — that’s what they were — become sanitized by calling them preemptive strikes?

When the Japanese empire bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the action was called an unprovoked sneak attack and roundly condemned. FDR labeled the occasion a “day of infamy,” especially since the Japanese were in Washington talking peace until the very last minute, while their fleet was gathering within range of Pearl Harbor. Similarly, Donald Trump appeared to give Iran two-weeks’ grace to consider its options, then struck without warning.

The question remains as to whether the entire expensive demonstration of American air power — it involved 125 participating aircraft — was even necessary, whether Iran was actually close to developing an offensive nuclear capability. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, presumably channeling the professional analysts under her command, first said it wasn’t; she backtracked somewhat, along with CIA Director John Ratcliffe, when the president, relying on his own gut instinct and/or Benjamin Netanyahu’s intelligence service Mossad, contemptuously refuted her and froze her out of all subsequent discussions. In any case, despite the Donald’s victory dance, the final result of “Operation Midnight Hammer” is as yet unknown and will not be for some time.

Netanyahu’s malign influence was probably key to the whole exercise. The Israeli autocrat has been scheming and maneuvering for years to arrange active U.S. participation in his crusade against Iran. Those on the American right tend to accept whatever he puts forth on intelligence; it always provides the worst-case scenario, which they want to believe. Iran, he said, was about ready to strike. He’s been saying this, off and on, for two decades or more, the better to keep that U.S. military aid ($3.8 billion per year) coming. Bibi’s been the boy who cried wolf, but this time, he was believed.

Yet, Israeli military intelligence is itself suspect. The Tel Aviv government and its defense forces (the IDF) have, for instance, been releasing questionable or misleading information on the war in Gaza for about two years, claiming United Nations and NGO (nongovernmental agency) humanitarian efforts were actually surreptitious Hamas operations.  They’ve also minimized civilian casualties and misrepresented civilian victims as Hamas fighters.  (In fact, Palestinian deaths in Gaza now total 58,000, the vast majority of them noncombatants.). But Trump and his war-hawk cabinet were willing to take Netanyahu’s word on Iran’s intentions, just as the Biden administration routinely accepted IDF assessments of the Gaza situation, casualty figures included.

Israeli intelligence on Iran, good or bad, fit Trump’s needs; it provided the rationale for a desired application of American force. This allowed the president to share in Netanyahu’s martial glory, even surpass it, by pummeling Iran with the Pentagon’s latest toy, the $2.1 billion B-2 stealth bomber (deployed at an estimated cost of hundreds of millions of dollars), then one-up the Israeli leader by prematurely declaring total victory and presiding over a (temporary?) cease-fire.

U.S. intervention also allowed for a one-upping of Barack Obama, whose nuclear-limitation agreement with Iran Trump had torn up in 2018. Obama, of course, brought the Iranians to the negotiating table by diplomatic means; that’s for wimps. Donald did it (or thinks he’s done it) by force of arms — much more satisfying to MAGA world.

Now, the self-proclaimed conqueror of Fordo wants a Nobel Peace Prize for his trouble (and to match Obama’s); he’s all but demanding it. Not to worry; Bibi Netanyahu, a kindred spirit, has placed his name in nomination. Peace through war, as we’ve seen, is the preferred Republican way. Why, after all, have the world’s largest, most lethal military, if you’re not going to use it?

Meanwhile, if elections have consequences, so do wars — sometimes intended, sometimes not. The latest spate of conflicts pitting Israel against Iran and Iran’s proxies (principally Hezbollah in Lebanon), kicked off by the Hamas terrorist attack on Israelis staged from Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, have reordered the Middle East and not necessarily for the better.  In the process, the U.S., which according to Brown University’s Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs has spent over $250 billion funding Israel’s military since 1959, has been dragged ever deeper into the region’s maelstrom.

[To be continued]

Wayne O’Leary is a writer in Orono, Maine, specializing in political economy. He holds a doctorate in American history and is the author of two prizewinning books.