I’ll post just a couple items about Trump’s new Iran war. This echoes many other commentaries I’ve seen. Why now? For what reason? Didn’t the US just obliterate those facilities last year?
BBC, via Doug Van Belle on FB:
OK, here’s the info from the intel community backchannel chatter that Americans need to know. Most of this can be confirmed by reading the details buried deep below the headlines in news coverage.
1. The US has no plan. No strategic plan. No exit plan. No medium term plan. No contingency planning at all. And they don’t seem to understand that there is such a thing as the long term. In fact they have nothing beyond about 48 hours worth of targets.
2 The US killed the people that their own intelligence community had been grooming as a more cooperative leadership group.
3 Iran was ready and has a spectacularly clever strategy for countering the US. They are overwhelming the US defensive systems with thousands drones literally powered by lawn mower engines. They are rapidly using up defensive assets costing millions and will soon switch to an offensive mode of attack.
4 The US isn’t abandoning its allies in the region, it’s running out of the missiles it needs to defend them and is scrambling just to keep its own bases and ships protected.
5 Because Trump diverted or cut off the funds for manufacturing the weapons the US really needs right now, it will run out of most of the resources it needs to continue attacking beyond a few more days. It can shift weapons from other theatres, but that is strategically problematic, and short term, because most of those stocks were already stripped to the bone to attack Iran in the first place.
No plan. No long term thinking. This precisely encapsulates my take on conservatives, and especially Trump.
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This too echoes many other commentaries that I’ve seen. Trump’s actions are illegal on the face of it. Only Congress can declare war. His fans don’t care about legalities, because they and Trump are, apparently, completely amoral.
Slate, Mark Joseph Stern, 2 Mar 2026: Trump’s War With Iran Isn’t Just Reckless. It’s an Impeachable Abuse of Office.
President Donald Trump thrust the United States into a war against Iran last weekend without bothering to secure congressional approval or even pretending to identify a legal basis for his actions. This administration, of course, has already declared a freewheeling authority to commence hostilities in foreign nations without a greenlight from the legislative branch. But this new conflict pushes Trump even deeper into dictatorial territory: He now asserts a freedom to disregard constitutional limits on his war-making authority and thrust the country into a potentially protracted military campaign that will only end on his say-so. This theory of executive supremacy leaves American armed forces at the whim of one man—a total inversion of our constitutional design.
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Evangelicals, of course, cheer violence and war when they’re against anyone who is unlike themselves. They perpetually detect the imminent return of Jesus. They don’t learn from having been wrong over and over again for two thousand years.
Right Wing Watch, Kyle Mantyla, 2 Mar 2026: ‘The Return Of Jesus Is Back On The Menu’: MAGA Evangelicals Celebrate The Attack On Iran
When Israel launched an attack on Iran in June of 2025, religious-right activists celebrated, excited by the prospect that it could precipitate the End Times and the return of Jesus Christ.
Predictably, these same religious-right activists are once again overjoyed after the United States and Israel began jointly bombing Iran over the weekend, killing the nation’s supreme leader and dozens of top military commanders.
While the attack has generated retaliatory strikes and fears of a wider Middle East war, evangelical Trump supporters are gushing over President Donald Trump’s action, with megachurch pastor Jack Hibbs declaring that “for such a time as this, this man is being led by God.”
And you know what? I’m sure there are holy people in Iran declaring that *they* are on the side of God and that it’s their duty to fight off the evil oppressors in the US.
Truly, I cannot get over how most people, around the world and in every time, don’t get over this. Do they not understand how religion is parochial? I think it’s because they are not well-educated or well-versed in the reality of the world, and are simply comfortable growing up and living within the culture and religion of their community. They don’t need to know or understand anything else.
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Let’s dip back in to some clear thinking. Here’s Cory Doctorow’s latest column in Locus Magazine, posted today.
Locus Magazine, Cory Doctorow, 2 Mar 2026: Commentary: Cory Doctorow: Not Normal
Norms change. That’s a foundation of stfnal thinking: “all laws are local and no law knows how local it is.” It’s not unusual for the bedrock ethos of your childhood to be overturned by your dotage.
As Douglas Adams put it:
- Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
- Anything that’s invented between when you’re 15 and 35 is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
- Anything invented after you’re 35 is against the natural order of things.
I’m keenly aware that when a 54-year-old man like me rails against some modern commonplace, it’s very likely that he (I) is (am) wrong, that the infernal innovation is good, actually, and he (I) is (am) simply out of touch.
And he goes on with a long example about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
But my point is this example of how people deal with change. More tomorrow.
