Notes from afar: Mother, do you think they’ll drop The Bomb?

As losses pile up, there are indications that US is pulling in munitions and other fancy military hardware to bear down more forcefully on Iran

Little Marco Rubio explained the Iran war to us very beautifully: We attacked them because we knew that if they (Iran) were attacked first (by Israel), they (Iran) would attack us (America). Little Marco’s boss promptly contradicted him with a sloppy sleight of hand, saying, “Based on the way the negotiation was going, I think they were going to attack first. And I didn’t want that to happen. So, if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.” It is a bit of a chicken and egg thing. But in a menage a trois situation. So what we are staring at is a region-sized omelette. Trump says it might take four to five weeks to achieve their objectives (Israel’s and America’s). Netanyahu, more of a marathon man in this respect than Trump, says it is going to take some time but not years. That’s oddly reassuring.

But here is the thing: Iran will do its damnedest to take the region down with it. If it ramps up the escalation that comes in the form of a strategic slap in the face of Trump, one that he will smart from for being shown for what he is in front of his captive MAGA audience, the chances are he will drop The Bomb. He will not have a pang of doubt. He will not have a fleeting moment of indecision. He has probably made his mind up. If it goes south in Iran, he will go north, so to speak, like Harry S Truman. Trump wants to be the real Truman by out-Trumaning Truman.

He will give pretty much the handy excuse: I did it because I knew Iran was going to do it, and I didn’t want to force Israel’s hand. All the time, all Trump wants is all the credit. Bibi Netanyahu plays a good traffic cop: he dutifully, very smilingly, sucker-punches all the credit Trump’s way. The bigger the smile, the more the credit he gives Trump, a Levantine version of the Punch and Judy Show, where the Fatherland plays Motherland, if you know what I mean, while Homeland remains perplexed. 

Consider the odds in the larger arena. Already, in the first four days of conflict, there are faint but distinct cries that America has sacrificed its promise of protecting its regional vassal states by prioritising protection of Israel. Marco Rubio has been telling American citizens in the region to cut and run and pretty much use their own resources to do so. It is but logical, because of the prolonged deployment and diversion of military assets into the region, the mood amongst the personnel is not going to be as though they are on a pretend picnic,

what with reports that American soldiers have been deliberately thrown in harm’s way for a war based on a lie and the body bags have already begun wending their way home, like in a mysterious conveyor belt. In Israel, where it is asur (a Hebrew word for ‘prohibited’) to talk about losses inflicted by the enemy, they too have begun counting their dead, as is happening in the neighbouring countries as well. Iran will seek to prolong the hostilities and try to inflict unacceptable costs that put pressure on the neighbouring kingdoms, hoping for a Domino Effect.

The oil economy is being shot to pieces. The irritation, the snappiness, and the barely controlled tolerance in the responses of Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth, the War Minister, as well as Trump, the Warfarer-in-Chief, are tacit indicators that while some of the Iranian missiles have hit home, some of the wounds America is publicly licking are more likely self-inflicted. Unfortunately, this is a war without strategy. Trump does not believe in guardrails. He believes endlessly in himself. His delusion alone matches his desperation. Which is why he is bombing some of the targets he bombed eight months ago, resolving some of the problems he claimed to have indisputably already solved. 

You see, practice makes perfect. Trump is a perfectionist. Trump’s exit, therefore, depends on a high count of Iranian bodies. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Little Boy and Fat Man killed over 70,000 in one go each. That is roughly the same amount that Bibi finished in a little more than a year. But neither Trump nor Bibi has a year at his disposal. \As the losses pile up on all sides, for a quicker and more decisive outcome, there are indications that the US is pulling in munitions and other fancy military hardware to bear down more forcefully on Iran. Which means there are emerging holes in the fraying deterrence framework. Vladimir Putin is probably laughing his way to an obscure bank in Ukraine, even though thousands of drones that Russia has hurled at Ukraine came from Iran.

Prudent Putin has localised production of significantly upgraded versions of those missiles.  Let’s say making 500 missiles a day keeps Uncle Sam at bay. Will Putin the Leverager grab his chance now? Zelenskyy knows he’s in the lurch once again. He is getting many chances to feign his jilted role in the garb of righteousness. Trump promised to solve Ukraine in a day. More than two years have gone by without that day swinging in. Meanwhile, Trump swings like a yo-yo from one crisis of his creation to another, one more remarkable than the other. 

Trump must have hoped to go to China at the end of this month with a much stronger hand than he has. Already, China has taken the moral high ground by calling out the lie that underlies this false war, which is more than some other pretenders to the throne have done. Even as China probably lines up the plumper targets for Tehran. In the demure presence of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the White House on Tuesday, where he called Iranians “lunatics”, Trump waxed and waxed: “...If we didn’t do what we’re doing right now, you would’ve had a nuclear war and they would’ve taken out many countries. Because you know what? They’re sick people. They’re mentally ill, sick people. They’re angry. They’re crazy. They’re sick.” This is not a comforting thought. As the song went back in ‘79: Mother, should I trust the Government?