This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

“I’m a gonna huff and puff and BLOW your house down!” Trump’s been saying that for three weeks now. Well, maybe he really means it this time. You open up that strait in the next 48 hrs. or your power plants get it! Don’t make me commit another war crime! You know I’ll do it!.

Israel hits an Iranian gas field. Iran responds by hitting a Qatari LNG facilities. Iran is literally asking, do you really want to take it there? Do we want to attack each other’s assets the world needs? Someone? As no one has claimed the origin yet. It’s just one of those things that happen in that part of the world. Bombs mysteriously fall from the sky. And this bomb landed 3,500 meters from an Iranian nuclear site. Then, like clockwork, an Iranian missile struck the town of Dimona. About 20 kilometers from the Israeli nuclear facility. Tit for tat.

Going the wrong way and instead of seeing reason, both sides are hardening their positions. Foghorn Leg Trump bellows about what he’s going to do. “Boy! I say, boy! I say open the strait before I lose my temper, boy!” A show of hands. Who thinks this strategy will work? Exactly!

The forces of the emperor want to threaten Iran’s power facilities. But face a tough vote for their 200 billion dollars they want. A vote made tougher by bombing civilian Iranian facilities. [War Crime] Once again, the administration walks softly and carries a big mouth. “I’ll huff and puff and blow your house down!” Mr. Trump has already declared victory ten times, but the winner doesn’t declare victory in war; the loser admits defeat. Trump paints himself into a deadline corner. “We’ve been bombing for three weeks now. But you’ve got 36 hours left! You’ve got 24 hours left! You’ve got 12 hours left!” And when time runs out? What then, Gunga Din?

Start bombing again? Bomb their power plants? Watch Iran attack their neighbor’s power plants. Watch the whole region go up in smoke. Still pretending victory is defined by the number of targets struck. As long as Iran holds, Iran wins. As long as the Strait is closed, Iran wins. If the Strait remains closed for 90 days there is nothing the US could possibly win to offset the loss. Ready to throw 200 billion dollars at the war, when bombs you’ve already got aren’t working now. There is only one way this war ends successfully for the US.

A simple military invasion of three or four hundred thousand. Not lasting more than a year or three or four. But the political will isn’t there at home and God knows what he’s done to it abroad. It’s gotten so bad our former NATO allies are offering us pity assistance. “If you can get a ceasefire, and if you can get a guarantee, that nobody will start shooting, maybe we can come up with some old patrol boats. “Don’t patronize me! You guys don’t mean it!”

Mr. Trump has been railing at our allies because they won’t blindly follow him into an illegal and immoral war. They won’t overextend themselves to save Trump’s bacon. The time for coalition building is before the bombs start falling. The US is all alone and in the mood to escalate. Another day, and then the stock market will open again. A market dominated by oil prices and ifs and what ifs.

Already the concrete is setting up for a long war. The Iranians are clearly planning on and benefiting  from a long war. The US doesn’t need or prosper from a long war. But they have long wars in their DNA makeup. It is just something the US military is good at. Building bases and setting up camps. Setting up to stay for a while. But there is no political will for a ground war in Washington.

Mr. Trump threatens to send in ICE agents to replace struggling TSA agents at the airport. Mr. Art of the deal can’t get a deal and so the TSA agents aren’t getting paid. So, ICE agents are that versatile? They just step in and do anyone’s job? They may be dumb, but they’re loyal. But threatening to use them, for what? It’s not the TSA agent’s fault. It’s Congress’s fault, and who is in charge of congress?

The administration’s intractable my way or the highway approach has led to a political standoff. Situation normal, all fucked up! Several hundred TSA agents have quit, and some just don’t have the money to get to work. But the solution is to send in untrained ICE agents? How does that generally work out?

We see the same thing in Iran. The Trump administration blusters as if they’re winning. They’re willing to escalate! They’re willing to bomb civilian infrastructure to get their way. But it won’t get them their way. Nothing will, but troops.

If they can’t force the strait open, they have lost the war. And they can’t force the strait open militarily. That’s why the allies told Trump not no, but hell no! It can’t be done without troops. It’s a conundrum Trump can’t win without troops. And there’s no congressional willingness to use troops. Trump can’t win in Iran and can only lose.

Trump promises to obliterate Iran’s power plants and create a mass humanitarian crisis. Even larger than the mass humanitarian crisis now. But will it win the war? It shows their desperation. You better open up this strait or I’ll huff and I’ll puff and Blow your house down!

“Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte