This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

The cracks begin to appear as the German Chancellor Merz says what many were only thinking. “The US is being “humiliated” by the Iranian regime.” I understand his perspective. Mr. Trump is playing poker with German capital and futures. The Germans and I are a bit worried Mr. Trump has no exit strategy. There seems to be no strategy at all, exit or otherwise. Just sit on our hands and take it minute by minute as gas prices rise and wait the Iranians out.

Maybe because Mr. Trump avoided military service in Vietnam, he never learned the lesson of the elephant and the ants. The elephant can defend itself from one hundred tigers but not from one million ants. The US could blow up everything in North Vietnam, but that couldn’t make them surrender. Mr. Trump thinks it’s like a game score. I sunk your battleship! I win!  GAME OVER. Iran had an obsolete collection of a few dozen fighter aircraft, aged by time, short on parts of various makes and vintages.

Destroying an obsolete, barely flying air force is no grand accomplishment. Sinking the few ships in a coastal, steel-bottomed fleet is of little consequence. This is hardly Nelson at Trafalgar, turning back the Armada. This isn’t a fair fight; this is Mike Tyson vs. Tucker Carlson. This is a thug mugging an old person in the park. The US never wouldn’t have attacked if they had thought Iran’s military was capable and competent. This is about a decapitation strike gone wrong. I don’t just question their exit strategy; I question their entrance strategy as well. They thought Iran was going to be a pushover.

Mr. Trump’s administration thought it would look just like Venezuela, only 4,000 miles further away with turbans. “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail” – Mark Twain. “Bang! Zoom! You’re going to the moon, Alice!” – Ralph Cramden. Try not to laugh, but they actually thought they were being smart! First, they kicked over Venezuela like a child’s sand castle at the beach, and then thought, next Iran! Then onto Cuba! They had it all planned out, how they were going to remake the whole world. But the word grandiose was not in their lexicon. Nor in the lessons of  their history books of other’s follies and failures.

Apparently, during the planning stage discussion meetings, the question of “What if?” wasn’t properly addressed. Everyone for at least the last half-century has known that in the event of war, Iran would close the Strait. The administration seemed surprised and befuddled by this move. They were going to send in the Navy and then they were not going to send in the Navy. Trump demands in a three AM tweet that those crazy Iranians open the Strait “or else!” Then he begins assembling mismatched ground troops in a phony attempt to make Iran think the US is actually stupid enough to attempt an invasion.  

Then genius. A counter-blockade of Iran’s blockade. No one can ship anything, especially Iran. Trump is betting with Europe’s future and China’s future too, and neither gets a vote in the matter. You can understand their trepidation. European politicians who can only wring their hands and hope that Trump doesn’t fuck things up for them. Mr. Trump didn’t ask their opinion beforehand and demanded their immediate support after the fact. Then, Mr. Trump publicly grouses about his shitty allies. What sort of allies does Mr. Trump deserve?

Then there is this transparency problem. The Trump Administration tells more truth in its lies than in its press releases. Early on in the struggle, the question of missile shortages with long lead times became public. Trump called it fake news, insisting we have plenty of missiles with many more to spare. The Vice President and future failed Republican presidential nominee, JD Vance, recently mentioned the ammunition supply situation again. Gee, who should I believe? Trump says there’s plenty, but the rumors persist. The rumors say the US cannot continue on the same mad bombing course. Like a mouth full of taffy, Mr. Trump can neither chew Iran up nor swallow it without choking on it. Gee, since when does the Vice Pestilence give his opinion, unasked? CAUTION! Small parts, not intended for children under three.

The Trump administration appears to live in a fantasy where they have the Iranians right where they want them. That any minute now, the Iranians will throw down their weapons and come out with their hands up. Is it just a public ruse? Stand tall and talk tough? Mr. Trump is stuck like Chuck. He can’t force open the strait and he can’t bomb Iran into submission. His only choices are to relent and make a deal or spin the world economy into a financial depression, souring a great deal of the next few decades and potentially starting a world war. Did they ever discuss these possibilities in their early planning meetings?

The agony and the inequity as Jimmy Kimmel tells a tasteless joke about Malaria Trump becoming a new widow. But why would a comedian think that joke would get a big laugh? Because Jimmy thought the audience would like a joke about Donald Trump becoming dead soon. It’s called a barometer. It tells you which way the wind is blowing.  

The White House demands an apology, but I’m not sure to whom? Apologize to Donald Trump for wishing him dead or Malaria Trump? Go on! Try telling me, she’d never thought of it herself first. Tell me of any women on planet Earth who finding herself married to Donald Trump who hadn’t thought of homicide before at one time or another.

For Mr. Trump, an apogee has been reached. And no apologies are necessary to murderers. It’s all downhill from here on. Iran has destroyed Mr. Trump’s presidency as surely as Vietnam destroyed LBJ’s. Trump has double-crossed his followers and broken his own rules. Trump has stumbled in but now, he can’t easily get out.   

Kimmel could have told the joke as Elon Musk chose Donald Trump to be his first man on Mars. (This is General Trump to ground control.) That way without implying death. I bet what really upset the administration most was the joke probably got a big laugh from the crowd and a sly chuckle from Malaria.

“Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids.”
― John Steinbeck,