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Notes -
Why doesn't Ted Cruz know the population of Iran? And what is with him generally? Or the whole upper echelons of the US govt?
I reference a recent Tucker Carlson interview with Cruz, where it turns out he didn't know said population (and has since responded with an AI meme image of Tucker asking Luke the population of the Death Star).
Turns out that the population of Iran is 92 million, I thought it was around 80. 80 would be a fairly reasonable answer. Even Yemen is surprisingly populous, around 41 million. Fun game to try - estimate the population of various countries in these areas.
I thought Ted Cruz was supposed to be super-smart, wouldn't it be natural to read up on Iran? He is on the Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism. It's also relevant to US strategic choices and his particular love of Israel. Knowing about the subpopulations and relative size of the Azeris, Kurds and similar would be relevant to regime change, which is his professed goal:
To his credit he does know that Iran is Persian and predominantly Shia. And maybe being on a bunch of other subcommittees means he has to divide up his time and energy in all these different areas. But it's not like Tucker is asking really sophisticated questions about the position and integration of Azeri elites in the Tehran power structure. That really should be dealt with by an expert diplomat. But senators are supposed to be making strategic decisions, one has to have some base of knowledge to decide upon different courses of action.
Cruz also thinks that the Bible requires Christians to support the nation of Israel, which is somewhat non-mainstream in theology: "Where does my support for Israel come from, number 1 we're biblically commanded to support Israel". Tucker tries to ask 'do you mean the government of Israel' and Cruz says the nation of Israel, as if to say it's common-sense that the nation of Israel as referred to in the Bible is the same as the state of Israel today. It seems like he's purposely conflating the dual meanings of nation as ethnic group and nation as state, which is a stupid part of English.
Also Cruz said to Tucker "I came into Congress 13 years ago with the stated intention of being the leading defender of Israel in the United States”. How would this help in the context of a hostile interview, does he think that's a helpful thing to say? I can only imagine that Cruz thinks this is a winning issue, he wants to play hard rather than go down the wishy-washy 'Judeo-Christian' values route. Is declaring your devotion to a foreign country really that popular in America?
Trump also posted this somewhat ominous diatribe from Mike Huckabee (pastor and ambassador to Israel) praising Trump's divine prominence, his position similar to 'Truman in 1945' and how he has to listen to god and the angels only... https://x.com/Mondoweiss/status/1934999328583713096/photo/1
This episode reminds me of how George W Bush apparently didn't know of the difference between Sunni and Shia Islam until after deciding to invade, he brought up Gog and Magog when trying to persuade Chirac to join the war. Maybe that's false, some have disputed it. Or how Trump apparently won't read any long extracts of text and demands pictures. Maybe that's also false, lots of stories have been made about Trump policy. It's known that Biden didn't know whether people were alive or dead or what was happening much of the time. Large swathes of the Democrats can't tell the difference between men and women.
Here's another one I just found from another US congressman: https://x.com/VoteRandyFine/status/1839686465820766542
That's just weird!
There are serious structural problems with how America selects its politicians if this is the calibre of talent that's drawn into positions of great power. At the risk of sounding like an edgy atheist fighting a war everyone's tired of and moved on from years ago, surely theology should have no place in grand strategy. It's normal to have colourful characters in politics, some corruption, some old people who don't know what's going on, a certain level of lobbying. But this seems to be on a qualitatively different level, with serious results.
I have so many layers of problems with this logic. Even starting by accepting that "the bible tells me so" is a good way to set up foreign policy, let's take a second and think through a few implications:
a) What kind of arrogant or ignorant person thinks that the verse can be interpreted simply and literally?
Ted Cruz says that in Genesis (well, he didn't know that, but that's where it is) God commands us to bless and aid Israel. But much of the Old Testament consists of God punishing Israel, often with foreign invasion and raiding. God is constantly using foreigners as a tool to punish Israel, especially when Israel is lead by a corrupt, selfish, venal, dishonest, cruel man who refuses to give up power at the appointed time. God seems to cause Israel to lose as often he causes them to win, to be honest as a genre-savvy gentile if I were living in Old-Testament-Superstition-Land, I'd probably stay out of it. God, to my knowledge, never punished anyone for ignoring Israel. God's blessing to Israel is as often the blessing of discipline as it is the blessing of good things, and I sure wouldn't want to get between the Father and the child he intends on spanking. Getting involved with how exactly God is seeking to bless Israel seems like a real Oracle of Delphi situation!
In fact, the one clear example where God blesses an outside nation for its aid of Israel would be...Cyrus the Great of Persia. So perhaps we can intuit that the Persians are a nation specially chosen of God to chastise and discipline Israel? It seems odd that Ted Cruz is so certain he knows God's will. But let's accept for the moment that we are obligated to help Israel:
b) Which Israel?
Is Israel its government? Is Israel the global diaspora of Jews? Is Israel the population within the borders of Israel, regardless of religion, provided they descend from Abraham? This might seem like trivia, but I'm pretty sure the verse that Ted Cruz is citing is Genesis 12:3 which reads in the ESV:
Which of course brings up the question: Who the fuck is you? Frequently this is interpreted, and put up on billboards by Israel lobbyists, as "blessing Israel." (Where's your Sola Scriptura, Ted?) But God makes no mention of a state or government. The more natural interpretation of the phrase (leaving aside the new covenant that "you" is the Church, which is pretty obviously correct and righteous to me) would be all the descendants of Abraham are to be blessed. I would certainly offer no privilege to Abraham's descendants who have persisted in one type of religious error over another.
But let's accept that the state of Israel, as represented by its government, is what is to be blessed, let's consider:
c) Is it blessing someone to help them commit a sin?
Some years ago I was the best man in a very relgious Evangelical wedding. Before the ceremony, the pastor gathered up all the groomsmen, and we prayed and we put our hands on the groom, and the pastor told us that our obligation was not finished when he said I Do or when the tables were cleared up, that we had taken on an ongoing sacred obligation, to bless our friend, to bless his union, to come to his aid to keep his marriage together and to keep him on the straight and narrow. I said Amen.
Today, he called me, and told me that his wife is cheating on him, that he knows where she is the guy she is there with, that he's coming to my house because he needs a gun today so he can go kill them both.
Does my sacred vow to help him and bless him obligate me to give him the gun? Am I violating my oath if I ask him any questions other than "what caliber?" Ted Cruz would seem to say yes, you are obligated to bless him and that means helping him do whatever it is he wants to do. Ted would probably say "Do you need a ride?"
I would say that's an insane interpretation or friendship, and an even more insane interpretation of blessing. I would say that my obligation in this scenario is to restrain my friend, by physical force if necessary, to prevent him from committing a horrible life-ruining and soul-damning sin. I would say that my obligation extends so far as to warn his wife, to call our mutual friends and his pastor to help me talk him down, or even if no other means were available to call the police, to prevent him from committing murder. Friendship means protecting your friends, and that includes protecting them from committing mortal sins.
In my life, when I've had a friend who was in a really bad place, I've gone to his house with a bunch of friends and told him hey let me take your guns to store them for a few months, to keep you from doing anything you might not live to regret. That is what I think friendship is.
But ok, let's say I do give him the gun, that still doesn't answer...
d) Is it blessing someone to help them make a mistake?
Let's alter the hypothetical above: accepting ad arguendo that I am obligated to give my friend a gun to kill the man that cuckolded him and his cheating wife, what if my friend's wife cheated on him with JD Vance, and my friend has no realistic chance of taking my 1911 and getting past the Secret Service (ok that may be easier than previously thought...) and killing Vance. Am I still obligated to give him the gun?
This is where knowing the population of Iran is a useful piece of information. At least within an order of magnitude! It allows you to faithfully discharge your obligation to Bless Israel with, for example, wise counsel! If what Israel needs is advice, it doesn't help them to give them weapons to help them get themselves into trouble.
I just don't see how evangelical politicians can act like the bible command leads directly and easily to using bunker busters on Iran.
Excellent post. I do have to say though, if my friend rocked up at my house, with my gun in his hand and said 'Dude, I just shot my wife and that prick she cheated on me with, the cops are coming, hide me!' and when I looked hesitant he said 'hey man if I end up in prison I might accidentally talk about the cache you have buried in the backyard', I would feel obligated to help him out, destroy the gun and give him an alibi. Not for his sake, for my own.
But then I would also hate my former friend and never trust him again and do my best to cut him out of my life asap.
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