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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   17716 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026

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How Trump Took the US to War in Iran

Netanyahu claimed it would be possible to effect quick regime change via Mossad-aided protests and even arming the Kurds (who apparently just kept the guns, having learned from past American 'support').

Mr. Netanyahu and his team outlined conditions they portrayed as pointing to near-certain victory: Iran’s ballistic missile program could be destroyed in a few weeks. The regime would be so weakened that it could not choke off the Strait of Hormuz, and the likelihood that Iran would land blows against U.S. interests in neighboring countries was assessed as minimal.

Mossad is obviously too smart for this to have been their true assessment. The CIA quickly realized it was BS:

The intelligence officials had deep expertise in U.S. military capabilities, and they knew the Iranian system and its players inside out. They had broken down Mr. Netanyahu’s presentation into four parts. First was decapitation — killing the ayatollah. Second was crippling Iran’s capacity to project power and threaten its neighbors. Third was a popular uprising inside Iran. And fourth was regime change, with a secular leader installed to govern the country.

The U.S. officials assessed that the first two objectives were achievable with American intelligence and military power. They assessed that the third and fourth parts of Mr. Netanyahu’s pitch, which included the possibility of the Kurds mounting a ground invasion of Iran, were detached from reality. The C.I.A. director used one word to describe the Israeli prime minister’s regime change scenarios: “farcical.” At that point, Mr. Rubio cut in. “In other words, it’s bullshit,” he said.

The president then turned to General Caine. “General, what do you think?” General Caine replied: “Sir, this is, in my experience, standard operating procedure for the Israelis. They oversell, and their plans are not always well-developed. They know they need us, and that’s why they’re hard-selling.”

So, Trump's team at least was not snookered by claims of easy victory. But as chairman of the JCS, Caine had to walk the fine line between giving military advice and administering politics.

He also flagged the enormous difficulty of securing the Strait of Hormuz and the risks of Iran blocking it. Mr. Trump had dismissed that possibility on the assumption that the regime would capitulate before it came to that. The president appeared to think it would be a very quick war — an impression that had been reinforced by the tepid response to the U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities in June. General Caine’s role in the lead-up to the war captured a classic tension between military counsel and presidential decision-making. So persistent was the chairman in not taking a stand — repeating that it was not his role to tell the president what to do, but rather to present options along with potential risks and possible second- and third-order consequences — that he could appear to some of those listening to be arguing all sides of an issue simultaneously. At no point during the deliberations did the chairman directly tell the president that war with Iran was a terrible idea — though some of General Caine’s colleagues believed that was exactly what he thought.

It's reminiscent of the bind that the JCS was in back in 1964-65, when LBJ played them against each other and silenced their belief in a full military commitment so that he could tiptoe into the Vietnam War without anyone noticing. Meanwhile Vance was the most dovish of his advisors.

In January, when Mr. Trump publicly warned Iran to stop killing protesters and promised that help was on its way, Mr. Vance had privately encouraged the president to enforce his red line. But what the vice president pushed for was a limited, punitive strike, something closer to the model of Mr. Trump’s missile attack against Syria in 2017 over the use of chemical weapons against civilians. The vice president thought a regime-change war with Iran would be a disaster. His preference was for no strikes at all. But knowing that Mr. Trump was likely to intervene in some fashion, he tried to steer toward more limited action. Later, when it seemed certain that the president was set on a large-scale campaign, Mr. Vance argued that he should do so with overwhelming force, in the hope of achieving his objectives quickly.

The deciding factor against negotiations was, apparently, really stupid. Why on earth would the Iranians want to be taking handouts from the US like this?

That same week, Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff called from Geneva after the latest talks with Iranian officials. Over three rounds of negotiations in Oman and Switzerland, the two had tested Iran’s willingness to make a deal. At one point, they offered the Iranians free nuclear fuel for the life of their program — a test of whether Tehran’s insistence on enrichment was truly about civilian energy or about preserving the ability to build a bomb. The Iranians rejected the offer, calling it an assault on their dignity.

It seems like his team would have decided against intervention if the choice was up to them. Ultimately the buck stops with Trump, and everyone else who's come this far is willing to live with his decisions.

I suppose I'm in the minority to say I think it's good to establish the precedent that if we find negotiating with your leadership very annoying and the international community has little sympathy for them, we'll either abduct them and put them on trial in NY or blow them up while they're in their house.

While I think your plan to get rid of Trump has a certain charm, I thing relying on China to blow him up has some serious downsides.

I mean, MAGA is more like Venezuela than like Iran, a very personalized regime, removing Trump would certainly change US policy. On the other hand, an assassinated Trump would be as much a martyr for his cause as the Ayatollah. All the valid reasons for not blowing up the Ayatollah -- he is old, will probably die soon anyhow, will be replaced by another hardliner -- would also apply to Trump. And crucially, the effective military capabilities of the USG would not be hamstrung at all from this.

For the US, there is the option of a bloodless regime change in the midterm elections (after which he will be severely limited in his ability to make policy) seems much preferable to violent foreign interference in the US.

Now, I know your counterargument, both the Ayatollah and Trump have committed crimes against humanity (like the slaughter of protesters for the former, or the state-sanctioned Pretti shooting and the bombing of school girls for the latter) for which they should answer in the Hague, and sometimes a violent death might seem like the best available approximation to that if getting them to the Hague is not feasible, but with heads of state you always the primary concern is always the larger impact on their society, not if they personally get their just rewards or not. Once they are disposed, you can safely put them to trial.

Killing Trump would likely drive the American people further down a road of international isolation, religious fanaticism and nuclear and conventional militarism. It would also further establish your preferred precedent of just murdering heads of state which are generally disliked, and I think rather than making other leaders try to be less like Trump or the Ayatollah, they would instead work to install mechanisms where their sudden demise would create widespread negative outcomes.

It looks like the price for killing the Ayatollah was that the next one took control of the strait, if China blows up Trump that might just be the justification which Vance needs to take Greenland (to safeguard it from China, or because one of the killers wore a ski mask or whatever).

Only if you have a valuable resource and have pissed off Trump in the past. The rulers of Eritrea, Laos, and Angola can sleep soundly.

Except it didn't work at all? And that strategy led to a false confidence that this war wouldn't lead to the consequences it actually led to? Hopefully you're in the minority.

If I was a tin pot dictator I would find Trump extremely intimidating at this point

Exactly. Countries aren't run by Paradox Game Sims. Being senior leadership in a country in that position is incredibly dangerous in this era. Most of these people just want to vibe around absorbing massive corruptionbux and not receive a missile.

The problem is that you have to leave a space where you can stay in charge without getting knocked off by the nationalist religious psychopaths on your own side, or getting bombed by Israel. I don't think that space exists, or if it does exist Israel and the USA have done a bad job communicating it to potential leaders. A good Quisling can't be an obvious Quisling. You have to be able to maintain legitimacy among your own people.

Which is, of course, why every non-US Western country operates in the "vibe around absorbing corruptionbux and not missiles" mode.

After all, who in a post-scarcity society would want a repeat of the early 1940s?

But as chairman of the JCS, Caine had to walk the fine line between giving military advice and administering politics.

…

At no point during the deliberations did the chairman directly tell the president that war with Iran was a terrible idea — though some of General Caine’s colleagues believed that was exactly what he thought.

Judged deontologically, without reference to the outcome of this particular case, this is a good thing: Gen. Caine’s job as JCS chairman is to provide technical advice on the implementation details of military actions, not to propose defense policy. Within the Situation Room, Trump is the principal; Gen. Caine is his agent (and Trump is in turn the agent of the people and the Constitution of the United States of America, per his oath of office). Policy is the job of the president and his cabinet, because civilians are and should (almost) always be holding the military’s leash, not the other way around. Assuming that this article is credible, it was former JCS chairman Gen. Mark Milley and his attitude of being “the adult in the room” by fighting back against Trump’s hawkishness that—what was the phrase?—ah yes, “eroded norms” and “contributed to democratic backsliding”.

But given how things actually went in practice, I think it’s fair to wish that someone in the room had talked Trump out of this one.

For matters of policy, sure, but I think there's a place for generals to offer opinions on whether the proposed military actions will actually achieve the desired strategic objectives. If the president and his cabinet tell the general that they plan on toppling the Xi regime by bombing all the belts and roads that China built in Africa, I think there's a place for the military to explain why this isn't likely to happen.

I think this civilian control of the military is normally a good thing, but there are edge cases: for example, I suppose it's possible that the President might order the military to commit some atrocity that is not clearly illegal under relevant law, but is clearly immoral. The military refusing an order is, I think, in most cases not as bad as what civilian control of the military is mainly intended to prevent, which is the military taking control of the country and supplanting the civilian authorities.

Important to note how victory has a thousand parents, defeat is an orphan. Everyone seems to be against this war now, or is leaking that they were against it. Vance was against it. General Caine was against it. The CIA was against it. The blame is getting shoved off onto Trump and Netanyahu, who surely deserve it... I can't help but think that others were in favour and have since jumped ship though.

I also claim vindication in my argument with a self-declared Iran policy expert: https://www.themotte.org/post/3467/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/401256?context=8#context

It's so very rare that we can quickly get a resolution to a political debate like this... Unless of course we get a second act of this war.

Trump, Netanyahu, Kushner, Witkoff. Can't even blame the CIA for this one (actually even before Iraq the CIA was resisting the WMD Intel coming through the OSP). Not enough blame is put on Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin, and Laura Loomer. If you watch Mark Levin it's a no-brainer, and Trump watches Mark Levin. They are foreign agents, they should be registered under FARA and every time they talk about Israel a mandatory FARA disclosure should appear on the screen.

Ted Cruz should probably be considered a foreign agent too, recall that speech he made to some to some group of persecuted Christians in the Middle-East, he couldn't resist making it all about Jews and getting booed out by them. Or the part about how he said how his motivation in running for office was to be the most pro-Israel senator.

Trump himself went on air and bemoaned about how Israel used to control Congress and rightfully so but now it's changed so much, Israel barely has any control! Then the usual suspects called it an anti-semitic trope...

The whole thing is tragicomedic: one part farce, two parts horror.

Important to note how victory has a thousand parents, defeat is an orphan.

One of the sudden stomach cramp moments of realizing how bad things were was when Trump said it was Pete Hegseth's idea, that Pete spoke up first. That is atypical of Trumpian dialectics.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-publicly-tells-hegseth-he-was-the-first-to-push-for-iran-war-you-said-lets-do-it/ar-AA1ZgNwp

“I called a lot of our great people,” Trump said. “We have great people, and I said, ‘Let’s talk.' We got a problem in the Middle East. We have a country known as Iran that, for 47 years, has been just a purveyor of terror, and they’re close to a nuclear weapon. We can keep going and get that 50,000 up to 55 and 60. There's no end," Trump explained. "Or we can take a stop and make a little journey into the Middle East and eliminate a big problem.”

“And Pete, I think you were the first one to speak up. And you said, 'Let’s do it, because you can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.' So, we are now having really good discussions," the President said.

Please post the full video beyond a stripmined headline repurposed for twitter because I promise it does not suggest what you're implying it does.

Yeah, that was a pretty bad sign. Also Elon not talking about it after day one. Elon is usually first to stick his head into a threshing machine with these things, I recall him bragging on day 1 about how Grok said the decapitation strike was a good move whereas Claude and GPT ummed and ahhed diplomatically. He changed the flag of Iran on twitter too to the monarchist flag. And given starlink and such, he was deeply involved with operations in Iran pre-war. But after day 1 he wasn't saying much of anything about the war.

The blame is getting shoved off onto Trump and Netanyahu, who surely deserve it... I can't help but think that others were in favour and have since jumped ship though.

Subordinates are always in a tricky position when they disagree with their boss, because any administration, be it government, military, corporate, or anything else, should present a unified front. If things get bad enough, you can always resign, but that's the nuclear option.

The deciding factor against negotiations was, apparently, really stupid. Why on earth would the Iranians want to be taking handouts from the US like this?

That same week, Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff called from Geneva after the latest talks with Iranian officials. Over three rounds of negotiations in Oman and Switzerland, the two had tested Iran’s willingness to make a deal. At one point, they offered the Iranians free nuclear fuel for the life of their program — a test of whether Tehran’s insistence on enrichment was truly about civilian energy or about preserving the ability to build a bomb. The Iranians rejected the offer, calling it an assault on their dignity.

To be fair to the admin, this was the deal we ended up reaching with North Korea in the late 1990's. One of the engineers working on the nuclear reactor we built for the Norks was my bridge partner. With hindsight, I don't think it was a very good deal.

They had broken down Mr. Netanyahu’s presentation into four parts. First was decapitation — killing the ayatollah. Second was crippling Iran’s capacity to project power and threaten its neighbors. Third was a popular uprising inside Iran. And fourth was regime change, with a secular leader installed to govern the country.

The U.S. officials assessed that the first two objectives were achievable with American intelligence and military power.

I mean, 1 & 2 sound like the important ones from a US perspective, specifically item 2, so... what's the problem?

I'm not sure but I think the "problem" is we would be indifferent to Iran and at peace with them if not for Israel setting the agenda so even doing #1 and #2 were immense cost for us and to little benefit for us.

It was not very America Firsty.

Wow. This story basically hands a giant bazooka to the anti Semitic wing of the Republican party. MAGA will do anything to shift blame away from Trump. Before this, the MO was the old Good Tsar, Bad Boyars schtick. But now there's a clear scapegoat: It's the (Israeli) Jews' fault.

Nick Fuentes will be eating good it seems.

Consider whether the reality of the situation is best described in the language of bias and scapegoats, and whether the problem is Nick Fuentes or the people who just got us into a literal war.

  • A foreign nation successfully persuaded the President to wage a costly and unjust war on their behalf despite the protests of the entire USIC and most of his appointees. The only appointee who was supportive of the war is Hegseth, who secured his nomination through the approval of the Jewish community via Norm Coleman, a pro-Israel shill and the leader of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

  • Lindsey Graham, a closeted homosexual who visits Tel Aviv every two weeks (except during the war when he replaced his visits with Disney Land — odd), was integral to persuading Trump about Iran, using the soundbites he learned from Mossad, in Israel.

  • Trump’s favorite news program, the Mark Levin show, is run by a pro-Israel shill with a close relationship to this foreign country.

  • Our negotiating team was comprised of two Jews with a close relationship to this foreign country, and they apparently lied about the negotiation progress.

  • The extent of foreign interference was so significant that the head of our counter-terrorism resigned to tell the American public, a man who formerly served directly under the DNI, which oversees pretty much all intelligence between the USIC and the executive branch.

  • During our mission to rescue a lost pilot, Israeli journalists jeopardized the safety of hundreds of Americans by reporting first on the second lost pilot.

The takeaway for the average American is not going to be “aw, the innocent scapegoat Israel is getting blame”, it is probably going to be “get these people as far away from power and influence as humanly possible”, which I think is the rational assessment based on two decades of their pernicious influence. Trump is 80yo, the Israelis should not have the influence they have on him, not with the team of 140iq psychologists behind them who know exactly how to zero-day his personality vulnerabilities.

Another way to put it: okay, we have blamed Trump, and he should get blame, but is that where the blame should stop? What about the false-ally — the traitor-ally — that tricked us into war by taking advantage of the cognitively-vulnerable 80yo Trump? It is more useful to blame this entity, because they may continue to exert a pernicious influence on American politics into the future.

Jews I guess most big this time. When center-left pundits are full on support of dropping Israel it’s not a good political spot to be in. Basically all of America wants to blame Israel for this barro

I am basically a Holocaust denier at this point and I think I’m in the top 20% of America now in supporting Israel. Honestly most Jews are kind of funny and their IQ I still think is good to have in the maga coalition. But I don’t trust them.

A lot of the supposedly smarter Dems have wanted to turn on Israel/Jews for politics but I think they are just reading public opinion polls and want to win elections.

Mark Levin may be a shill, but he's more of a Trump shill at this point than an Israel shill. I flipped over to Hannity late last night and all he (Levin) could talk about was what a great deal this was, his argument being that Trump made it so it had to be a great deal and we have to trust Trump because he's the smartest president we've ever had with the best leadership skills and all the other presidents bungled Iran but he showed them who's boss... at which point I turned the radio off. He made noises about how regime change is ultimately necessary but since that was never in the offing and is even less likely now, I don't understand how someone so pro-Israel can treat this as anything other than a betrayal. There's no permanent deal yet, but it doesn't look like the US is going to get it as good as we had it before the war started. The JCPOA is looking like a dream right now.

Mark Levin may be a shill, but he's more of a Trump shill at this point than an Israel shill. I flipped over to Hannity late last night and all he (Levin) could talk about was what a great deal this was

So... I originally replied (without reading more than one sentence) asking if the guy isn't having a meltdown, because I saw second-hand reports about it. Then I read the second sentence and deleted my comment, and now I ran into a tweet of his, where seems to, indeed be taking it badly... is he doing ok?

So... I originally replied (without reading more than one sentence)

That's actually apropos for the discussion since Levin and his ilk evidently do the same thing—reflexively praise Trump without paying attention to what actually happened. Respond to the part where Trump declares victory without looking into what's actually on the table. With Israel bombing Beirut less than 24 hours after the ceasefire was announced Levin may find himself throwing more intense fits if the US has to put real pressure on Israel to get them to stop.

Dealing with lobbying is part and parcel of being President. If he's "vulnerable" to persuasion that's not the fault of the persuader, it's a skill issue.

And when we have finished blaming Trump, we still have the important question of how to prevent this from happening again. The obvious answer is to significantly curtail the influence of pro-Israelis, as this is the second war they managed to get in just 23 years. Israeli lobbying is unusually influential in America, and so we can simply curtail it to regain sovereignty. Why allow the risk of another war? Especially in light of Epstein!

Do we want to prevent this from happening again? We took a gamble and losts. Unlike every other American POTUS it’s not turning into a forever war. If we get out of this without a toll of the straits and still limiting Iran going nuclear it would seem ok. Fog of war still exists and we still don’t know if what remains of the Iranian regime can consolidate power.

If it’s an example of taking a gamble and taking a quick L it can be ok.

This isn’t turning into Vietnam or Putin’s 3 day war.

Most recent American wars didn't turn into forever wars, though. The first Bush's Gulf War, Clinton's Kosovo War, Obama's Libya war. I'm not a fan of any of those wars, but to be fair to those Presidents, they managed to get in and get out pretty quickly.

Most recent American wars didn't turn into forever wars, though. The first Bush's Gulf War

I mean, there were the over 280,000 sorties flown to enforce the no-fly zones that were created to protect the Shiites and the Kurds, the attempted assassination of Bush 41, resulting in a cruise missile strike in retaliation, Saddam mobilizing troops and sending them to Kuwait in 1994 because of the sanctions, which in turn prompted Operation Vigilant Warrior to encourage those troops to go back, Operation Desert Strike in 1996 in response to Saddam's mobilizing troops (again) and sending them to Arbil (after which the no fly zone was extended to the 33rd parallel), and then Operation Desert Fox in 1998 after Saddam kicked out the weapons inspectors and called them CIA agents, and after which Saddam stopped respecting the no-fly zones at all, started firing at coalition planes, and offered bounties for any planes that were shot down, a situation which continued right up until the second Gulf War, so there was plenty of military action to go around. Now whether or not that amount of military action amounts to a forever war is, in my book, squarely in the eye of the beholder. Call it fire-y but mostly peaceful, maybe.

Good point. There weren't any US casualties in the aftermath from what I recall at least, but there was definitely use of military force.

The big difference is that Iran will continue to have the capacity to block the Strait of Hormuz, barring total defeat on the ground and an US occupation. Serbia in 1999 or Iraq in 1991 or Libya in 2011 had no such comparable options to sabotage US interests at all.

Fair. But I feel like in those wars there was less a feeling we losts and found our way out. This war I believe regime change was the primary goal and we clearly did not achieve that. Libya I don’t know our goals. Gulf 1 was a win.

As did Trump with Venezuela.

The real question is “what happens when you meet with determined resistance.” Option 1 is forever war. Option 2 is get out quick.

Trump may take Option 2. Iran is heavily degraded but putting up enough fight that it ain’t worth the squeeze

I'd assume starting to vote for non-senile, non-israelophilic presidents would be simpler than repealing the first or whatever you are suggesting to do to "purge government and journalism".

Cognitively vulnerable Trump? Now it sounds like we're going on the Biden dementia ride again, only this time the people who once rightly criticized the Dems are acting like it's no big deal.

Every party in politics has biases. Yes, the people within the party should try to hold their biases in check, which if the article can be believed some of them did. But a third party like Israel will always have their interests in mind and any advice they give should be considered with that fact in mind. The job of the President is to filter out the bullshit and make the best decision despite the people trying to manipulate him. If he can't do that, he should never have been allowed in that position.

Nothing you said here is incorrect, but all of it is explainable by 2 things:

  • Israel is acting like a self-interested country, as any other country would.
  • Jews are overrepresented in the US decision making class, and while some of them are so staunchly pro-Israel nearly to the point of treason, most aren't.

So yes, Netanyahu "convinced" Trump to do this war. But it's clearly in their interest since Iran is a long-term threat to them. The person at fault here is Trump for being convinced to do something obviously risky and against US interests. Other nations leaders' are trying to convince America to do stuff all the time -- that part isn't unusual.

And yes, Jared Kushner is Jewish, but I don't think he had some master plan to lure America into a senseless war.

At least based on OP's article, this seems less like Israeli/Jewish manipulation and more like a straightforward pitch from Netanyahu that Trump bit on despite warnings from most of his foreign policy advisors. It might be another matter if pro-Israeli people in USG were whispering in his ear that this was a great idea, but the Secretary of State, CIA director, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs all told him the Israelis were full of shit.

Is comment ironic? I have a poor sarcasm tell and would like you to speak more plainly here if so. I am uninformed on the object level here I apologize.

You said "It might be another matter if [..] the Secretary of State, CIA director, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs all told him the Israelis were full of shit"

Skimming parent posts you are replying to right here it seems like other people think that is exactly the case. Do these comments meet your bar for manpliation then? Or do you think they are misrepresenting this information?

Post 1:

(Chairman Join Chief) General Caine replied: “Sir, this is, in my experience, standard operating procedure for the Israelis. They oversell, and their plans are not always well-developed. They know they need us, and that’s why they’re hard-selling.”

The C.I.A. director used one word to describe the Israeli prime minister’s regime change scenarios: “farcical.”

Post 2:

Everyone seems to be against this war now, or is leaking that they were against it. Vance was against it. General Caine was against it. The CIA was against it. The blame is getting shoved off onto Trump and Netanyahu

Correct, this is basically what I'm saying. Israel made a pitch. Plenty of countries make pitches. It's up to the President to accept or reject them if they are/aren't in US interests. Trump chose incorrectly, but the buck should stop with him. We don't need to blame Jews or even Israel more broadly, though that's what's probably going to happen, which is why I used the term "scapegoat".

But it's clearly in their interest since Iran is a long-term threat to them.

I find it interesting the way that Americans (and those LARPing as us on the internet) can recognize that Trump/Biden/Obama doesn't necessarily act in the national interest in the United States, either through wickedness or through stupidity; while we assume that the governments of Iran and Israel are identical with the national interest of those places.

It certainly seems that never-ending war is very much in Netanyahu's personal interest, in that it keeps him out of court for as long as it lasts. I'm less sure that it is in the interest of Israel or the Jewish people that we're hearing things like this thrown around. Yair Lapid on Twitter:

There has never been such a political disaster in all of our history. Israel wasn't even at the table when decisions were made concerning the core of our national security. The military carried out everything that was asked of it, the public demonstrated amazing resilience, but Netanyahu failed politically, failed strategically, and didn't meet a single one of the goals that he himself set. It will take us years to repair the political and strategic damage that Netanyahu wrought due to arrogance, negligence, and a lack of strategic planning.

I sort of moshed it together to save time in the explanation, but you're correct -- Netanyahu proposing this plan may end up having very bad long-term implications for Israel by alienating the US, even though it might be better for Netanyahu personally.

America can also act as a self-interested nation. This means preventing Israel from ever having so much influence again. America can do a number of things to protect her sovereignty: banning Israeli visits on American soil, pruning all areas of government and journalism from pro-Israel subversives, and so forth. Surely it is not the case that only Israel can act in a self-interested manner, but America is obliged to act without any consideration of their interests. The chief interest of any nation is securing absolute sovereignty, and punishing those with traitorous foreign loyalties outside the borders.

The person at fault here is Trump

for being manipulated by Israel, yes, and if Americans recognize this then they can cut off the possibility of this ever happening against. Which is in their national interest.

Other nations leaders' are trying to convince America to do stuff all the time

And none of them have the influence machine of Israel, or the unheard of ethnoreligious dimension of loyalty. Our chief negotiator with Iran believes, as a religious dogma codified in his sacred scripture, that the lives of his fellow Israelites are more important than those of Americans. It is not in America’s interest to allow these people to have any influence, whatsoever.

banning Israeli visits on American soil, pruning all areas of government and journalism from pro-Israel subversives, and so forth

I'm in favor of US withdrawal from the Middle East broadly, and for ending the US special relationship with Israel and treating them like any other democracy -- friendly, willing to sell weapons to them, but not willing to fight their wars if it's not tangibly in US interests.

But the things you're asking for go beyond what we do for practically any other country. "Banning Israeli visits on American soil"? We don't even do that to China. Do you mean something less extreme by this? And "pruning all areas of government and journalism from pro-Israel subversives" sounds practically like McCarthyism.

The better answer is to just not elect Presidents that make blatantly foolish decisions, and/or those who put Israeli interests above American ones. I don't think Trump was pro Israeli, I think he was just a fool who got overconfident from his Venezuelan adventure and thought it would all be easy this time too. Trump is the problem.

Our chief negotiator with Iran believes, as a religious dogma codified in his sacred scripture, that the lives of his fellow Israelites are more important than those of Americans

Hi, token American Jew(ish) mottizen here. I don't know Witkoff personally, but for the record neither I nor any other American Jew I've ever met, including ones fanatically supportive of Israel, has ever expressed this sentiment that I'm aware of.

Kushner is Modern Orthodox, attended a yeshiva school growing up, and financially supports Orthodox Jewish institutions. He has studied the Tanya and visited the grave of Schneerson, and so it is reasonable to assume that he agrees with their view that —

the souls of the gentile nations come from the three impure kelipos and “they contain no good at all.”

[With regard to] the Tanya’s statements that the three impure kelipos do not possess any good at all, the intent is not that they do not possess a spark [of G‑dliness] at all. For without a spark of good, it is impossible for any entity to exist. (Although their existence comes from an encompassing light; nevertheless, we are forced to say they possess some type of spark.) This spark, however, has become so separated and darkened, that it is as if it is evil, i.e., it has no feeling at all for G‑dliness.

The particular denomination which Kushner attends and financially supports also teaches that compassion in gentiles is forbidden, and that consequently you are not allowed to have concern for them dying and are in fact obliged to not aid them when they are dying, which you can find in Chapter 10 of Avodah Kochavim of the Sefer Hamada section of the Mishneh Torah, a work read annually among the members of his congregation (and when they finish reading the work there is an enormous celebration).

All well and good to believe these things in private, but IMO we can’t afford to have someone like this possess an iota of influence in middle eastern foreign policy decision making. They are under no obligation to care about the lives of American which are lost, in fact they are under an obligation to not care about them.

(1) Oh come on; if we're going to be mind-reading based on fisked exerpts, any practicing Christian is an anti-family communist, for Jesus came to set fathers against sons, and mothers against daughters, will reward those who foresook their families, businesses, and children in order to perform religious obeisance to him a hundred fold more than ordinary schmucks, categorically bars the wealthy from heaven, and whose chief follower demands complete subsumption of national loyalty into religious brotherhood.

But of course, you and I both know that this isn't at all how it works (unless you're Kulak's alt, in which case nevermind, at least you're consistent about this). Also, I strongly doubt that Kushner's all that committed an Ortho-Jew, primarily because he married Ivanka. Outmarriage is a big no-no in those circles.

(2) Also, even assuming arguendo that you're right with your mindreading, Orthodox of any description are like 10-15% of American Jews.

The mysterious and parabolic sayings of Jesus are not orthopraxic jurisprudential rulings. But the Mishneh Torah is all about orthopraxic jurisprudential rulings. These are two different religions. The Mishneh Torah is the authoritative redaction of the Talmud and read worldwide by the Orthodox like Jared, as binding rules for life. The mysterious sayings of Jesus have never been distilled down to concrete actionable prescriptions (unlike His specified commandments) but are elaborated upon according to the spirit of the reader. You can see here how Aquinas has collected different readings on the "fathers against sons" saying. Or see how a Pope interprets it. You can't draw a comparison between this and Maimonides, because they are handled differently according to the different conventions of the religion. Or in other words, when Jesus says something mysterious it is meditated upon; when the Mishneh Torah says something, it is both meditated upon and implemented within one’s daily life.

Note that we are now, in a sense, staking the possibility of starting WWIII on the presumption that a particular Orthodox Jew does not follow the most important work in his religion, a work read and studied annually by the observant adherents of his denomination. Why would we we even risk these odds, when we can just say “actually, the ~0.8% of the US population who believes this can’t exercise any foreign policy influence”. We can even append “unless they make some kind of vow or public display of condemnation for these specific verses” to the end of that stipulation, if we want to be abundantly tolerant. But as is, having this guy decide the safety of Israel in a conflict against their mythical enemy Persia does not seem rational to me, as his values do not represent the values of 99% of Americans.

The thing is, there's no way to shift blame away from Trump onto Israel without making Trump look weak in the process, and MAGA does not want to make Trump look weak. I think that most of MAGA, the rank and file rather than the strategists, also genuinely don't think Trump did anything bad or wrong in this war.

Yeah this is the Right's "It's not happening, oh it is happening and it's GOOD" moment. Every new detail we learn makes it painfully evident that there's a severe blind spot in Trump's cognitive abilities to model second and third order consequences. This is worse than Iraq. I don't know what is going to happen after the midterms and October elections in Israel. We're not going to realise the fullest consequences of this war until 4-5 years later. Iran is definitely building a bomb, so I suspect Israel will keep striking them indefinitely, with or without US help.

The "story" doesn't do anything. That bazooka was made in israel and hand-delivered by mossad. Israel did, in fact, lie and pressure america into a pointless, expensive war. Israeli influence over US politics is worse than iran having nukes when compared against replacement (using the money we would have spent on welfare, tax cuts, or paying down the debt.) Also DJT is a dumbass, but even if the feebleminded elderly are ultimately responsible for believing the nigerian princes of the world, their children are still entitled to be mad about it.

I don't buy the stories coming out of the White House.

There are 2 groups who have information.

One is those who have recently left the MAGA coalition (eg: Joe Kent). They seek to be re-integrated back into conventional politics. This group must find a narrative that fits : "I joined MAGA with the purest of intentions, but I could never have guessed that it was comprised because {reasons}". Israel as puppet-master is a perfect scapegoat for such a narrative.

Second is those who are still part of MAGA, but must find a reason for the sloppiness of the war with Iran. They must find a narrative that fits : "MAGA runs a tight ship, but our perfect plans got foiled by an outside {reason}". 'Bad intelligence from Israel' is the perfect story.

I will stick to the more plausible explanation (not necessarily Occam's Razor, but close) until proven otherwise. Iran has been an American military goal for decades. Trump thought he could could a Venezuela 2.0 with Iran. It did not work. The US has 30x the military spend & apparatus of Israel. If Trump takes major geopolitical decisions based on power point presentations from Netanyahu, then that makes Trump look incompetent rather than making Israel look malicious.

How many people are really in that first category?

I have learned to stop betting on a splinter faction of principled dissenters. Most of the people who wanted off the Trump Train got their wish over the last few congressional elections.

In this case, Joe Kent specifically. I expect there will be more if the Trump train derails further.

Kent immediately resigned when the war started rather than waiting until the war seemed to be going poorly. He had been against new wars in the Middle East since 2021. His wife died in a terrorist attack; He served 11 combat tours. In early 2024 he warned that an Iran war would be a disaster. Why should anyone doubt that he believes what he says and is acting with good intentions? It’s hard to even imagine a more sincere person.

To further elevate your point, is Netanyahu the Messiah of Israel? Are there no political elements within Israel that look at this mess and think things should have been different? I genuinely don't know. Maybe every single Israeli voter really wants land from Lebanon. The underlying point here being, there would be no need for any of this if Israel had not pushed Trump into a bad war with Iran.

What should be very clear is that Kent has been a staunch zionist shill in the past much like Vance. The idea that they would 'scapegoat' Israel to save their own hides is just silly. How would their hides be saved if they went against the most powerful lobby in the country? Kent even went on Mark Levin's show to bare his belly.

The message seems to be a much clearer 'you're telling us to jump too high'. There's no reason to believe he is lying when he says 'Israel' pushed this war on the US, or that there were 'Israeli' elements laundering bad intel into the American decision making process. It's much more likely he genuinely believes the current Israeli influencers within the government are toxic and making bad decisions that harm both parties, which this Iran invasion certainly has done.

That being said, I wouldn't necessarily call him sincere, or at least it's not required. I think Kent has long hitched his wagon on the alleged new tech Thiel/JD Vance train. So dipping when he did can be explained similarly to how JD Vance has been distancing himself from the conflict, or positioning himself as a peaceful mediator. The Iran war was an obviously bad idea, with a lot of risk, and anyone with political aspirations for the future could feel their image being tarnished by proximity. Even if we assume everyone is on the same team in the admin, hedging your bets and keeping some of your elements away from the fire is a smart move. But voicing disagreement with Israel outside the toxic influence on display isn't needed to do that.

To that extent @DirtyWaterHotDog is not presenting the most plausible explanation at all and his rationale leaves me wanting.

Iran has been an American military goal for decades. Trump thought he could could a Venezuela 2.0 with Iran.

Kent's point was that the reason for why Trump pulled the trigger and believed he could Venezuela 2.0 with Iran was because of bad agenda driven Israeli intel. Like, the thing that needs explaining here is why this long time adversary needed to be dealt with now and why people now believed it to be feasible, which is a direct break from prior assessments. And please don't tell me Iran was two weeks away from building a nuclear weapon.

The US has 30x the military spend & apparatus of Israel. If Trump takes major geopolitical decisions based on power point presentations from Netanyahu, then that makes Trump look incompetent rather than making Israel look malicious.

This is just a logical non-sequitur. Yes, if Trump makes major geopolitical decisions based on obviously bad intel, including power point presentations by Israel's prime minister that had been in and out of the White House nigh every day in the leadup to the war, then that does make Trump look like an incompetent lap dog and it does make Israel and Netanyahu especially, look unbelievably arrogant, self centered and reckless with regards to US interest in the region. None of those facts preclude Kent from being truthful when he says 'Israel' has too much pull and is pulling in a bad direction. It just leaves everyone still bought in or involved with this charade looking foolish.

No republican candidate wants to separate from MAGA. It's practically half their electorate at this point. But they need be able to appeal to the other half as well. To do that they now need plausible deniability for Trumps and Netanyahu's errors along with support from the most powerful lobby in America.

I joined MAGA with the purest of intentions, but I could never have guessed that it was comprised because {reasons}

Is “I joined MAGA with the purest of intentions, but I made a bad decision” not an option?

Not if you want to be re-elected.

Ah, I read the OP again, we’re talking about politicians, not voters or commentators.

Perhaps this is just the right moment for electoral comeuppance, if you back a bad horse in politics you get taken down.

The GOP needs new blood that’s neither subservient to Trump nor wacko, but I guess grifters, wafflers, and “the Jews made me do it”-ers are what we get. If either party could stop being idiotic and start actually dealing with our domestic crises like adults, that would be great.

If either party could stop being idiotic and start actually dealing with our domestic crises like adults, that would be great.

This will not happen because the Madisonian checks and balances are all at play in the domestic sphere, whereas very few operate in the foreign policy realm. It's been an established pattern for like 50 years that presidents get elected promising to focus on domestic issues, get jammed up, and then wind up getting sucked into foreign policy because that's the area where they can actually do stuff.

If either party could stop being idiotic and start actually dealing with our domestic crises like adults, that would be great.

The adults in the room on the Republican side are Mitt Romney, Robert Dole and John McCain, and the latter two are starting to smell a bit. The adults in the room on the Democratic side are Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, which isn't any better.

Liz Warren

Adult in the room

Uh...

Look, Elizabeth Warren isn't simply wrong about economics. That would be understandable. She's more than smart enough to note that her pie in the sky socialist economics won't work. 'But if we just tax the rich hard enough' is the adolescent impulse of not accepting limits, only in this case she should know better. It's totally understandable that AOC unironically thinks you can extract enough from taxing the rich to fund whatever nonsense or that 'universal' childcare will fix anything- she just doesn't understand economics, it's the voters' fault for putting her in office. Liz Warren knows these things aren't true, she's advocating them anyway because she can't hear the word 'no'.

As I said, it isn't any better on that side.

The adults in the room on the Republican side are Mitt Romney, Robert Dole and John McCain, and the latter two are starting to smell a bit.

I imagine McCain is smelling quite a bit, since he has been dead for several years now. My question is why his rotting corpse is in the room.

thats_the_joke.jpg

The funniest part to me is that Bob Dole actually outlived John McCain, even though Dole's age was a major angle of attack when he ran against Clinton in 1996.

Is the path back to

conventional politics

Through

Israel as puppet-master

I would have thought that path leads further right.

In my observation, theories about Israel being a subversive and negative force in US politics are about equally common on the left and the right.

Conventional politics of the future is antisemitic. There is bipartisan agreement on it among the youth.

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