We are about to do something that will ignite a fuse

A week ago Thursday Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reported that it seems like the US joined Ecuador in a military operation against terrorist organizations there. This seems to be at the invitation of their President Daniel Noboa. I mention this because Needham included this:

In 2025, Trump managed to bomb seven countries: Venezuela, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, Yemen, and Somalia.

That’s in thirteen months. No, he’s not one to get a peace prize. A week ago Friday (when the Iran war was a week old) Meteor Blades, Kos staff emeritus, discussed the nasty guy’s claim that Iran would have a nuclear weapon in two weeks, that their attack on the US would be “imminent.” Blades first discussed how likely the nasty guy’s claim of a bomb being ready in that short of time. Possibly in a “few” weeks, but not likely. There is also a big difference between could have a bomb ready and actively considering using it against the US or any other country. The nasty guy tends to say “two weeks” when he wants us to think he’s about to do something but will likely never actually do it. This phrase could easily be applied to what he thinks Iranians are doing. Blades reviewed the likely intentional confusion of of preemtive and preventive, saying one while using the definition of the other. Both have specific meanings in international law and the UN Charter. Preemptive means an attack is going to happen quite soon, it will be overwhelming, and leave no time for deliberation. This is classified as self-defense. A preventive attack is an attempt to eliminate a potential threat, before the foe becomes stronger. It is based on prediction rather than proof, so is considered aggression. Any country can accuse any other of a future threat. Bush II in Iraq was preventive. It had a bad outcome. Even worse, what it was trying to prevent didn’t exist.

And here we are with the Trump regime engaged in a global free-for-all. The Iran war is also preventive, illegal under a U.N. Charter that in no way will be enforced. The worst part of this? Unless very different leaders come to power in Iran, keeping that country from getting nukes may not even have been prevented. Iran shouldn’t build a nuke. But then the world should follow the advice of Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, each of whom proposed or at least suggested at one time or another eliminating all nuclear weapons. ... Instead, today as you read this, the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom are currently spending trillions of dollars to upgrade and expand their nuclear arsenals.

On the same day Oliver Willis of Kos reported:

Russia is providing Iran with targeting information to help locate U.S. assets like warships and aircrafts. The revelation follows years of cozy relations between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Washington Post reported Friday that multiple officials have confirmed that Iran is receiving Russian intelligence, with one official describing the effort as “pretty comprehensive.” ... Meanwhile, Russia’s involvement in the war follows years of Trump catering to Putin. Instead of an adversarial relationship with Russia, Trump has sought to curry favor with the nation, repeatedly asserting that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was justified and that Ukraine was to blame. He even made a point of humiliating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a meeting at the White House last year.

This past Wednesday Emily Singer of Kos reported the nasty guy claimed the Iran war would end soon because there is “practically nothing left to target.” He added that he could end it whenever he wanted. Yeah, that last bit sounds like an addict. Singer takes this in a different direction:

Trump's ridiculous claim that he can simply decide when the war against Iran will stop is patently absurd. Iran is not a rational actor. It doesn't care about the suffering of its people, nor about preserving the nonexistent relationships it has with other western nations. So long as it has munitions and the ability to cripple the global economy by choking off the Strait of Hormuz—a waterway critical to the global oil supply—it has no incentives to stop. Indeed, Iran has every incentive to continue, as the war could spark a global recession and damage Trump politically—which Iranian leaders are surely taking great pleasure from. Iran has said in no uncertain terms that it has no plans to stop its hostilities.

The nasty guy probably made that claim because he realizes this “excursion” is getting away from him. G. Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers charted the public response, the presidential approval rating, to military adventures from WWII. Roosevelt got a small bump for WWII, partly because his approval rating was already high. Entry into the war also had a 97% approval rating. Bush I got a big increase in approval for the Persian Gulf War to liberate Kuwait. Bush II got a big boost after the 9/11 attack and another boost at the start of the Afghanistan War a few months later. He also got a boost from the Iraq War. The nasty guy didn’t get a bump in public approval (or hasn’t yet – some of the earlier wars didn’t produce a bump for a couple months). Morris went looking at political science literature political approval and came up with five conditions needed to get a meaningful increase. They are: A big sudden shock, such as Pearl Harbor or the seizure of American hostages in Iran in 1979. Bipartisan consensus or at least no criticism from the opposition. Unified media coverage. The action is perceived to be legitimate. The public is willing to rally around the president. And in this Iran war... There was no sudden shock Democrats condemn the attack. There has been plenty of coverage of the war, but also coverage of the opposition and protests. Also, the media are highly fragmented. The nasty guy didn’t seek Congressional approval and 59% of Americans say he should have. The public isn’t willing to rally – his approval was already quite low. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, has a quote from Molly Ivins every Thursday. This one is from February 2024 and discusses Bush II and the Iraq war. He also wanted to invade Iraq because the threat was “imminent.” Then this:

Perhaps the administration thought peaceniks could be ignored, but you will recall that this was a war opposed by an extraordinary number of generals. Among them, Anthony Zinni, who has extensive experience in the Middle East, who said, "We are about to do something that will ignite a fuse in this region that we will rue the day we ever started." After listening to Paul Wolfowitz at a conference, Zinni said, "In other words, we are going to go to war over another intelligence failure." Give that man the Cassandra Award for being right in depressing circumstances.