Some wags have been calling Donald Trump’s attack on Iran “Operation Epstein Fury”. It’s a nice play on his chosen name of “Epic Fury” and his evident desire to make people stop talking about his millions of mentions in the files associated with the late child sex trafficker and presumed Israeli intelligence asset Jeffrey Epstein.
The basic accusation behind the jocular renaming is that Trump attacked Iran to divert attention from his long-time association with the incredibly well-connected and mysteriously funded sex offender. Another variation wonders if perhaps Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (a man Trump apparently admires so much that he meets him often in person behind closed doors and usually emerges to say or do whatever suits Netanyahu) has got his very own Epstein files to wave at Trump.
There could be an element of truth in both, although we may never know. But then, Trump doesn’t seem to know why he attacked Iran either. Depending on the day you ask him he might have been trying for regime change, striving to prevent Iran getting a nuclear bomb or wanting to remove an existential threat to Israel.
Plenty of people – even keen Trump supporters – are against his latest war. The man he appointed as head of the US National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, quit his job this week, stating that: “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.” He continued:
Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the Americal media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran. This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory. This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous war in Iraq that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women.
As a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times and as a Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel, I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives.
It’s certainly beyond question that Israel has been trying to organise an American attack on Iran for many years, without success until Trump showed up. And on any measure as things stand so far, Israel is the only entity to have gained anything at all from the mess, though even that is rather debatable when all things are considered. Why did Israel want Iran flattened? Well of course the religious leaders of Iran haven’t hidden their belief that Israel ought to be sent packing out of the Middle East altogether. And generally speaking, it has long seemed clear that Israel wants to be the undisputed king of the Middle East castle. Israel has no fixed borders, which doesn’t seem to be a simple oversight. Israel’s religious and other extremists are openly keen on the idea of expanding their territory very widely into land currently occupied by various neighbours. One by one, the USA has reduced some of the surrounding nations that might have been in a position to resist this push from being functioning states to dysfunctional messes. Iran, it might be said, is simply the next domino in the line.
Erasing Palestine
The war in Iran, which inevitably triggered attacks on Israel by Hezbollah from Lebanon, has given Israel opportunities to renew its attacks against Lebanon, with a ground offensive now planned. It has also provided cover for a continuation of Israel’s expansionist policies in Gaza and, increasingly, the occupied West Bank. Netanyahu plainly believes that keeping Israel in a state of war provides him with a number of political advantages. He argues constantly – with strong support from his POTUS minion Trump – that the criminal charges he faces in Israel must be dropped so that he can focus on his wars. The wars create a chaotic home environment in which he continues to press his campaign of “judicial overhaul” – shorthand for making the justice system subservient to his wishes. It also allows him to enforce stern censorship over what remains of independent Israeli media. If he can neuter Iran, erase the idea of Palestine from both Gaza and the West Bank and perhaps even annexe parts of Lebanon, he may believe the Israeli population will forgive him for the war’s downsides.
The “excursion” to Iran – as Trump has termed it – isn’t shaping well for him at this point. He charged off to war without consulting the US Congress, much less the UN or NATO. He didn’t seem troubled by the advice he already had from seasoned military types that, just because Iran had no navy or air force to speak of and not even much of an army, and even though Iran had been bludgeoned by years of savage economic sanctions and harassed by constant Israeli assassinations of its scientists, smashing the country to rubble might not be as easy or useful as Netanyahu might have been suggesting in his one-on-ones with the apparently gullible POTUS.
Trump was warned that Iran – knowing it would be seriously attacked one day, and probably soon – had been stocking up with missiles and drones in huge numbers. Not only that, it had put a lot of effort into identifying the best ways to target highly vulnerable US bases and assets in its neighbourhood. So, when the US/Israel kicked things off by murdering Iran’s leader and bombing a school full of girls Iran replied by knocking out US bases, radar installations and other facilities – just like it had already warned it would. Chances are, I think, that we haven’t yet been told exactly how bad the damage has been on the US/Israel side. I’m guessing nowhere near as bad as it is in Iran, but also a lot worse than Trump probably expected. Very expensive US THAAD radars have been wrecked, forcing Trump to pull some out of South Korea as replacements. This is much to the chagrin of South Korea, but probably delightful for North Korea and China.
Trump’s Korea move
I noted that, even before the war officially started, the US apparently lost a very expensive spy plane over the Persian Gulf. It broadcast a distress signal then disappeared. This aircraft had taken off from the United Arab Emirates, one of the Gulf Arab states that host US bases that have since been hit by Iranian fire. The Gulf states are obviously unhappy about being targeted but they can’t really be surprised. Iran has pointed out that it would be silly not to target bases that are being used against it, no matter whose soil they are planted on. Interestingly, Iran is also asserting that some attacks on oil and gas installations in the Gulf states were not its work, suggesting that perhaps the Israeli secret service may be carrying out some false flag attacks to try to ramp up more anger against Iran. Who knows? Without accepting it as true, the allegation can’t be discounted, given the history of the players in this saga.
A number of US aircraft have been destroyed or damaged under various circumstances, with the latest being one of the allegedly untouchable F35s, apparently hit by an Iranian missile and forced to limp back to base.
Trump’s mighty aircraft carriers are keeping a respectful distance while all this plays out, and the crazy POTUS is showing signs of battle fatigue. That’s hardly surprising. Since Iran has closed the fabled Strait of Hormuz, industrial societies across the globe are running short of fuel, prices are skyrocketing and markets are shaky. His call for other nations – whom he did not consult before launching what is in fact an illegal war – to send ships to help him clear the strait sounded desperate. His petulant reaction when most declined to get involved in a mess entirely made by himself and Netanyahu sounded even more so.
Now he’s apparently moving more ships and more troops to the area. What is he planning? Perhaps he hopes to seize Iran’s Kharg Island, the country’s key export hub. He’s talked about seizing it in the past, and that would explain why he’s moving marines to the area. But if he does, what will Iran do? Torch the lot in an act of defiance, preventing Trump from pinching the oil? Or plaster the place with missiles from a distance, wiping out the invaders? The Jerusalem Post reckons he’s weighing it up, but maybe that’s just Israeli wishful thinking.
I’ve no idea how this ends. If US/Israel can stop Iran launching missiles altogether and get the strait reopened for tankers then maybe a major economic crisis can be averted. Otherwise who knows?
In the meantime, Israel seems determined to keep the war going as long as possible by assassinating any Iranian leader who might otherwise have been able to negotiate a ceasefire and, most notably, by attacking Iran’s gasfield, prompting the obvious retaliation from Iran. Clearly this was an intentional escalation, but why? Watching Trump claiming he didn’t know what the Israelis were up to would have been funny, if the situation wasn’t so serious.
So many other questions here:
- Will Trump put boots on the ground at Kharg Island? If he takes it can he hold it?
- What damage is Israel really sustaining, behind the wall of censorship? Will the population keep backing endless warfare?
- What would it take for Iran to surrender?
- How will the Gulf states view Israel if Iran no longer exists as a counterweight?
- Will Netanyahu permanently avoid his criminal charges and totally gut Israel’s remaining vestiges of democracy?
- Will Trump somehow swindle his way to a third term as president?
- Will Israel wind up owning a chunk of Lebanon?
- Will Iran prove to be Trump’s Stalingrad?
- Will we ever get to the see the complete Epstein files?
