Salzillo's Two Cents on...Iran
(Just Don't Tell Pete Hegseth)
First, let me just say this: a whole lot of information on the Iran strike will come in over the next few days, weeks, and months. If anyone tries to tell you they can predict exactly what will happen as a result of the strike on Iran’s nuclear sites, well, they are full of it.
As it is, the Iran-Israel-U.S. news cycle has changed about 5-10 times since I first started drafting up this article. It will probably change again in the next few minutes. :)
So I will keep my take as brief and to-the point as possible.
Here are a few things to keep in mind:
The graph makes the point better than I ever could.
This is a chart of Iran’s uranium stockpile before and after we entered and then left the Obama nuclear deal (otherwise known as the JCPOA). During the deal, Iran had a uranium stockpile of practically nothing when compared to what they had before. Then Trump left the deal, and you can see the increase leading up to the start of Trump’s second term.
Thanks to that increase, Trump and his team rushed desperately to make a deal with Iran to create an agreement almost identical (per The Times of Israel reporting in May) to the one he ripped up 8 years ago. What’s worse is that, as the chart shows, Iran had a greater stockpile of enriched uranium than it did before Obama negotiated the JCPOA.
But that’s beside the point. The Trump effort to reach an agreement failed. Trump could not negotiate a re-negotiated version of the Obama deal that he ripped up. “One of the worst” deals the U.S. “has ever entered into,” and he could not close a better deal.
Instead, negotiations stalled, and Netanyahu saw an opportunity to do something he had wanted to do for a long time. Then, he successfully convinced Trump to join, probably because Netanyahu told Trump that an attack would make Donald look like he was strong and decisive, and might even help his falling poll numbers (FOX News certainly seemed to help Netanyahu here).
And Netanyahu—say whatever else you want to say about his (lack of a) moral compass—is a master of strategy. Which is why Netanyahu’s poll numbers are going up while Trump’s are still falling.
My point? Simple. Why did we even get to this point? The brave pilots should not have had to risk their lives to do this in the first place. We should not have had to use the bunker-buster bombs.
We already had a deal in place to keep a lid on Iran, just like we had a deal to keep a lid on the Soviet Union decades ago. And the Soviets—especially under Stalin—were just as great a threat to the U.S. and the world as Iran is to Israel and to everyone else.
On top of that, as Kyla Scanlon pointed out, “Iran knew Trump might do something” due to his constant social media posting. And because of that, military officials had to set up a decoy bombing operation to distract from the real one. In other words, Trump’s Truth Socialing forced the military to take matters into its own hands to regain the lost element of surprise.
(Like one military official allegedly put it, Donald J. Trump was the “biggest threat” to the “operational security” of the planned attack).
Finally, let me just say this about the early intelligence report from the Department of Defense. In itself, it means little; it is an early evaluation. However, combine that intelligence with the Trump Administration’s insane defensiveness, and you might see something a little more concerning.
Combine that with the Trump Administration’s decision to limit what classified information it will give to Congress, and you might see something a little more concerning.
Combine that with the reports that Europe believes that Iran moved the uranium from Fordo before the U.S. strikes, and you might see something a little more concerning.
Even just about a day ago, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the agency that used to monitor Iran’s nuclear program, said “his agency does not know where nearly 900 pounds of potentially enriched uranium is located, after Iranian officials said it was being removed for protective measures ahead of strikes on nuclear facilities in Iran” (this is from a FOX News report, by the way).
You know the strange part? Who knows which side will end up with the intelligence on its side? Some assessments have provided a different picture, and maybe they are right. Then again, maybe they are wrong.
The problem is, who is going to believe anything Trump or Pete Hegseth says? When they force everyone to toe the party line before all the facts come in?