The Grudge
What happens next in Iran will decide the fate of America First
There’s no easy way to spin this. It could be bad. Really bad.
I woke yesterday morning with a sense of déjà vu. Was it early January again somehow? And was I back in Paris, ramming a half-stale croissant from Maison d’Isabelle in my gob, chugging a quadruple Nespresso, trying to figure out what the hell was going on in… Venezuela?
B2s and Blackhawks over the skyline of Caracas.
The tomb of Hugo Chavez burning on the hillside.
Surely not, and yet…
Maduro’s capture was announced as I was typing the words, “At this point, the purpose of the raid is still unclear.” I posted the story anyway.
As is so often the case, even when we raise ourselves up on the balls of our feet, events catch us off guard. Such is life.
For years we were told, with great confidence, that any attempt to strike out at Venezuela would end in disaster.
Thousands of American servicemen and -women would die.
Sleeper cells would be activated back home in the US; chaos would ensue.
The war would grind on for months or years in the clammy jungles of South America until, just like in Vietnam, the US would be forced to retreat with her enormous tail firmly wedged between her gigantic legs.
Game over, Gringo.
In the end, Trump’s Venezuelan adventure turned out to be nothing of the sort. It wasn’t even a war. It was an expert decapitation, samurai-style; a demonstration of the renewed capabilities of the most powerful war machine on earth, after the shame of the Biden years; and a long overdue reassertion of the Monroe Doctrine—now hilariously rechristened the “Donroe Doctrine.”
China and Russia, America’s chief geopolitical opponents, were left red-faced too, clinging to harsh denunciations and appeals to “international law” as their pretensions of dominance and force-projection were crushed like a soda can in the huge paws of Brock Lesnar. The “high-tech” equipment they gave Maduro didn’t even turn on. The US military deployed a new secret weapon, THE DISCOMBOBULATOR, and Maduro’s elite Cuban bodyguard began dancing the Macarena as blood poured from their noses and ears and last night’s refried beans ran down the backs of their trousers and pooled in their boots.
Squelch.
With power that awesome, how could anybody resist?
But Venezuela is not Iran, and Iran is not Venezuela.
Donald Trump has always maintained the ayatollahs should not be allowed to get their hands on nuclear weapons. He said it again and again during 2015, right through the presidential campaign of 2016, and he’s kept saying it ever since. His position hasn’t changed. At the same time, he criticized the neocons—and especially the Bush family—for their ill-advised nation-building exercises in the Middle East. America got nothing from Iraq or Afghanistan, at a cost of trillions of dollars, two decades of grief and thousands of American lives lost.
Here’s a Tweet from seven years ago, during his first term as President: “The United States has spent EIGHT TRILLION DOLLARS fighting and policing in the Middle East. Thousands of our Great Soldiers have died or been badly wounded. Millions of people have died on the other side. GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE.....”
America First has never been about crude isolationism. America has to project her power across the length and breadth of the world in order to remain the number-one nation, the sole hyperpower, the Big Dog. What America First means, rather, is a reconsideration of America’s priorities when doing so, and always the question: Does this actually benefit America and the American people?
As often as not, that question is not the end of debate but the beginning, especially in a case as complex as Iran. A clear America First case for disarming Iran, including the use of military force, can be made. A nuclear-armed theocracy of 90 million people that controls much of the world’s oil supply, can disrupt global shipping in an instant, declares America the “Great Satan” and murders her troops and citizens abroad is not some theoretical adversary far away, but a clear and present danger to America’s real interests, wherever they reside.
Perhaps it was naive to think the ayatollahs could be dissuaded from their nuclear ambitions without removing them from power. Every priest-king, exalted chairman and tinpot dictator knows what happened to Gaddafi when he gave up his weapons of mass destruction and tried to be a good boy and friend to America. He was sodomized with a bayonet on camera, beaten to death and thrown in a drainage ditch. If nuclear weapons are the only guarantee that won’t happen—well, call me Death, destroyer of worlds, because that’s what I’d do and so would you. It’s basic self-interest.
At this stage, the best we can hope is that the war is over fast. The US and Israel have targeted Iran’s religious, military and civilian leadership, and their complete or near-complete elimination may end hostilities. Khamenei is confirmed dead. Like the Venezuelan regime, the remnants of Iran’s religious government may come straight to heel. A peaceful transition to another form of government, by means of a mass uprising, is possible—maybe.
