Despite the close partnership between Trump and Netanyahu and the truly historic cooperation between the U.S. armed forces and the IDF, America and Israel inhabit utterly different realities.
This may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to halt the advance of Jihadism against Western civilization, akin to the Battle of Vienna in 1683. There is no compromising with this existential threat. Either we completely eliminate the threat now, or we will suffer an ignominious defeat for generations, even centuries.
Let’s hope it’s not the needle in haystack Gaza was/is — trying to find peace partners. I can only hope I just haven’t been read in. Or am I out of the loop?
One of my favorite moments of the previous IAF battles was when they turned around a plane from Iran from landing in Lebanon. How much more difficult to stop the more advanced China and Russia from landing in the vastness of Iran. But perhaps it could be /is being done.
Thanks for the excellent post. I posted a somewhat lengthy piece on X (@provoter) yesterday that is very much along the lines you lay out here, except instead of focusing on the Israel angle I focused on why it makes sense for the US and Pres Trump, from both a national security and a political standpoint, to keep going until the job is properly finished. My assumption is no one will really care to read it, but I'm dropping it here anyway just for the heck of it, and I thank you in advance for the privilege.
I realize the troops currently being flown to Israel and Jordan are being sent to do their blessed dirty work in Iran if such work becomes necessary, and I think it will be great if their deployment is in part also meant to see if the credible threat of their mere presence can help intimidate the murderous Islamic Regime into a deal that amounts to an effective end to it.
That said, and while the conservative bet is that I’m worrying for nothing, I do carry this persistent fear the regime may be scared only into suing for what would amount to something less than a lasting and certain peace and that we cave in and needlessly accept what should be an unacceptable offer. Apart from the humanitarian disaster it would be for the Iranian people, it would also be, compared to a more complete victory, horrendous politics at home and disastrous geopolitics abroad. Perhaps not immediately but soon enough to make us badly regret not doing more.
A few weeks more of higher gas prices will swiftly become yesterday’s news if the Iranian terror regime as we’ve known it the past 47 years is effectively no more and gas prices begin to head down, and the political credit for such a clear and righteous victory will produce massive MAGA tailwinds going into the midterms and even into 2028.
In stark contrast, leaving the regime mostly intact and just mowing the terrorist grass, however short, will greatly satisfy neither those who are against the war nor those who rightfully desire a truly tamed Iran and the enormous benefits to America this will bring both short term and long. And make no mistake, such an incomplete victory will not only lessen pro-Trump and pro-Republican energy going into the midterms, but it will also give miles of leeway to TDS forces everywhere, the propaganda media especially, to frame the operation as a grand disappointment.
All they will have to do is focus on the fact that President Trump let the Iranian terror regime stay mostly in place, notwithstanding any pinkie-swear promises they may make to play nice in the future, and then scream loudly that he stabbed the Iranian people in the back by clearly and publicly promising them a chance to take back their country while instead leaving them to the tender mercies of their murderous and vengeful government thugs. As a result of all this, the prospects for MAGA candidates at all levels of government, and any MAGA agenda along with them, will be far less advantaged in the next one or two election cycles compared to a scenario of a more complete victory.
If you’re terrified at the prospect of a 2029 Democrat-controlled DC that nukes the filibuster, packs the Court, gives citizenship to a bazillion illegals and further warps the election laws to lock in one-party rule and ever more Great Replacement, then a proper understanding of the politics of leaving the tyrants in power and the citizens at their mercy will lead you to root hard for something more than such a minimum victory.
As for the geopolitics, for the most rational of reasons nearly all the key middle eastern players want a complete victory at this point, and both they and the rest of the world will see it as a tremendous show of American weakness if we go wobbly now and needlessly grant a heckler's veto to nose-ringed TDS leftists and a tiny handful of vocal but seriously unserious isolationists ostensibly on the right.
On the other hand, showing the stones to effectively end the Iranian cancer and leave the region to do business and politics in an environment of far more tranquility than now will strengthen our status and influence in the mideast in ways that should advantage US interests tremendously for the foreseeable future. Even incomplete victory will produce some of this, for sure, but not nearly as much as something more complete.
Finally, lest one think I’m some psycho interventionist on this, when I say "complete victory" it absolutely leaves open the option of something similar to Venezuela – i.e., letting some current regime official serve as interim leader so as to maintain basic order – as long as it includes a verifiable dismantling of the domestic terror apparatus and a release of all political prisoners. In no way am I cheering for any sort of boots-on-the-ground nation-building, a thing recent history has taught me very clearly to fear and to loathe. If the Iranian people can for the most part breathe free, speak free, dress free, pray free, etc., then that is easily complete victory enough, even without any proper democracy at the national level.
And why is that victory enough? Because in such a situation I can't imagine we wouldn't at the same time do what is necessary to keep any new government on the straight and narrow as far as its becoming a threat to the region and to us. In other words, there is simply no way President Trump will tell the mullahs they have to free the people and the prisoners but they can keep their nuke program, their missiles, their terror proxies and their control over the Strait. Agreed?
Given all this, what would there be not to like?
After all these years we finally have it well within our power to get the job in Iran done right, and with sufficient political patience we retain the option of keeping risks so low that it is not pie in the sky to say the effort could very well result in not a single more US combat death. I sorely hope we don't cave in now and seize relative defeat from the jaws of a complete, pro-MAGA, pro-US and pro-peace victory.
Permission for israel to continue working on all that in Iran and a recognition of the litani border situation with Hezbollah — is also a lot. And a good result … interim result?
Speaking of thinking… what are your thoughts as to the fate of 90 million Iranians after the don’t-call-it-a-war? Maybe some forethought might have been useful before disrupting the global economy. What happened to the regime change to something more compatible with the rest of the world? Is tiny little Israel going to forcefully occupy Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, and Iran? Who’s going to pick up the tab for all of this?
Good luck getting our narcisistic sociopath to understand anything beyond HIS OWN IMMEDIATE NEEDS OR WHIMS. He does not understand why he is doing this nor does he have a coherent explanation for any benefit to the United States. It is just expert targetry without any strategy and is doomed to fail.
Already he and Netanyahu have managed to galvanize Iranians behind the regime -- both the true believers and those who just wanted to live quietly. The opposition has disappeared below the parapets. Because they realize if they rise up they get killed. They now know that Trump and Netanyahu lied about coming to help them.
Bibi inveigled Donny Dodo into doing this because he thought it would aid Israel. Donny did it because he thought he could strut on the world stage as a tough guy and get HIS HANDS on some more mineral wealth. They both miscalculated. Trump has zero interest in Jews, Israel or Israelis ... except as a path to more money.
Why on earth do people like this even spend time on a Michael Oren substack? I mean, it does make for some good comedy for the rest of us, so I guess there's that, but I'm thinking that isn't her actual purpose.
Michael: what is the best charity to support Israeli families directly harmed by the Iran War. Can you send us a link? My family feels their suffering and deeply appreciates their sacrifice. May God bless and protect them.
I doubt that the US would be willing to give up any B2s until it has a fleet of its successor planes the B21 in place. The B21 is an evolution of the B2. It is also a flying wing. The Better idea is for Israel to buy B21s which are in production and will be operational in about a year and a half. I doubt that the USAF would be willing to sell B21s until they have replaced all 19 B2s and all 45 B1s. I think that won't be until 2030 at the earliest.
The B2 is also a hangar queen. I am not sure they are worth acquiring.
The GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator is a 30,000-pound precision-guided weapon, that can penetrate approximately 130 feet of rock, or 25 feet of high-strength, reinforced concrete. It is typically deployed by the B-2 bomber, although it can also be dropped by a C-130 cargo plane.
The B2 is being retired and will be replaced by the B21. I do not think the Pentagon has disclosed whether the B21 will be able to carry the GBU-57. I hope that the US would not spend 200 Billion dollars on this project if it did not have that capability.
Israel would love to go it alone if necessary. The problem being pointed out is that the relationship with the US effectively requires US permission and materiel.
As for needing to kill millions of Iranian citizens to get the job done, this is just one more example of the problem with how potent THC products have gotten these days. Pull back a bit from the bong or the edibles or whatever's clouding your brain and you'll start seeing things a lot more clearly.
Kiss my ass. I covered five presidents in my career as a journalist, including this guy. Tell me how regime change is affected here? How does it get accomplished without land forces entering Tehran, a city of 10 million, and other cities in the country? There are 92 million Iranians. What if they rise up against US forces? Then what?
I don’t think it is necessary to kill even one million Iranians to accomplish regime change — as it is the regime only which needs to change its modus operandi. Once its hands are cuffed, they will have no recourse. But Battle of Vienna is apt. Preventing Iran from funding proxies is key. Preventing immigration and colonization of the European countries by jihadis is what is at stake.
How is one so sure Iran would fire a nuke if they had one? How can we be so sure Israel won’t fire one? Hannah Arendt was correct in saying we have lost the ability to think for ourselves, doing so would shatters someone view of the world and war.
Michael Oren, I thought you were were intelligent. Here’s a tip… when Trump is talking, whatever he is saying is somewhere between making sh*t up and outright lies. Get real.
This may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to halt the advance of Jihadism against Western civilization, akin to the Battle of Vienna in 1683. There is no compromising with this existential threat. Either we completely eliminate the threat now, or we will suffer an ignominious defeat for generations, even centuries.
This may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to halt the advance of Jihadism against Western civilization!
Let’s hope it’s not the needle in haystack Gaza was/is — trying to find peace partners. I can only hope I just haven’t been read in. Or am I out of the loop?
B2 bombers sure would help👍🇮🇱🇺🇲
What a terrible tragic mistake it would be to end this battle prematurely.
I'm naturally paranoid but those China and Russia countries shouldn't be smuggling missiles into Iran 🤔🙃
One of my favorite moments of the previous IAF battles was when they turned around a plane from Iran from landing in Lebanon. How much more difficult to stop the more advanced China and Russia from landing in the vastness of Iran. But perhaps it could be /is being done.
Thanks for the excellent post. I posted a somewhat lengthy piece on X (@provoter) yesterday that is very much along the lines you lay out here, except instead of focusing on the Israel angle I focused on why it makes sense for the US and Pres Trump, from both a national security and a political standpoint, to keep going until the job is properly finished. My assumption is no one will really care to read it, but I'm dropping it here anyway just for the heck of it, and I thank you in advance for the privilege.
----------------------------------------------------------------
I realize the troops currently being flown to Israel and Jordan are being sent to do their blessed dirty work in Iran if such work becomes necessary, and I think it will be great if their deployment is in part also meant to see if the credible threat of their mere presence can help intimidate the murderous Islamic Regime into a deal that amounts to an effective end to it.
That said, and while the conservative bet is that I’m worrying for nothing, I do carry this persistent fear the regime may be scared only into suing for what would amount to something less than a lasting and certain peace and that we cave in and needlessly accept what should be an unacceptable offer. Apart from the humanitarian disaster it would be for the Iranian people, it would also be, compared to a more complete victory, horrendous politics at home and disastrous geopolitics abroad. Perhaps not immediately but soon enough to make us badly regret not doing more.
A few weeks more of higher gas prices will swiftly become yesterday’s news if the Iranian terror regime as we’ve known it the past 47 years is effectively no more and gas prices begin to head down, and the political credit for such a clear and righteous victory will produce massive MAGA tailwinds going into the midterms and even into 2028.
In stark contrast, leaving the regime mostly intact and just mowing the terrorist grass, however short, will greatly satisfy neither those who are against the war nor those who rightfully desire a truly tamed Iran and the enormous benefits to America this will bring both short term and long. And make no mistake, such an incomplete victory will not only lessen pro-Trump and pro-Republican energy going into the midterms, but it will also give miles of leeway to TDS forces everywhere, the propaganda media especially, to frame the operation as a grand disappointment.
All they will have to do is focus on the fact that President Trump let the Iranian terror regime stay mostly in place, notwithstanding any pinkie-swear promises they may make to play nice in the future, and then scream loudly that he stabbed the Iranian people in the back by clearly and publicly promising them a chance to take back their country while instead leaving them to the tender mercies of their murderous and vengeful government thugs. As a result of all this, the prospects for MAGA candidates at all levels of government, and any MAGA agenda along with them, will be far less advantaged in the next one or two election cycles compared to a scenario of a more complete victory.
If you’re terrified at the prospect of a 2029 Democrat-controlled DC that nukes the filibuster, packs the Court, gives citizenship to a bazillion illegals and further warps the election laws to lock in one-party rule and ever more Great Replacement, then a proper understanding of the politics of leaving the tyrants in power and the citizens at their mercy will lead you to root hard for something more than such a minimum victory.
As for the geopolitics, for the most rational of reasons nearly all the key middle eastern players want a complete victory at this point, and both they and the rest of the world will see it as a tremendous show of American weakness if we go wobbly now and needlessly grant a heckler's veto to nose-ringed TDS leftists and a tiny handful of vocal but seriously unserious isolationists ostensibly on the right.
On the other hand, showing the stones to effectively end the Iranian cancer and leave the region to do business and politics in an environment of far more tranquility than now will strengthen our status and influence in the mideast in ways that should advantage US interests tremendously for the foreseeable future. Even incomplete victory will produce some of this, for sure, but not nearly as much as something more complete.
Finally, lest one think I’m some psycho interventionist on this, when I say "complete victory" it absolutely leaves open the option of something similar to Venezuela – i.e., letting some current regime official serve as interim leader so as to maintain basic order – as long as it includes a verifiable dismantling of the domestic terror apparatus and a release of all political prisoners. In no way am I cheering for any sort of boots-on-the-ground nation-building, a thing recent history has taught me very clearly to fear and to loathe. If the Iranian people can for the most part breathe free, speak free, dress free, pray free, etc., then that is easily complete victory enough, even without any proper democracy at the national level.
And why is that victory enough? Because in such a situation I can't imagine we wouldn't at the same time do what is necessary to keep any new government on the straight and narrow as far as its becoming a threat to the region and to us. In other words, there is simply no way President Trump will tell the mullahs they have to free the people and the prisoners but they can keep their nuke program, their missiles, their terror proxies and their control over the Strait. Agreed?
Given all this, what would there be not to like?
After all these years we finally have it well within our power to get the job in Iran done right, and with sufficient political patience we retain the option of keeping risks so low that it is not pie in the sky to say the effort could very well result in not a single more US combat death. I sorely hope we don't cave in now and seize relative defeat from the jaws of a complete, pro-MAGA, pro-US and pro-peace victory.
Permission for israel to continue working on all that in Iran and a recognition of the litani border situation with Hezbollah — is also a lot. And a good result … interim result?
Speaking of a "different reality", what are you smoking Brad?
Strong response. Did you think of that all on your own?
Speaking of thinking… what are your thoughts as to the fate of 90 million Iranians after the don’t-call-it-a-war? Maybe some forethought might have been useful before disrupting the global economy. What happened to the regime change to something more compatible with the rest of the world? Is tiny little Israel going to forcefully occupy Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, and Iran? Who’s going to pick up the tab for all of this?
Iran needs to be strangled economically until all their militaristic capabilities are fully degraded
They don’t care. They murder their own citizens and are filled with an apocalyptic ideology. You think they care about what Trump says?
Of course. They need to know whether to get out of Dodge. But I don’t think they have anywhere to go. Not really.
In their minds they have somewhere to go...join Allah in martyrdom.
Good luck getting our narcisistic sociopath to understand anything beyond HIS OWN IMMEDIATE NEEDS OR WHIMS. He does not understand why he is doing this nor does he have a coherent explanation for any benefit to the United States. It is just expert targetry without any strategy and is doomed to fail.
Already he and Netanyahu have managed to galvanize Iranians behind the regime -- both the true believers and those who just wanted to live quietly. The opposition has disappeared below the parapets. Because they realize if they rise up they get killed. They now know that Trump and Netanyahu lied about coming to help them.
Bibi inveigled Donny Dodo into doing this because he thought it would aid Israel. Donny did it because he thought he could strut on the world stage as a tough guy and get HIS HANDS on some more mineral wealth. They both miscalculated. Trump has zero interest in Jews, Israel or Israelis ... except as a path to more money.
TDS and BDS. A tragic case.
Why on earth do people like this even spend time on a Michael Oren substack? I mean, it does make for some good comedy for the rest of us, so I guess there's that, but I'm thinking that isn't her actual purpose.
My thoughts exactly. The derangement syndrome coupled with conspiracies is painful to read though - why even bother here??
You are drinking the cool aid and your brain went POOF!!!
I haven’t seen this galvanization— here or there. But my sources are not pervasive. What I have seen
Love the CAPS 🤣
Michael: what is the best charity to support Israeli families directly harmed by the Iran War. Can you send us a link? My family feels their suffering and deeply appreciates their sacrifice. May God bless and protect them.
America will never survive the "Likud"......
If You Say So.
"Likud" means to consolidate;....think W.Bank and now Gaza....
I was thinking (never a good idea!) The Likud Party.
I doubt that the US would be willing to give up any B2s until it has a fleet of its successor planes the B21 in place. The B21 is an evolution of the B2. It is also a flying wing. The Better idea is for Israel to buy B21s which are in production and will be operational in about a year and a half. I doubt that the USAF would be willing to sell B21s until they have replaced all 19 B2s and all 45 B1s. I think that won't be until 2030 at the earliest.
The B2 is also a hangar queen. I am not sure they are worth acquiring.
Isn’t the B2 the bunker buster ? What took several synchronized sorties of IAF to reach Nasrallah, B2 does in one, no?
The GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator is a 30,000-pound precision-guided weapon, that can penetrate approximately 130 feet of rock, or 25 feet of high-strength, reinforced concrete. It is typically deployed by the B-2 bomber, although it can also be dropped by a C-130 cargo plane.
The B2 is being retired and will be replaced by the B21. I do not think the Pentagon has disclosed whether the B21 will be able to carry the GBU-57. I hope that the US would not spend 200 Billion dollars on this project if it did not have that capability.
Let Israel, Arabs and the Gulf States handle it. It’s their neighborhood. We give Israel more than enough funding. It has a formidable army.
Battle of Vienna? Give me a break. You think a cluster of radical Jihadis is going to defeat western Civilization?
You want to kill millions of Iranian citizens? Because that’s what it will take
Israel would love to go it alone if necessary. The problem being pointed out is that the relationship with the US effectively requires US permission and materiel.
As for needing to kill millions of Iranian citizens to get the job done, this is just one more example of the problem with how potent THC products have gotten these days. Pull back a bit from the bong or the edibles or whatever's clouding your brain and you'll start seeing things a lot more clearly.
Kiss my ass. I covered five presidents in my career as a journalist, including this guy. Tell me how regime change is affected here? How does it get accomplished without land forces entering Tehran, a city of 10 million, and other cities in the country? There are 92 million Iranians. What if they rise up against US forces? Then what?
Only at most 1% support the regime. Or do you have another stat?
I don’t think it is necessary to kill even one million Iranians to accomplish regime change — as it is the regime only which needs to change its modus operandi. Once its hands are cuffed, they will have no recourse. But Battle of Vienna is apt. Preventing Iran from funding proxies is key. Preventing immigration and colonization of the European countries by jihadis is what is at stake.
Especially once Iran is weakened or even collapsed
Michael Oren worth a listen
Not impressed with many of the comments….
How is one so sure Iran would fire a nuke if they had one? How can we be so sure Israel won’t fire one? Hannah Arendt was correct in saying we have lost the ability to think for ourselves, doing so would shatters someone view of the world and war.
Michael Oren, I thought you were were intelligent. Here’s a tip… when Trump is talking, whatever he is saying is somewhere between making sh*t up and outright lies. Get real.