One of the foibles of publishing in print is that you can write stuff that becomes irrelevant once the paper comes out.
Take this week, for example.
President Trump has warned that Iran will “lose every power plant and every other plant they have in the whole country” and “every bridge will be decimated” if they do not agree to open the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday night.
Guess what? We go to press Tuesday morning.
Which means that by the time you read this, it’s possible that all hell will have broken loose … or not. This is Trump, after all.
But because the war in Iran seems to be on everyone’s lips, I feel compelled to weigh in.
So, what can I add to the conversation that will be relevant regardless of what happens with the showdown Tuesday night?
Maybe I can fill in a few gaps.
As I see it, the biggest gap is that if you follow the mainstream media, the Iran War looks like the biggest military blunder since Napoleon tried to invade Russia.
Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of good reasons to critique the war, from the sloppy way it was launched to objectives that kept changing to alienating our allies to not involving Congress to not anticipating the resilience of the enemy … I can go on.
But I’m not talking about critiques. I’m talking about a brazen, politicized assault from the anti-Republican Industrial Complex that seems to revel in American losses. Indeed, if America losing means the Democrats retake Congress in the midterm elections, well, you know what they say about breaking a few eggs to make an omelet.
Thus, instead of balanced reporting, criticism has been magnified beyond all proportion. Toughness from Iran and mistakes from the U.S. are just signs that America is losing. People who loathe Trump want to drown him in a never-ending mess of his own making that will send Republicans packing in the fall.
If I wasn’t so acutely aware of how politicized our country has become, I wouldn’t show this much cynicism. But I would also be dishonest. I owe you the truth as I see it.
When political warfare becomes a religion, the truth becomes optional. And in a war with such high political stakes, the partisans have shown only the truth that helps their team.
What have they not shown, or at best shown reluctantly?
Oh, only that an evil regime is getting severely weakened, and why that is very good for the world.
“The fall of the Islamic Republic would be an epochal development. The United States and Israel are methodically paving the way for such an event,” Noah Rothman writes in National Review Online. “If they succeed, a better world awaits all of us. Whatever setbacks American and Israeli forces experienced in the pursuit of that outcome will be seen through posterity’s lens as a small price to have paid.
“But even if the regime does not collapse, its offensive capabilities have been degraded and its value to the anti-American axis is far more limited than it was on Feb. 27. Whichever way you look at it, the U.S. and Israel are advancing their interests and strengthening international security.”
That side of the truth may be inconvenient to political partisans, but it’s deeply irresponsible to exclude it.
You could despise Trump and believe he has bungled every aspect of this war and still recognize the immense value of degrading the threat of a genocidal regime that is rabidly anti-American.
You could despise Trump and still root for America to win, even if it won’t help your political team.
Just as we all rooted for the success of the daring mission that rescued the U.S. airman, we ought to find a place in our political hearts to root for the only team that should count — our country.
That is relevant regardless of what happens after we go to press.
