Welcome to June 14, 2026, shabbos for gentile cats (remember that the Sabbath was made for cats, not cats for the Sabbath), and National Strawberry Shortcake Day. I don’t have a photo, but here’s a substitute: a strawberry shave ice from Hawaii, photographed in 2019. Shave ice, in all its various forms, is one of the epicurean delights of the islands.
It’s also Army’s Birthday (“on June 14, 1775, the American Continental Army formed, in order to present a unified opposition against Britain”), Flag Day, International Bath Day (my father hated them, saying, “who wants to sit in their own schmutz?”; and so I, his son, take only showers), International Feta Day, National Bourbon Day, National Cucumber Day, and World Blood Donor Day.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 14 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
Big news for basketball fans. The New York Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 in the NBA finals, taking their first championship in 53 years. (The Knicks won four games to one in a seven-game series.)
At long last, the New York Knicks are NBA champions.
In a Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Saturday night that looked much like the previous four, the San Antonio Spurs took a double-digit lead in the first quarter. But like in three of the previous four games, the Knicks rallied — this time from a 16-point deficit — to secure a 94-90 Game 5 win and a 4-1 series victory.
Jalen Brunson led the way with a legacy-securing 45-point effort as New York‘s only reliable source of offense on a night when both teams struggled from the field. But for New York, the win didn’t have to be pretty. The result is the franchise’s first NBA championship since 1973. And Brunson has secured his place among New York’s sporting greats.
Here are the last few minutes of the game. New York is going wild.
*There are several reports that a peace deal between the U.S. and Iran is close. First from the Times of Israel:
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif says that the United States and Iran have agreed to a framework for a peace deal that would end the months-long conflict in the Middle East, with a final text of the deal reached.
Pakistan is now preparing for an electronic signing expected within the next 24 hours, followed by technical-level talks next week, Sharif added.
Mediators have said they are close to completing an agreement that reopens the strait and relieves restrictions associated with the U.S. blockade of Iran, leaving other issues, including Iran’s nuclear program and the unfreezing of Iranian assets abroad, to be negotiated later.
“There’s lots of ways Iran can just buy time,” said William Wechsler, the director of Middle East programs at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank, and a former Defense Department official. “It’s in their interest, and it will continue to be the pattern.”
A turning point in the past week of drama came on Wednesday when a Qatari delegation of diplomats returned from a trip to Tehran with new language for the draft peace agreement, people familiar with the matter said. Pakistani officials convinced Trump that a deal was close at hand, U.S. officials said, and he called off strikes that he had promised for that evening.
Gaps remain between the Iranian and American positions, though, a Qatari official said, on Iran’s billions of dollars in frozen assets, control of the strait and the disposal of Iran’s highly enriched uranium. Iran continued to push for early access to its frozen funds, people familiar with the matter said.
Trump was frustrated when text purporting to be from the final agreement—and which was friendly to the Iranian position—was leaked, U.S. officials said. He instructed his team to push back on the narrative that the deal would be weak or that Iran would receive funds before fulfilling its commitments.
From the NYT:
In the course of this war, Iran has gone from appearing weak and defenseless to a regime not only surviving, but also retaining important military and nuclear abilities. Iran’s extensive security apparatus seems firmly in control of all aspects of governing, society and foreign policy.
Iran is now led by “a younger, more brazen generation in power,” said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, in what Aaron David Miller, a former American diplomat at the Carnegie Endowment, called “a transition from divine power to hard power.”
Let’s face it: as it looks now, even if you were for to the war with Iran, the U.S. is losing the war. There are 60 days for further negotiations, and that will entail even more waffling about what to do with enriched uranium. It’s not clear whether the Straits of Hormuz will be free and open, and how many of its frozen assets Iran will get back. And what about Israel in Lebanon? At least the Israelis, I think, will not accept any stipulations that they stop fighting Hezbollah and withdraw from southern Lebanon. It’s an ungodly mess, and I predict an acceptable cease-fire won’t be signed in the coming week.
*Trump has just suffered four losses in court. Here they are with links to the NYT articles:
- Workers began taking down President Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center’s facade after a judge’s order.
- The Trump administration said it would comply with a court order to restart processing asylum and other immigration applications
- A judge prevented the Trump administration from removing signs from National Parks that Trumpies consider offensive; the judge said the Administration was engaging in “censorship”.
- A federal judge indefinitely banned the creation of the president’s $1.8 billion payout fund, citing mixed messages from the administration about the fund’s future.
A couple of paras from each:
Trump’s name off the Kennedy Center:
After a night of storms, both political and meteorological, workers removed President Trump’s name from the white marble facade of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts early on Saturday morning, responding to a federal judge’s ruling that its rebranding was unlawful.
The letters began coming down just past 3 a.m., after the center was granted an extension of a midnight deadline. Matt Floca, the center’s executive director, attributed the delay to a cluster of summer storms. On Saturday morning, he filed a sworn declaration with the court confirming that Mr. Trump’s name had been removed.
Restarting immigration procedures:
The Trump administration said on Friday that it would comply with a court order to restart processing asylum and other immigration applications filed by a broad swath of people who had been left in legal limbo for months.
The move comes after a federal judge in Rhode Island last week struck down a suite of policies imposed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a major blow to the administration’s expanding efforts to restrict legal immigration. The policies included a global hold on asylum applications filed with the agency and a freeze on immigration applications filed by people from 39 countries, largely in Africa and the Middle East, that are subject to President Trump’s travel ban.
More than a million applications had ground to a halt as a result, preventing many people from obtaining green cards, citizenship and other immigration benefits. The halt also disrupted people’s ability to legally work and left them waiting indefinitely for decisions on their applications.
National Park signs:
A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the National Park Service from removing or revising signs, films and other materials at national parks across the country to comply with a directive from President Trump.
The ruling pauses enforcement of an executive order that called for removing or covering up materials at national parks that “inappropriately disparage Americans” or cast the United States “in a negative light.”
To comply with the president’s directive, the Park Service has taken down plaques about slavery at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, a sign about climate change at Fort Sumter in South Carolina and a sign about Indigenous people at Acadia National Park in Maine.
Trump’s payoff fund:
A federal judge on Friday barred the Trump administration until further notice from setting up a $1.8 billion fund to compensate people claiming to have been unfairly prosecuted by the government, saying that her order was needed because of mixed messages about the scheme from President Trump.
The ruling by the judge, Leonie M. Brinkema, was the strongest effort to date by anyone in government to hold the administration to its word that the proposal to create the fund had actually been set aside. While Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, told Congress last week that the fund would not move forward, Mr. Trump has been much more circumspect, insisting that he still loves the idea and believes that people who suffered in court at the hands of the government should get financial compensation.
*The National Review reports that NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants to provide $65 million in “gender-affirming care” to the people of his city.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is looking to make good on his campaign promise to invest $65 million in taxpayer funds toward expanding access to “gender-affirming care” in the Big Apple.
“As a first step, my administration has made a $15 million investment in gender-affirming care over the next two years, and we will continue to use every tool at our disposal to make sure every trans and gender non-conforming New Yorker can live with the dignity, safety and freedom they deserve,” Mamdani said at a Pride month celebration Tuesday. “The threats will continue and so will our relentless protection of trans people across this city.”
Despite efforts from the Trump administration to keep taxpayer dollars from funding gender-transition services, the mayor and his administration are doubling down on their attempts to fund these procedures — and even looking for ways to circumvent the president’s restrictions on gender-transition treatments for minors.
NYC Health Commissioner Dr. Alister Martin recently spoke at a City Council health budget hearing where he made public the city’s desire to endorse these procedures for gender-confused youth without getting caught in the crossfire of the federal government.
“We are committed to this issue and want to make sure that we provide the services and resources for youth as well as making sure that we don’t expose ourselves to clawbacks from the federal government, which disrupt the rest of the care that we can give,” Martin said.
Two major city hospital systems, NYU Langone Health and Mount Sinai Health, shuttered their youth transgender programs amid concerns over threatened federal funding. The Mamdani administration, however, seems committed to maintaining access to the controversial treatments for the city’s youth.
. . . The city, through the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, plans to open a “gender-affirming care clinic” in Corona, a neighborhood in Queens. Martin said this is “one of the first times that the public health department has ever taken that step.”
The department has told other media outlets that it will only offer treatments to patients that are at least 19 years of age, in order to avoid running afoul of the Trump administration’s mandates. However, the department did not immediately return National Review‘s request for comment regarding the timeline on the opening of the clinic and if it will serve minors, in light of the mayor’s comments.
The whole concept of “gender-affirming care”, rather than objective assessment rather than gung-ho treadmill through therapy to hormones and/or surgery, is misguided, and has been abandoned in other countries. The “19-and-above” stipulation is a good standard for hormones and surgery, but I’m betting the city won’t adhere to it. Care for dysphoria, yes; affirmative care, no way. This seems to be more performative wokeness by the mayor, but, hey, people who voted for him had an idea of what they were getting.
*The Democrats have finally admitted that yes, Graham Platner has his problems, but that hesitating to vote for him is “purity politics” that is not needed in the drive to limit Trump’s reach.
“Look who’s in the White House,” said Abigail Woods, a 37-year-old city councillor in Biddeford. “Purity politics don’t get us anywhere.”
Democrat Graham Platner, an oyster farmer and veteran, faces Republican Sen. Susan Collins in the fall, and winning the blue state is crucial to Democrats’ uphill battle to retake the Senate. Platner won his party’s nomination in the state’s primary Tuesday, easily overcoming a small protest vote for Gov. Janet Mills (D), who suspended her campaign in April.
Platner has weathered reports that he sent sexually explicit texts to multiple women while married and had volatile relationships with women in the past. He also faced questions over a Nazi-linked tattoo he said he mistakenly got while serving in the military and has now covered up, and over deleted social media posts in which he insulted rural Mainers and police officers and downplayed the seriousness of sexual assault. Platner has disavowed the posts, saying that when he made them he was suffering from untreated post-traumatic stress disorder after multiple tours in Iraq as a Marine.
The controversies have opened up a debate among Democrats about how much matters of personal character should count after a decade when they’ve decried the thrice-divorced Trump’s personal failings, with little result. Before he won reelection, Trump was held liable for sexual abuse in a civil case in New York. (He denied the charge and has never been criminally charged with sexual assault.)
Some Democratic voters in the Trump era are not impressed by lesser scandals and don’t want to play by a different set of rules than the opposition.
Joan Brown, 77, who lives in Skowhegan, was disappointed by Platner’s texts, but she said they weren’t a dealbreaker for her.
“Is this the first man in civilization who’s ever been a pig?” she asked.
Senate Democrats’ decision to let a key surveillance authority lapse comes as they are increasingly emboldened in their legislative fights against President Donald Trump, blocking even traditionally bipartisan bills as they push back against his policies and personnel.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the feud between Hili and Kulka continues, and it will last forever. Hili is at bottom right here.
Hili: Don’t even think about coming over here.
Kulka: I’m going in the opposite direction.
Hili: Nawet nie próbuj do mnie podchodzić.Kulka: Przecież idę w inną stronę.
*******************
From Stacy, who agrees that this is an outrage:
Another great letter from TherionArms:
From Cheryl’s Amazingly Positive, No Politics Allowed, Interesting People Group:
From JKR, and yes, the guy is uttering complete and utter bullshit? What is “THE PLAN” and who is this guy. It doesn’t matter for assessing his BS-emission, though.
Every single person who still cringes at the memory of trying to bullshit their way through an interview or exam question: today, the slate is wiped clean. Set down your burden of shame. Nothing – nothing, I say – could touch this. pic.twitter.com/n0hSdThavw
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 12, 2026
From Luana, who says that with near certainty Hunter Biden’s post was posted with AI. I’m starting to recognize this style, which I often see on Facebook posts:
To everyone so eager to cancel someone for a tattoo they got at age 22, a drunk text, a selfie they took in the middle of a mental health crisis:
Show us your laptop.
Show us your iCloud.
Open your entire digital life to your worst enemy. No context. No filter. No explanation.…— Hunter Biden (@HunterBiden) June 12, 2026
From Captain Ella (really a Lieutenant Colonel now), who sees the World Cup through the focus of Iran:
English translation from the Arabic:
From the field to the goal… the Defense Army deserves the World Cup rightfully after crushing the heads of terrorism and crime. For no goal is too difficult for us, and no net too far.
من الميدان إلى المرمى…جيش الدفاع يستحق كأس العالم بجدارة بعد سحق رؤوس الإرهاب والجريمة. فلا هدف يصعب علينا، ولا مرمى بعيد pic.twitter.com/8XxUfCcpXa
— Lieutenant Colonel Ella Waweya | إيلا واوية (@CaptainElla1) June 11, 2026
How did I miss that David Hockney died? I learned it from Larry the Cat, who shows one of Hockney’s paintings (an obituary is here):
Rest in peace David Hockney xhttps://t.co/ev7D7ifNV2 pic.twitter.com/XSFztCcJtX
— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) June 12, 2026
One from my feed, showing evolved antipredator behavior. Sound up to hear the call:
When a mother boar senses danger, she issues a sharp, specific vocalization. The piglets react instantly by dropping flat and staying perfectly still
Watch this
📹Drakis pic.twitter.com/P4MffvuxCA
— Science girl (@sciencegirl) June 13, 2026
And one I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
This French Jewish boy was gassed as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He was three years old, and would be 87 today had he lived. https://t.co/CLsYQ8MIhe
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) June 14, 2026
Two posts from Matthew in Switzerland, both showing the Matterhorn. First morning, then night:
Matterhorn in the morning
— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-06-13T05:38:47.471Z
Matterhorn at night.
— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-06-12T20:54:41.124Z
T***p’s name is off of the Kennedy center, though it seems that they are not removing the tarps so we can see the facade any time soon. I wonder what will be done to repair the residual damage from the attachments.
In the end, the biggest crime in this entire thing isn’t the hubris, it is the embarrassingly poor execution of the job. The poor kerning; the visible mismatch in typeface. It is as if the effort wasn’t there from the start. I am so glad it is gone.
There was a celebratory atmosphere around the scaffolding while the deed was being done.
I remember thinking that it’s clearly temporary—almost amateurish—and that it will be scrubbed when the next Democratic President takes office. I was wrong. It didn’t last even that long!
(This is my last comment on the news of the day. The Roolz are glaring at me.)
You say at the beginning that the Spurs won, but the Knicks did?
Oh dear, I’ll fix that pronto. Thanks!
Hi Jerry, You got this one backwards: “The San Antonio Spurs beat the New York Knicks 94-90 in the NBA finals,”
It’s fixed. See above.
There is a straight forward interview from amanda with ToI correspondent Lazar on the possible Iran deal in 20-minute video this morning. Pretty depressing, but where did people think that the dynamic duo of trump and bibi would end up anyway? Url should be
And while I am happy knicks won over the texas team…in the old nfl spirit of i pull for the redskins and anybody who plays against dallas…i tried watching both game 3 and last night’s game for awhile but left because i could not see how this version of basketball was anything like what i played as a kid or even watched through the 70’s. Fouls? Walking? It all seemed pretty nihilistic to me. You kids get off my lawn!
Thank you for today’s TOI Daily Briefing, Jim, which is always excellent. I’ve queued it up for when I’m on the cardio machine later this morning.
Strange as it may seem, while I read the AP, UPI, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, NewsNation, Radio Free Europe, CNN, Reuters, and all the other MSM web sites—except for the beyond-the-pale BBC—I often find the most straightforward and informative coverage is at the Times of Israel web site. Yes, it’s focused on Israel, but I never feel like I’m being manipulated.
Thanks for the video.
Also here’s an article about the former terrorist now leader of the IRGC. Very hardline and not always in agreement with the other officials.
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/the-iranian-enforcer-driving-tehrans-hard-bargaining-with-the-u-s-b848e67c
Yes. His description reminds me of the Mufta who over-ruled all the other arab delegates at one of the peace opportunities many years ago, deep-sixing perhaps the one opportunity to change the course of events into a two-state partitioned solution. Cannot recall which year that was. But hardliners do seem to carry the day over there.
Well, the Mufti of Jerusalem (Haj Amin el-Husseini) also overruled the Palestinian clans (and every thing depends on clans in Palestinian society) by simply killing off his rivals. This tradition continues today in Gaza, where Ηamas consolidated its power by throwing rivals off rooftops following Israeli withdrawal. Currently, Hamas is re-establishing itself in power by doing the same, without rooftops. And the West is silent about the butchery currently happening in Gaza: after all, Israelis are not involved.
Meanwhile, this current “deal” looks very bad for Israel. I am not sure how it will turn out, because Trump is so mercurial. But meanwhile, the situation from here looks very bad. We will keep our shelters ready. As well as the IDF, needless to say.
I will take the hit on da roolz violation (</= 10%) for one final comment because I think it important to thank you, starwolf, for the boots on the ground information. Your comments are always valuable for me. Stay safe, please.
So we are close to agreeing to a framework of continued negotiations with Iran (again). I’m reminded of the prolonged Paris Peace talks the USA had with North Vietnam, which extended from May 1968 to January 1973. Note that Trump, Hegseth, and Rubio remind us how long other wars like WWII took as some attempt to justify what is happening with Iran.
I’m reminded that Heinz Kissinger referred to North Vietnam as “a fourth-rate country.”
Just reading PCC(E)’s derring do with the ducks yesterday. Boy.
I’ve started to go back to the local park to feed the pigeons here, with puppy, but I doubt I’d have the emotional resilience for such an adventure as Botany Pond.
“And we could be heroes,
Just for one day.”
– Bowie
D.A.
NYC 🗽
I’ve never seen NY in such a mood as last night.
For days everybody who has them were wearing Knicks shirts and various buildings lit up for them.
It was warm and looking down from my balcony on the Avenue after 10pm there were THOUSANDS of people, walking, running, yelling, dancing north (to Times Square, presumably?).
It was mass ecstasy.
Love this city!
D.A.
NYC 🗽
I trust that no one’s enthusiasm extended to jumping up and down on cars belong to someone else and otherwise leading to arrest.
Ha ha. I think you’ll have to explain to everyone outside New York City what “knicks” are, David.
Just a reminder that the Administration will be appealing every one of those decisions. The ruling on signage in National Parks is particularly stupid. The Federal government set up the signs, and so changing them is censorship of. . . itself?
Nice to see that the Dem party is now more understanding of human foibles. I guess “Me, too” is dead? And Nazi salutes won’t be an issue? It’s pretty clear that these were never moral standards, but merely political tactics.
I think the Democrats realize that following moral standards (as when they ousted Al Franken) makes little sense when the other side has no morals.
And practicing democracy makes no sense if the other side doesn’t. 🙁
But practicing hypocrisy usually does make sense, regardless of what the other side does. 🙁
I wonder what is meant by Luana’s statement that “with near certainty Hunter Biden’s post was posted with AI.” Does this mean that AI wrote it, or somehow assisted his writing of this post?
From what I’ve seen of Hunter’s posts, they are in a consistent style, whether written or spoken. They are full of AA-style wording, which makes sense giving his apparent journey.
Here’s another paragraph from the same post:
“My mom and baby sister were killed in a car accident when I was just a kid. Cancer took my brother Beau, my best friend and my rock. I battled alcoholism. I battled addiction. I chose the coward’s way out more times than I can count.”
I suppose AI could have written this, but I don’t see the evidence for Hunter doing so.
Hit Ted’s Montana Grill for a towering strawberry shortcake 🙂
Looking at the English-language Israeli news sites—the Times of Israel, Jerusalem Post, Ynet Global, I24 News, etc.—the Israelis are very worried that the “deal” (which may be more of an agreed-upon plan for a plan) will leave them in a bad way—with the regime still intact and eventually able to reconstitute its various programs that threaten Israel. They are grateful for what the U.S. has done, but wanted more and were not happy that the U.S. has forced them to use restraint.
Clearly, American and Israeli interests, while aligned, are not the same. It’s the difference between living in the same neighborhood and being thousands of miles and an ocean away. It’s also the difference between a constituency (in the U.S.) that views its well-being in the form of cheap gasoline and one (in Israel) that views its well-being in the form of whether their bomb shelters are robust enough.
All we can do is wait and see. We don’t even know the terms of the agreement yet, although there are many hints and leaks.
I wonder how many high school and college students have been motivated by the Iran “war” to sign up for the military to possibly go in harm’s way (as opposed to being motivated to sign up because they have no other prospects). I don’t suppose the “Epstein class” views its well-being through the prism of cheap gasoline or the price of groceries.
I copied the below statement from google AI. I asked: has US military enrollment increased since the war with Iran?
Yes, military enrollment has surged significantly, driven by a combination of pre-engineered recruitment campaigns, financial incentives, and a patriotic response to the war with Iran. All active-duty branches met or exceeded their goals, reversing years of previous deficits.
International Bath Day (my father hated them, saying, “who wants to sit in their own schmutz?”; and so I, his son, take only showers).
This is such a wonderfully written line (perfect use of ‘only’!) and it conveys so much. I hope that one day, my own son writes something like this about me…..
Of course Mamdani wants to neuter the infidels. No surprises there!
The tone of the NYT article reminds me how viscerally some Americans want their country to lose the war against Iran because it will inflict a grievous personal wound on President Trump. I suppose the reasoning is that since “Trump isn’t my President”, America’s failure isn’t “my failure.” Then, too, there are Americans who don’t much like their country all that much no matter who is President and are already gloating in anticipation of diminished American influence against Islam abroad. “We can’t win a war overseas no matter what vital interests might be at stake because public opinion cares only about gasoline prices, so we shouldn’t even try,” is the updated view of Thomas Jefferson. What else could be pressing President Trump to agree to lift the blockade of Iran’s ports, (which is far tighter than Germany’s interdiction of Britain’s convoy system during WW2) in return for a piece of paper with Persian writing on it? The blockade is the one thing that Iran fears because it’s costing them money and doesn’t cost the U.S. any precious lives.
In most countries, war is fought by Executive action (because the Executive knows all the nation’s secrets) with public opinion considered only in terms of the risk of insurrection or general strikes instigated by communists. Allowing public opinion (expressed Constitutionally through the Legislature) to constrain the Executive options for war-fighting seems to be a definite weakness here. Only a President already popular can see a just but difficult cause through to victory without risking impeachment. Or by bringing home an easy win, in which case all is forgiven.
Or maybe Iran’s nuclear ambitions don’t matter all that much and gas prices are all that do. Hey, it’s democracy. We want the President to bend his knee to popular will, don’t we? Ambivalence…..
I would say that those Americans who wish that the US lose the war against Iran fall into two overlapping groups. One is the group that Leslie describes: those who care less for America’s interests than fighting Trump. The other group are those that simply oppose the values that the US represents: call it the West, the enlightenment, scientific thought, etc. (I do not believe that those ideals are represented by Trump. It just so happens that he, by virtue of his position as POTUS, is a figurehead for those who oppose Western values.)
I am not a Trump supporter. However, I do not believe that everything he does is wrong. Stopped clocks and all that. At least he had the cojones to stand up to a terrorist regime, if only temporarily, as it seems at this moment in time. I do not believe that he did this out of ideology, but at least he did it.
A stopped clock is never really “right” though. If you don’t know what time it really is, you can’t ever trust a clock you know is broken. And it only seems right twice a day because the days come and go in twelve clock-hour cycles.
Rather, consider a boy who falls into a canal. (I think this came from Mill, in Utilitarianism.) A passerby, seeing the boy’s predicament, makes a successful effort at considerable risk to himself to save him and is portrayed as a hero in the newspapers. Now it comes out that the passerby knew the boy was the only son of a wealthy banker and saved him in expectation of a large reward from the grateful father, which he in fact got. Do we think less of the rescuer? Probably, but would we have preferred that he not have saved the boy at all, out of pureness of spirit? Or that his mercenary self had not happened on the scene at the crunch time? Even if the rescuer admitted to the newspaper, “I wouldn’t have gone after just any street urchin. Wouldn’t have been worth the risk to me,” that was a counterfactual. In the actual instance, a boy was saved, and a passerby got rewarded. Can he be trusted to do the right thing if a poor boy falls into the canal, or if he the passerby had a prior pressing appointment? No, by his own admission. But statecraft and war-making hew pretty closely to that calculus.
As a commenter said here a few days ago, “[Donald Trump’s 2024 opponent] would never have attacked Iran.” Indeed. Too pure in spirit, I guess.
Or too grounded in reality, risk assessment, etc.
Well, maybe. I am not suggesting that Trump is especially adept at risk assessment. But there are basically 3 types of risk assessment in the military/political world: immediate, short-term, and long term. Obviously, in the immediate sense, Iran did not post a threat to the US. But in the long-term, a nuclear-armed Iran with significant numbers of missiles, and missile programs capable of developing long-range missiles, as well as demonstrating the clear intent to do so, is a real threat to the US and other countries. Especially since they do not disguise the fact that they regard the US as an enemy.
In my opinion, while the interests of the US and Israel may diverge in the immediate time frame, they certainly are the same in the long term. And the difference between short-term and long term is simple: it is determined by the rate of development of missile and nuclear technology. This problem can far more easily be resolved earlier than later. If we learn from history, counties rarely (if ever) do this type of analysis. The US attacking Iran was the rare exception. The hope that the strikes were enough to set Iran back in the long term proved incorrect, and the political pressure on Trump, as well as his mercurial personality, seem to ensure that the US will not have the political will to continue. Of course, I may be wrong about that, time will tell.
No-one has ever accused Trump of over-thinking. I’m quite sure his decision to attack Iran was not based on a close analysis of anything, much less the balance of short and long term strategic risks. It was based on his superpower of not giving a f*** about anything or anyone except his immediately personal interests.
And the military timeframes of immediate / short / long are very different from the usual political timeframes of immediate / until-the-next-election / whenever.