Category: war

Why is the U.S. fighting Iran?

March 4, 2026 • 11:20 am

Several readers astutely mentioned in comments on today’s Hili Dialogue that a primary goal of the American attack on Iran wasn’t to democratize the country, but to remove Iran as a Chinese proxy.  As Haviv Rettig Gur, a journalist who writes for the Times of Israel, argues in the piece given below, a mutualistic relationship between Iran and China has developed, with Iran providing China with cheap oil that allows the People’s Republic to build a strategic petroleum reserve (nobody else will buy that oil), and China providing Iran with missiles and sophisticated weapons to go after Israel and the West. As Gur says:

Iran is to America what Hezbollah is to Israel—the smaller second-front proxy you have to take out to have a clean shot at the main foe later on.

This is also why President Trump seems to be pursuing a strange sort of regime change—something very different from what George W. Bush or the neocons meant by the term. Trump doesn’t care one whit about democratization, or, as Venezuela showed us, about changing any element of a regime that doesn’t stand in America’s way. He’s interested in regime change in Iran only because it is fundamentally, in its founding theology, unswervingly anti-American. It is thus not swayable from the Chinese orbit by any other means.

He doesn’t need a democratic Iran, he just needs a not-anti-American Iran.

Why are we so worried about China? Because, says Gur, a potential conflict with China is in the offing—over Taiwan:

The picture that emerges from all of this is of a Chinese forward base, a linchpin of the country’s naval architecture; cyber efforts; an economic Belt and Road influence program—every element of Chinese power projection and empire-building—positioned at the throat of the global oil supply, armed with weapons designed to penetrate advanced American defenses and kill American sailors, and embedded in a strategic architecture whose explicit purpose is to constrain American military freedom in any future conflict over Taiwan.

When Iran began to look like that, it stopped being Israel’s problem and became America’s.

Click below to read, but only if you have a subscription to TFP.  They don’t allow their articles to be archived.

Gur begins by noting that this is not one war but two: America’s on the one hand and Israel on the other, with Israel having existential worries as opposed to America’s concern with China:

. . . across the world, from Brazil to Beijing, London to Karachi, the argument is the same: America is fighting Israel’s war.

But this isn’t true. And the confusion matters, because if you misread what this war is actually about, you will misread everything that follows.

This is not a war about Israel. This is not a war for Israel’s sake. Israel is a beneficiary, a capable and willing local partner, but it is not the reason America is in this fight. America is playing a much bigger game, about more than what happens in the Middle East. The subtext, that Israel exercises outsize influence or “drags Americans into wars they don’t want,” borders on the conspiratorial.

This isn’t one war, but two. There is a regional chessboard, on which Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the other Gulf states all play. Iran’s proxies, its drones and ballistic missiles, its nuclear ambitions, its funding of Hezbollah and the Houthis: All of that belongs primarily to this smaller game. Israel has always understood this board. So have the Saudis. So has everyone in the neighborhood.

But there is a second chessboard, vastly larger, on which the United States and China are the primary players. On this board, the central question of the next 30 years is being worked out: whether the American-led global order survives, or whether China displaces it. Every significant American foreign policy decision, from the pivot to Asia to the tariff wars to the posture in the Pacific, is ultimately a move on this board.

Of course dodos like me (I never claimed to be a pundit) have missed all this, but Gur gives reasons why the U.S. decided to attack now (remember that China has said it will go after Taiwan within seven years):

. . . Reports emerged in late February of a near-finalized deal to supply Iran with supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles capable of speeds exceeding Mach 3 and engineered to evade the Aegis defense systems deployed on American carrier strike groups. China was replacing Iranian government and military software with closed Chinese systems, hardening Iran against CIA and Mossad cyber operations. Joint naval exercises between China, Russia, and Iran in the Straits of Hormuz were becoming regular events, building real-time operational familiarity between the three navies. Iran had switched from the GPS system to the Chinese BeiDou system. And Iran was providing China with the port at Jask, as part of China’s “string of pearls” base system in the Indian Ocean.

The picture that emerges from all of this is of a Chinese forward base, a linchpin of the country’s naval architecture; cyber efforts; an economic Belt and Road influence program—every element of Chinese power projection and empire-building—positioned at the throat of the global oil supply, armed with weapons designed to penetrate advanced American defenses and kill American sailors, and embedded in a strategic architecture whose explicit purpose is to constrain American military freedom in any future conflict over Taiwan.

Gur adds that the U.S. has had a hard time articulating this, but I can understand why they would not want to, even if that articulation would lessen America’s opposition to the war (more than 50%).  But it wouldn’t, since the American public doesn’t think much about China.

Now the first thing I asked myself why I saw Gur’s thesis was this: What is the evidence that this is the real American strategy?  Here is what counts as evidence:

The Americans went to war together with the Israelis because that’s the best way to fight a war like this. Having a capable and loyal local ally willing to deal damage and absorb blowback lowers the costs to America and increases the chances of success. If America ever finds itself in a kinetic fight with China, it presumably expects Japan and Taiwan and South Korea to play a similar role in the fighting. It’s one hell of an operational advantage.

To Gur, the targets give away Trump’s intentions:

. . .In the first 24 hours of the war, American strikes, as confirmed by U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), focused on Iranian naval vessels, submarines, ports, and anti-ship missile positions along the southern coast. The port of Bandar Abbas, headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, was hit. So was Jask, which China had hoped would become a permanent naval foothold on the Indian Ocean. Isfahan and Tabriz, hubs of ballistic missile production and drone assembly, were struck. The goal, explicitly stated by American officials, was not merely to degrade existing stockpiles but to destroy the industrial base from which those weapons are produced, so that China cannot spend the next few years quietly rebuilding it.

President Trump announced the operation in terms that could not have been more direct, explicitly mentioning all those elements of Iranian power—the navy, the missile production sites—that would serve as that second front in a war with China.

Many of these targets so central to CENTCOM’s efforts are no threat whatsoever to Israel.

So far from China: crickets. It’s been silent and has left Iran hanging. In truth, there’s little that China can do save join the war itself—and it’s clearly not keen to do that. As for Trump’s notable omission of words about freeing the Iranian people, or creating a democracy in Iran, Gur says “He doesn’t need a democratic Iran, he just needs a not-anti-American Iran.” Finally, as to why the U.S. has remained mum about what are supposedly its real goals, Gur says this:

So why can’t Secretary Rubio say it? Why hem and haw and offer half-hearted non-explanations to a question that has set the conservative movement aflame?

One obvious answer: They don’t want to push the Chinese to more overt responses. One should always give one’s enemy an excuse not to respond in kind, on the off chance that they don’t want to. It’s a sensible ambiguity on the world stage, but it’s causing damage at home. It may be time for the administration to speak clearly on its grand strategy—not in policy papers, but in clearly articulated statements that actually answer the good-faith questions of a great many Americans.

America went to war in Iran because Iran made itself a Chinese weapon. It didn’t need to do this, to invest so much of the administration’s political capital and of the military’s firepower, just to shore up a second-run Israeli operation. This isn’t about Israel. Iran has been a growing threat to Israel for decades, and yet Trump has always resisted intervening.

As I said, I’m no pundit, and although this all sounds plausible, it hasn’t convinced me completely. Gur makes a good argument, and one that several readers agree with. Perhaps they’re right, and if so kudos to them. But I’m depressed at the thought that if Gur is right, Trump doesn’t give a fig for freeing the beleaguered Iranian people, or about creating a democratic regime. The Iranian people are hoping for that, and perhaps we’re deceiving them.

And if we ever go to war with China, Ceiling Cat help us all!

Iranian leader Ali Khamenei reported killed

February 28, 2026 • 4:37 pm

This is just a short update on the news, as I presume everyone with an interest in this conflict is following what is happening today. Below is the headline in the NYT; click on the screenshot to read or find the article archived here:

Of coure you wonder how Trump knew that. An excerpt:

President Trump announced on Saturday that the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran had killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the nation’s supreme leader for almost 37 years and an implacable enemy of Israel and the United States, in a potentially seismic political shift in Tehran and the broader region.

“Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel had said earlier that there were “many indications” that Ayatollah Khamenei was dead, but stopped short of making a definitive statement.

There was no immediate confirmation from the Iranian government. Earlier in the day Iranian officials had dismissed such claims as bravado or psychological warfare. Later the ayatollah’s official account on X later posted an image rich with Shia religious symbolism, of a faceless clerical figure holding a flaming sword.

It was not immediately clear which country’s forces had killed Ayatollah Khamenei, but either way, the action exhibited a high degree of coordination between the United States and Israel. Israel’s military said it had targeted a gathering of senior Iranian officials in the opening strikes. Satellite imagery showed a plume of smoke and extensive damage at the supreme leader’s high-security compound.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu both made clear that regime change was a goal of the massive waves of strikes on Iran that began around 1 a.m. local time Saturday.

But it is uncertain whether removing Ayatollah Khamenei, who was 86, would result in significant changes to the system he led, as many people in authority owed their positions to him.

The power to choose a new supreme leader rests with the Assembly of Experts, a conservative body of clerics who, given Ayatollah Khamenei’s age and infirmities, have likely given ample thought to potential successors.

In retaliation for the Israeli-U. S. attack, Iran fired waves of ballistic missiles at Israel, while the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait — all of which host U.S. military bases — said they had come under attack, as did Jordan.

So it is not definitive, but surely Israel has spies in Iran that could provide some confirmation. Eventually Iran will have to announce it.

So far there ha been little damage to the countries Iran attacked, and not one death in Israel.

Will there be regime change? I have no idea; it is foolish to predict such a thing so early in the conflict.  Perhaps the U.S. could find an amenable leader in the current regime to do its bidding, as it has in Venezuela, but that seems unlikely: all the rulers are, as it says, conservative theocrats. And the government has all the soldiers and weapons while the people have none.

Every day will tell a new story, but the critics of the attacks are predictable: most Democrats (save the rogue Fetterman) and the mainstream media (save Bret Stephens at the NYT).  We will know if the attack was a good thing only in retrospect.

U.S. and Israel attack Iran, Trump vowing regime change; Iran fires missiles at Israel and U.S. Mideast bases

February 28, 2026 • 5:30 am

Well, what seemed likely has now happened; here are the headlines in today’s NYT (click headlines to read live feed, article archived here):

Trump’s 8-minute statement, calling for the “elimination of major threats from the Iranian regime”, which endangers the United States troops, our overseas bases, and our “allies throughout the world” (that of course largely means Israel).  He asserts that Iran “can never have a nuclear weapon” and says that, despite negotiations, Iran refused to abandon its nuclear program. He vows to “obliterate” their nuclear program, “annihilate their navy”,  and assure that its proxies can no longer endanger the world.

Importantly, he tells the Iranian people that “the hour of your freedom is at hand”, asking them, when the attack is finished, to “take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be, probably, your only chance for generations. ”

Do listen to it:

A summary of the ongoing news:

The United States and Israel on Saturday launched a major attack on Iran, with President Trump vowing to devastate the country’s military, eliminate its nuclear program and bring about a change in its government.

Large explosions shook the Iranian capital, Tehran, where people reported seeing smoke rising from the district that includes the presidential palace. Witnesses described chaos in the streets as Iranians rushed to seek shelter, find loved ones or flee the city.

The American-led attack appeared to herald a much broader regional crisis. Iranian news media reported that Iran had targeted at least four U.S. military bases across the Persian Gulf — including in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, which said they had come under attack.

Iran also fired multiple waves of ballistic missiles at Israel, prompting booms in the skies as Israeli air defenses sought to repel them. Air-raid sirens sounded across the country, sending Israelis running to fortified shelters.

Mr. Trump vowed that the “massive and ongoing” campaign would target not just Iran’s nuclear program, which was the focus of a U.S. attack last June. Instead, Mr. Trump said the United States would “raze their missile industry to the ground” and “annihilate their navy,” arguing that Iran had refused to reach a deal with the United States that would have averted war.

He then called on Iranians to overthrow their government when the U.S. military assault came to an end. “It will be yours to take,” he said. “This will be probably your only chance for generations.”

Iran’s government vowed “crushing retaliation” against Israel and the United States and said it would not “surrender to their despicable demands.” Internet access in Iran plummeted amid the attack, making communication difficult.

And from the Times of Israel (click for free read):

From the ToI:

After long weeks of escalating regional tensions and burgeoning threats of conflict, Israel and the US launched a major joint strike on Iran on Saturday, with waves of attacks on sites across the Islamic Republic.

Strikes targeted Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian, an Israeli official said. Other top regime and military commanders were also targeted, according to the official. The results of the strikes were not yet clear.

Targets in the campaign also included Iran’s military, symbols of government and intelligence targets, according to an official briefed on the operation, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic information on the attack.

Several senior Revolutionary Guards commanders and political officials were killed in the strikes, an Iranian source close to the establishment told Reuters.

US President Donald Trump announced that the US had begun “major combat operations in Iran,” calling the campaign “a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests.”

US President Donald Trump announced that the US had begun “major combat operations in Iran,” calling the campaign “a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests.”

“We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally… obliterated. We are going to annihilate their navy,” he said in a video statement posted on his Truth Social account. “We are going to ensure that the region’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces.”

Trump indicated that the goal was to topple the regime, and he called on the Iranian people to seize the opportunity and take over their government.

Here are the questions that remain to be answered (my bold; indents from the news). Summaries are as of 5:30 a.m. today:

a.) What is happening to the Iranian people?  The brave people of Iran, many of whom have been killed by the regime in recent protests against the government, are naturally anxious and terrified. They don’t know what is going to happen to their country. From the NYT:

Just as Iranians began their workweek on Saturday morning, U.S. and Israeli strikes sent panicked residents of Tehran into the streets and parents racing back to schools where they had just dropped off their children.

Chaos and uncertainty set in as explosions shook the densely populated city, Iran’s capital, according to witnesses who spoke to The New York Times.

Ali, a businessman from Tehran, said in a text message that he was sitting in his office with many employees when they heard two explosions along with fighter jets streaking over the sky. Employees ran screaming out of the building, he said. He, like several other residents who spoke to The Times, asked not to be identified by his full name because he feared for his safety.

. . .When Israel launched surprise attacks on Iran last June, it targeted mostly military and nuclear sites and strikes in Tehran and assassinated its top military chain of command. The strikes on Saturday appeared far broader, including political targets like the intelligence ministry, the judiciary and the Pasteur gated compound where the president and supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, generally reside, according to residents in the area and local news outlets.

. . . Not all Iranians were angry as they watched the plumes of smoke rising from the blasts, said Arian, a resident of the Ekteban township west of the capital, who said some of his relatives were cheering the strikes. He said he could hear voices outside his building chanting, “Long live the shah,” a reference to Iran’s monarch, who was deposed in the 1979 revolution that brought the Islamic Republic to power.

As warplanes launched strikes across the country, President Trump released a video statement announcing to Iranians that “the hour of your freedom is at hand,” and urging them to rise up gainst the government once the bombing stops.

b.) Did the U.S. strike do substantial damage to Iranian leaders, the Revolutionary Guards, and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei? 

From the Times of Israel:

Channel 12, quoting unnamed Israeli sources, says the palace of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei has been completely destroyed. It says it is not clear whether Khamenei was present. It also says all of Iran’s key leaders were targeted in the strikes so far today.

Which high officials have been eliminated remains to be seen; information out of Iran is thin because there’s an Internet blackout.

From the NYT:

Israel is still assessing its opening strikes, which hit a variety of targets, including figures considered essential personnel in the Iranian war machine, according to an Israeli military official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, in line with army rules. The official refused to elaborate on the identity of those targets. He said that Iran had fired dozens of missiles at Israel so far.

. . . Satellite imagery shows a black plume of smoke and extensive damage at the secure compound of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, in Tehran, though his whereabouts were unclear. The image, taken by Airbus on Saturday morning, shows collapsed buildings at the complex, which typically serves as Mr. Khamenei’s residence and main premises for hosting senior officials.

c.) Where is Iran attacking?  So far, Iranian missiles have been fired at U.S. bases, at Jordan, at the United Arabe Emirates, and of course at Israel.

From the Toi:

An Iranian missile has fallen on a home in Jordan’s capital Amman, state media reports.

Footage published by Arabic media shows flames and smoke rising from the wreckage.

. . . Jordan’s military says its air force is at work to protect the kingdom and its people while the strikes are ongoing. A military official says that two ballistic missiles targeting the kingdom’s territory “were successfully intercepted by Jordanian air defence systems”.

From the NYT:

The Emirati defense ministry said in a statement that it had intercepted a number of Iranian ballistic missiles and that a person in the capital Abu Dhabi had died as a result of falling debris. “The UAE reserves its full right to respond to this escalation and to take all necessary measures to protect its territory, citizens, and residents,” the statement said.

There is not much reports of damage to U.S. military bases or to other Middle Eastern countries, though missiles have been fired at them:

The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, called Iraq’s foreign minister, Fuad Hussein, to inform him that Iran will be targeting U.S. military bases in the region, according to an Iraqi foreign ministry statement published on the ministry’s website. One of those bases is in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region. The Iraqi statement said Mr. Araghchi had “clarified that these attacks were not targeting the countries involved, but were limited to military sites.”

Likewise, Israel is sending civilians to bomb shelters, but not much damage has been reported. From the NYT:

Iran fired a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel, the Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a statement on Telegram.

It also launched missile attacks targeting U.S. military bases in the region, including Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, and the U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, Fars reported.

Qatar’s ministry of defense said that it had “successfully thwarted a number of attacks” targeting its territory. The attack echoed another strike last June, when Iran fired more than a dozen missiles at an American military base near the Qatari capital, Doha, in response to a U.S. attack on its nuclear facilities.

From reader Jay, who’s following the Israel Home Front Command’s warning system. Jay says that “I have now gotten red alerts for every region in Israel I have alerts set for: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Be’er Sheva. Apparently the whole country is under attack by Iranian missiles.”  For example:

d.) How is the world reacting? They are, of course, distressed and worried, calling for the U.S. not to set off a wider war. From the ToI:

Countries in the Middle East and around the world voice fear of a regional conflagration after the United States and Israel launch long-feared strikes on Iran.

Russia calls on its citizens to leave Iran, with former president Dmitry Medvedev saying that talks with the United States had just been a “cover.”

The European Union warns the situation in the region is “perilous” and calls for civilians to be protected in any conflict.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, on X, urges “all parties to exercise restraint,” stressing it is “critical” to “ensure nuclear safety” after the US indicated Iran’s nuclear sites were in its crosshairs.

The EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas announces the withdrawal of the bloc’s non-essential personnel from the region.

The UK government fears the strikes could blow up into a broader Middle East conflict, and urges its citizens in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE to find shelter.

“We do not want to see further escalation into a wider regional conflict,” a government spokesperson says, adding that the UK’s “immediate priority” is the safety of its citizens in the region.

From the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy / Vice-President of the European Commission. Note the beginning which takes Iran to task:

UPDATE from the NYT:

Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada and his foreign minister, Anita Anand, backed the American action. “Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security,” they said in a joint statement.

******

Anthony Albanese, the prime minister of Australia, said his government endorsed the U.S. attacks on Iran. “We support the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent Iran continuing to threaten international peace and security,” he said in a statement. He said Iran has been a “destabilizing force” for decades, and pointed to the two terrorist attacks in 2024 in Australia that the Australian government had said had been directed by an arm of the Iranian military. In one attack, men set fire to a Jewish kosher restaurant, and in another arsonists firebombed a synagogue, injuring one congregant. Australia expelled the Iranian ambassador afterward. (Reporting from Washington)

The reaction of the West is surprisingly mild, and even positive, probably because they, too, have put sanctions on Iran, and are not that unhappy about the prospect of regime change in Iran.

I have been ambivalent about this attack, worried that there would be substantial death to civilians should the U.S. put boots on the ground, which I saw as necessary if the U.S. really wanted regime change.  Perhaps change can be effected without a ground war, but it’s early days now, and we’ll see. I am not sure, either, whether Iranian civilians truly can, in the face of the Iranian military, take over their government.  The Revolutionary Guard has substantial weapons; the Iranian people almost nothing.

I am less worried about Israel, which survived a previous Iranian attack without much damage; the Iron Dome and its successor defenses are good at taking down missiles. But they’re not 100% effective, and there could be substantial loss of life as well as destruction of historic sites.

The world has changed overnight, so stay tuned to the news. The outcome right now is completely unclear.

An excellent book: “Empire of the Summer Moon”

February 1, 2026 • 9:30 am

I never would have selected this book on my own, but fortunately a reader suggested it, and I’m very glad. The book, Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History, by S. C. Gwynne III, is a history of the Native Americans of the Great Plains extending from about 1830 to the beginning of the 20th century. This is the period when all the tribes (the book calls them “Indians”, not “Native Americans”)—and there were many tribes and sub-tribes—came into conflict with Mexicans and with Americans moving West, and we know how that ends.

The history centers on the Comanches, the dominant tribe on the plains, though there was never one hierarchical tribe but a series of sub-tribes that were loosely affiliated as a “nation” and would sometimes join forces or fragment. Gwynne did a great deal of historical research using primary documents, and the result is a informative but mesmerizing tale, one that is hard to put down.

The Comanches were nomads, ranging widely over the Great Plains from Colorado to Texas.  Their “villages” were only temporary, and would be moved (by women, who did the heavy lifting) from place to place during wars or buffalo hunts.  And those were really their two primary activities: killing members of other tribes and killing buffalo, which were then so numerous then that their herds could extend to the horizon.  An important part of Comanche culture was the horse; Comanches were nearly always mounted in war or on the hunt, with horses descended from those brought to the Americas by the Spanish.  As you can see from the photo of a Comanche warrior below, the horses were small, descended from wild mustangs caught and “broken” with great skill.  Comanches also specialized in stealing horses from other tribes and from settlers and the American military. Horses were their riches.

Comanche horsemanship was superb, largely accounting for their success against other tribes and against settlers. They were able, for instance, to ride sideways on the horse’s flank, not visible to enemies on the other side, and shoot arrows (with tremendous accuracy) from below the horse’s neck. Until they managed to get firearms from the settlers and soldiers, they used arrows and lances, and that is how they brought down buffalo.  (The butchering, of course, was done by the women.)

I won’t go into detail about the lives and wars of the Comanche, except to say that the book imparts three lessons about Native Americans on the plains:

First, they did not “own” land or even occupy it. As I said, they were nomadic, and many other Native American tribes, including Apaches, Cherokees, Kickapoos, and Arapaho, roamed the same territory.  This bears on the present-day conflict about repatriating artifacts and human remains to tribes that claim them.  For artifacts or bones found on the Great Plains (and elsewhere, of course) cannot be ascribed to a given tribe without DNA analysis, which is almost never done, or if there are distinctive signs from the artifacts identifying them as belonging to a given group. Since this is rarely possible, it becomes a crapshoot about what to do about repatriating Native American artifacts, most of which now have to be returned to a tribe that claims them before scientists or anthropologists get to study them. Read the books and writings of Elizabeth Weiss to learn more about this conflict.

Second, war was a way of life for the Comanche; they were always at war with one tribe or another—even well before white settlers moved West. The view that all was peaceful among Native Americans until white settlers invaded “Indian” land and displaced the residents is grossly mistaken. Young men were trained for war beginning at five or six, and the youths were skillful with the horse and the bow.  Comanche life without war was unthinkable, and the men prided themselves, and rose in rank in their groups, largely through skill in warfare.  In the end, the Comanches were diminished not because of lack of skill in fighting, but because they were outnumbered by settlers and the Army, because the Army had superior weapons, especially cannons, and because the settlers killed off their main means of subsistence: the buffalo.  The number of Comanche is estimated to have fallen from about 40,000 in 1832 to only 1,171 in 1910.  The book describes many treaties between the Comanche and the U.S. government or its agents, but these treaties were almost always broken by one side or another—or both.

Third, their life was very hard.  They subsisted almost entirely on buffalo, had to weather the brutal cold of the Plains in tipis or on horseback, often went without food or water, and of course almost never bathed. (This was tough on the women, who became covered with blood and guts when skinning buffalo.) But they prided themselves on their toughness and bravery. (women often fought alongside the men). These features were mixed with an almost unimaginable degree of cruelty towards their enemies.  Enemies who were not killed outright were tortured, and in horrible ways: scalping, cutting, and roasting to death slowly.  These acts were considered normal and not immoral, though the white settlers (who were often tortured as captives) saw them as brutal and primitive. But the Comanche were capable of great kindness as well, especially towards other members of their tribe and occasionally towards white women and children who survived battle with the tribes and were “kidnapped’ by them, many becoming, in effect, Comanches themselves.

This brings us to the centerpiece of the story: the abduction of an American woman, Cynthia Ann Parker, in a battle in 1836. She was eight years old. Parker became integrated into the tribe, learned their language (eventually forgetting much of her English) and married a Comanche chief, Peta Nocona. Among their three children was Quanah Parker, who showed tremendous skill, wisdom, and courage as a warrior, and rose through the ranks (despite being half white) to become a chief himself. The story of Quanah is the story of the decline and fall of the Comanches, limned with many battles and culminating in their surrender to American soldiers and sedentary occupation of land on a reservation, where of course they were unhappy. Quanah demonstrated his leadership skills even on the reservation and, through judicious rental of reservation land to settlers for grazing cattle, became wealthy and renowned among both whites and Native Americans. Here’s a photo of Quanah in his native clothing:

Daniel P. Sink of Vernon Texas, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Gwynne skillfully  weaves together the story of Quanah and greater historical events, so in the end you understand not just the history of the extirpation of Native Americans, but the life of Comanches and the personalities of Quanah and his mother, Cynthia Parker. Parker herself was captured by the Texas Rangers when she was 33 and lived the rest of her life with settlers, including members of her extended family. She was never happy, and tried to escape back to the Comanches several times, but never succeeded.  She had several children, including Quanah, but was separated from her sons and left with only one daughter, Topsannah (“Prairie Flower”).  Cynthia died at 40, heartbroken.  Here’s a photo of her with Topsannah. Despite arduous efforts of settlers to assimilate Cynthia back as an American, she was always a Comanche at heart. The expression on her face tells the tale.

Here’s Quanah in 1889. As you see, he adopted many of the settlers’ ways, including their clothing, But he never cut his braids:

Charles Milton Bell, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

I’ve run on too long, but I give this book an enthusiastic recommendation and thank the reader who recommended it. Although it may strike you as something you might not like, do give it a try. (Click on the picture below to go to the publisher.) You may know about the sad history of the extirpation of Native Americans, but this book tells you, more than anything I’ve read, how at least some of them lived their lives as free men and women.

Trump approves at least five committees to run Gaza, with nobody wanting to go after Hamas

January 20, 2026 • 9:30 am

Well, the cease-fire agreements in Gaza are proceeding, as Trump has appointed some committees (all approved by the UN) to run the territory. But again we have a dog’s breakfast, as there are multiple committees with two big problems: there are at least five committees with somewhat overlapping functions and members, and, second, there is no roadmap for the major task of getting rid of Hamas.

Here’s the composition as given by the NYT (bolding below is mine):

Mr. Trump’s “Board of Peace,” which he named himself the chairman of, is backed by a legal United Nations mandate and had previously been expected to be composed of world leaders who would supervise the Trump administration’s plan for an “International Stabilization Force” to occupy, demilitarize and govern Gaza during a yearslong reconstruction effort.

But the list of officials on the executive board announced on Monday included three members of the Trump administration — Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff and Robert Gabriel — as well as Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law; Ajay Banga, the head of the World Bank; the billionaire Trump ally Marc Rowan; and former Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain. Of the seven, only Mr. Blair is not American, and he was previously the Middle East envoy for the Quartet, a diplomatic group made up of the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union, and considered a candidate to lead a transitional government in Gaza.

A second executive board, similarly named the “Gaza executive board,” includes a wider roster of foreign officials from Europe and the Middle East, and is implied to be in a supporting role. Some American officials sit on both executive boards, as well as Mr. Blair.

Maj. Gen. Jasper Jeffers, the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command Central, which operates in the Middle East, was also tapped to lead the “International Stabilization Force,” the peacekeeping force authorized by the United Nations to be deployed to Gaza as part of the peace plan. General Jeffers previously helped oversee a brokered cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon last year.

Note that what seems to be the most important committee is almost all American, and the peacekeeping force, which presumably will be tasked with disarming Hamas, is also headed by an American general.  So who is going to disarm Hamas? Israel can’t, as that would violate the ceasefire agreement, and the U.S. certainly won’t send troops to Gaza. So how will Hamas disarm and disband: the first item on Trump’s agenda?

Trump apparently will solve it by threats:

It is not clear how the international force would ensure that Gaza is demilitarized. Hamas, which specializes in insurgent tactics and has not disbanded its battalions of armed fighters, has long regarded giving up all its weapons as tantamount to surrender, with armed struggle against Israel a crucial part of its ideology. On Thursday, Mr. Trump threatened Hamas with a renewed conflict if they did not disarm, writing on social media: “they can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”

The Times of Israel, as usual, has more information about the committees, and notes that the Board of Peace isn’t really the most important board, with the Gaza Executive Board really tasked with doing the heavy lifting. Bold headings are mine. And the ToI article implies that the NYT missed two committees:

The Board of Peace:

The Board of Peace is the umbrella body that was mandated by the UN Security Council to oversee the postwar management of Gaza until the end of 2027.

The Board of Peace is chaired by Trump, and will largely be made up of heads of state from around the world.

Formal invitations to become members of the Board of Peace were sent out on Friday, and by Saturday the leaders of Turkey, Egypt, Canada and Argentina confirmed having received the offer — an indication that they will likely accept

While this is the most prominent of all the panels established, the Board of Peace will play a generally symbolic role and be more relevant during the fundraising stage, a senior Arab diplomat told The Times of Israel.

The Gaza Executive Board:

The Gaza Executive Board is the operational arm of the Board of Peace and the body that will actually oversee the postwar management of Gaza.

Sitting on the Executive Board are Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, senior Qatari diplomat Ali Thawadi, Egyptian intelligence chief Hassan Rashad, UAE Minister of International Cooperation Reem Al-Hashimy, former UK prime minister Tony Blair, US special envoy Steve Witkoff, top Trump aide Jared Kushner, Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan, Israeli-Cypriot businessman Yakir Gabay, former UN humanitarian coordinator Sigrid Kaag, and former UN envoy to the Mideast Nickolay Mladenov.

Israel has expressed opposition to the makeup of the Executive Board, apparently taking issue with the inclusion of representatives from Turkey and Qatar, who were heavily critical of its prosecution of the war in Gaza.

However, the inclusion of both countries demonstrates their perceived utility to Trump, who has touted his personal relationships with the leaders of Turkey and Qatar as well as their success in pressuring Hamas to accept a ceasefire deal in October.

The Founding Executive Board:

In addition to inexplicably sharing nearly the same name as the Gaza Executive Board, the Founding Executive Board also consists of many of the same members.

Joining Witkoff, Kushner, Blair and Rowan on this additional board are US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, World Bank president Ajay Banga and Trump’s former deputy national security adviser Robert Gabriel.

The White House said that each member of the Founding Executive Board “will oversee a defined portfolio critical to Gaza’s stabilization and long-term success, including, but not limited to, governance capacity-building, regional relations, reconstruction, investment attraction, large-scale funding, and capital mobilization.”

The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza:

. . . .The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza is the committee of Palestinian technocrats that will be tasked with running daily affairs on the ground and providing services for Gazans in place of Hamas.

While Egypt, in announcing the new panel, claimed it consists of 15 members, the actual figure is 12, and they are headed by former Palestinian Authority deputy planning minister Ali Shaath.

. . . . Each of the other panel members was given a portfolio covering the fields in which they are experts.

Abdul Karim Ashour, who heads an agricultural non-profit, will serve as agriculture commissioner.

Aed Yaghi, who currently heads the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, will serve as health commissioner.

Osama Sa’adawi, who previously headed the Palestinian Housing Council nonprofit, will serve as housing commissioner.

Adnan Abu Warda, a former PA Supreme Constitutional Court judge, will serve as justice commissioner.

Maj. Gen. Sami Nassman, who has served in the PA’s General Intelligence Service and is seen as a strong opponent of Hamas, will serve as internal security and police commissioner

And so on, including commissioners for water and municipal affairs, social affairs, communications, economy, and trade. You can see that their duties will overlap. Who resolves conflicts? A member of the Palestinian Authority, which of course is anti-Israel, and is an organization hated by Hamas.  Finally, there is the crucial

International Stabilization Force:

The International Stabilization Force is tasked with providing security for the Strip, while gradually phasing out the IDF, which currently remains in control of 53% of the enclave.

While the US has said the ISF will support efforts to disarm Hamas, officials familiar with the matter said the multinational force won’t be expected to engage in kinetic activity to seize weapons from the terror group, which has pledged not to give them up.

Instead, they will support the disarmament process once an agreement is reached, with mediators optimistic that Hamas will agree to a gradual process that starts with the return of heavy weapons, Arab and US officials have said.

. . .The US had struggled to convince countries to contribute troops to the ISF board amid heavy skepticism that Hamas will disarm and that the IDF will withdraw further from Gaza. One of the two countries Washington had publicly touted, Azerbaijan, announced earlier this month that it would not be participating.

US officials briefing reporters last week insisted that they now have enough countries offering troops and that an announcement can be expected in about two weeks.

This is a mess.  There are five committees whose jobs are overlapping, a heavy U.S. presence on the supervising Board of Peace, and what I see as the most important committee at the outset—the group tasked with demilitarizing Gaza by erasing Hamas—has no specified troops.

It’s not surprising that no country wants to take on Hamas, since they know the international opprobrium attached to that task.  Since Hamas refuses to disarm, this guarantees that there will be extensive fighting in Gaza for a long time to come.  Getting rid of Hamas is Job #1, and until that is done, none of the other committees can do their jobs.

Now the UN could run the whole show instead of the U.S., but that might be even worse given the UN’s hatred of Israel. I doubt that the UN has the stomach to disarm Hamas. They have UN troops that could try, but the UN troops in Lebanon, tasked with disarming Hezbollah, are completely ineffectual. UN troops would be useless against the determined fighters of Hamas.

My conclusion: this messy plan won’t work, and therefore the destruction in Gaza will continue for some time to come.  And don’t forget that Hamas and the Gazans hate the Palestinian Authority, so there can be no solution that allows the PA to run the Gaza Strip. I feel for the Gazan civilians that must endure this mishigass for years to come. If readers have an alternative solution, do suggest it below.

To describe the odious, terroristic nature of Hamas, which all of you should know about by now (even though many young Americans are on their side), I proffer Rawan Osman, a Syrian-born but pro-Israeli activist who was brought up as an Israeli-hating Muslim:

Natasha Hausdorff explains the UN resolution approving Trump’s plan for Gaza

November 20, 2025 • 12:00 pm

Here’s Natasha Hausdorff (legal director of the UK Lawyers for Israel) explaining, in an 11-minute video, the U.N. Security Council’s resolution approving Trump’s plan for ending the war in and reconstructing Gaza.  She notes that this approval is not legally binding, but goes through the most important of the plan’s 20 provisions.

Some of the problems I’ve mentioned before, including the difficulty of bringing Arab neighbors aboard and constructing an international peacekeeping force, finding a decent transitional government to run Gaza, and the insoluble problem of disarming Hamas (a provision of the plan that Hamas of course rejects). She notes that the UN resolution clearly states that a “state of Palestine does not yet exist,” which embarrasses not only Palestinians, but also the many countries like France and the UK who have already recognized such a state. (5:05). (She notes that the UK decision has been applauded by Hamas, and thus is good for the terrorist group.)

She doesn’t mention the difficult issue of the West Bank. That’s not part of the U.N. resolution, but I’d like to hear her views on it, anyway.

The “anti-Zios” are back

November 19, 2025 • 10:45 am

A lot of the protests and kerfuffles on campus two years ago involved a student organization, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).  Their favorite metier seemed to be disrupting access through the Quad, using bullhorns to shout slogans (“river to the sea. . . ” etc.), and in general touting the actions of Hamas and demonizing Israel.  Now when these actions are done according to campus rules, they’re fine—it’s free speech, and that kind of expression is of the glories of our University.  But often SJP people are involved in violating campus regulations; in April of last year I documented four instances of the organization or its members violating campus regulations. Those included sit-ins that constituted trespassing and led to the arrest of both students and faculty. But, this being Chicago with a woke mayor, all charges were dropped.

What about the rest of the violations? There was almost no discipline: the University, as noted in the link above, simply gave SJP a slap on the wrist, for the last thing the University of Chicago wants to see is officials or police “laying hands on students”. Below is the “punishment” that the Standing Disciplinary Committee on Disruptive Conduct meted out to SJP after they shouted down a Jewish “teach-in” in 2023, violating campus rules.


This isn’t even a slap on the wrist, but a tap on the wrist. It’s even lighter punishment than the warning the cops give you if they catch you speeding a little.

In light of SJP’s repeated violations of university rules, I wrote a letter to the student newspaper in January of last year asking “Should Students for Justice in Palestine be a recognized student organization?” I provided no answer save to say that the University should mete out genuine punishment to people who repeatedly violate campus rules about public demonstrations.  The University did get serious once, when it used the UC police—the Chicago police refused to participate—in taking down the illegal encampment that defaced our quad and prevented free access to buildings.

Things have been quiet for the last year, and probably for two reasons: Hamas has been trounced in Gaza, and a lot of the participants in anti-Israel demonstrations appear to be outsiders rather than members of the University community.  Demonstrators may well be afraid to have a public presence because Trump sent ICE to Chicago, and if you entered the country illegally, now is not the time you want to fall into the hands of the authorities.

Regardless, I continue to promote free speech that adheres to our policies while at the same time deploring the hatred and antisemitism that seems to motivate groups and individuals like the SJP.  And so they’ve put up a legal “installation” on our quad again. It’s okay that they did so, but it’s a performative, misguided, and hate-filled “installation.”  It went up a few days ago for a week, and here are some photos:

Note that it was  erected by SJP.

What we have here is a work of art accusing one John Kirby of genocide. Well, I didn’t know who John Kirby was, but Wikipedia says he was a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy who later took up positions in the media and also in the government under Democratic Presidents:

In the Biden administration, he served as United States Department of Defense Press Secretary and Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs from 2021 to 2022 and as White House National Security Communications Advisor from 2022 to 2025. He worked as a military and diplomatic analyst for CNN from 2017 to 2021. In the second Obama administration, he served as United States Department of Defense Press Secretary from 2013 to 2015 and as Spokesperson for the United States Department of State and Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs from 2015 to 2017.

Kirby has also just been appointed as director of the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, a nonpartisan venue for free discussion aimed at inspiring students to go into politics and public service.  It has invited people from all sides of the ideological spectrum to speak, though when someone who doesn’t hate Israel speaks, miscreants sometimes have demonstrations outside the building or have even invaded the building (they were heaved out).  Again, those demonstrations are legal if they don’t violate university rules, but they sometimes have (I have heard of no punsihments).

At any rate, Kirby’s position in the military, and some words he said, prominently displayed in the first photo below, convinced SJP that he is complicit in GENOCIDE.  In fact, Kirby has been careful about the use of the word than has SJP, applying it only to Hamas. This is from the Guardian when Kirby was working under Biden:

Challenged at a White House briefing to confront the term “Genocide Joe” by some protesters to described Biden, Kirby, who had previously ruled out “drawing red lines” for Israel’s actions in Gaza, embarked on an animated exposition.

“People can say what they want on the sidewalk and we respect that. That’s what the first amendment’s about,” he said. “But this word genocide’s getting thrown around in a pretty inappropriate way by lots of different folks. What Hamas wants, make no mistake about it, is genocide. They want to wipe Israel off the map.

“And they’ve said that they’re not going to stop. What happened on the 7th of October is going to happen again and again and again. And what happened on the 7th of October? Murder; slaughter of innocent people in their homes or at a music festival. That’s genocidal intentions.

“Yes, there are too many civilian casualties in Gaza … And yes, we continue to urge the Israelis to be as careful and cautious as possible. But Israel is not trying to wipe the Palestinian people off the map. Israel’s not trying to wipe Gaza off the map. Israel is trying to defend itself against a genocidal terrorist threat. If we’re going to start using that word – fine. Let’s use it appropriately.”

There are three quotes from Kirby (one of them fell over last night), including one that apparently refers to the U.S. providing aid to Israel (second photo). The other two seem to show him claiming that Israel did not violate international human rights law (you can read them by clocking twice on the first photo to enlarge it).

Two points:

1.)  This is a performative “installation” that accomplishes nothing. There was never a “genocide,” and even if you think there was, there’s now a cease-fire.

2.)  Why do you never see students demonstrating against a real genocide: the one that’s a huge goal of Hamas, which wants to kill all the Jews and wipe out Israel? (Read the Hamas Covenant of 1988, especially the introduction and Article Seven.)

3.)  It shows, in my view, that hatred of Jews and Israel hasn’t disappeared here (who would ever think that, anyway?) but is bubbling under the surface, waiting to emerge should the conflict in Gaza begin again.

4.) These installations, while they should be legal, nevertheless forment the atmosphere of hatred that, in my view, keeps Jewish students (who never erect similar “installations” about Hamas) from speaking their minds or wearing paraphernalia like Stars of David and yarmulkes (I’ve heard this directly from Jewish students).  This kind of intimidation—which in America also chills discussions about abortion and gender issues,—still falls within University regulations, so there’s nothing to do about it, but according to statistics, it does chill speech.