(The photo shows Trump being prayed over in the White House yesterday by a group of evangelical pastors.)
Today is Day 7 of this mass-murdering, mass-destruction project that Pres. Donald Trump named “Operation Epic Fury” (OEF). Already, the dimensions of many of its (quite foreseeable, and by many people clearly foreseen) consequences are becoming evident.
Most crucially, as of today, these:
- The Iranians’ governance and command structure has survived, despite “decapitation” strikes since its first hours that killed Supreme Leader Khamene’i and dozens of top commanders.
- Iranian forces continue, in response to OEF, to undertake stand-off attacks that seem well aimed and well coordinated and have in many cases inflicted real damage on their intended (military and economic) targets.
- Israel has exploited this situation of war, impunity, and lawlessness to (a) reimpose its super-tight siege on the two million people of Gaza, (b) sharply escalate its bombings of Lebanon and peremptorily order the ethnic cleansing of South Lebanon as well as Beirut’s densely populated southern suburbs, and (c) continue to oppress and dispossess Indigenous inhabitants of both the West Bank and Syria.
- The Iranians’ response to OEF has included attacks not just on Israeli and U.S. military bases across West Asia but also on key economic facilities in Arab Gulf countries.
- Through those latter attacks and by closing the Straits of Hormuz to shipping from OEF-associated countries, Tehran has delivered a huge blow to the global economy and especially to the Gulf Arab states that have been major bankrollers of Trumpian projects worldwide.
There are still, as of now, no signs of any imminent collapse of Iran’s command/governance structure. And meanwhile, all around the world a chorus of questions is growing louder around two key issues, either of which could rapidly increase the pressure on Washington to end the war. The first such pressure-point is the durability of U.S. stockpiles of key missile-defense and air-defense munitions needed to fend off Iran’s continuing volleys of low-cost drones and high-altitude missiles. The second is the degree, speed and temporal extent of the damage that the war inflicts on the global economy– a process that has already started.
Continue reading “War on Iran: Global consequences and off-ramps we should support”