I’m going to post a whole James Fallows column here because I think it’s important and I really hope he doesn’t mind. Please, if you have the means, do subscribe to his newsletter. It’s one of the best and well worth it.
Fallows worked in the Carter White House and knows from Iran. His writing before the Iraq war was prescient — he saw what was coming. He’s not given to panic or hyperbole. So keep all that in mind as you read this:
Last week I wrote that the preceding few days had been the most wantonly self-destructive period for the United States in my lifetime, and perhaps the country’s whole history. At the whim of one man … well, you can finish that sentence on your own.
Since then, things have gotten worse.
It is simply impossible to keep up with the torrent of deceit from the administration, damage to the world economy, destruction of lives and communities and structures, disorder everywhere. Especially if, like any “normal” person, you have interests or obligations beyond staying glued to the news.
Even as I type: warfare is spreading through Lebanon; Israel says it has killed more leaders in Iran; ships and refineries are in flames; oil prices gyrate wildly, taking all economies except Russia’s along with them; and casualties mount everywhere, especially in Iran. Several million people have already been displaced. And meanwhile, nearly three weeks in, the man who by himself set this chaos in motion has not addressed the public, even once, on why he did so, and where it will lead. Not once has he gone to Congress for advice, consent, or even discussion. Nearly everything he has said, in response to shouted questions at press gaggles, has been delusional or a lie.
So my own small step toward finding order in chaos, for the moment, is to look again at the five questions and maxims I mentioned in the preceding post and see how they look now. Here we go:
1) ‘How does this end?’
As I wrote last week, “It’s the question everyone is asking, except those in control.”
This week, we’re even farther away from a plausible answer to the question.
That’s because official stories about why the US and Israel started this war keep shifting. Regime change? Imminent threat? Inspiring the oppressed Iranian public? Donald Trump’s “feeling” that the time was right? These are all different beginnings to the story, which imply different endings. It doesn’t matter that our only partner in the war, Israel, keeps offering shifting stories of its own. These range from eliminating once and for all the “existential” threat of Iranian nuclear forces, to “severing the head of the snake” of Iranian-sponsored terrorism, as Benjamin Netanyahu recently put it, with Hegseth-like grace.
And meanwhile the damage keeps spreading, in new ways, to more places, with more victims. The eternal unpredictability of warfare makes everything harder than expected, and keeps closing options that might have been there before.
Every current military leader has heard the Sun Tzu maxim that “the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” Through history the most respected military leaders have planned carefully for combat, but viewed it as a last resort. That is in part because they know wars are so much easier to start than to end.
That is not the Trump-Hegseth way. “For 47 long years, the expansionist and Islamist regime in Tehran has waged a savage, one-sided war against America,” Pete Hegseth said in the heady first days of the bombing:
We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it… We will finish this on ‘America First’ conditions of President Trump’s choosing—nobody else’s.
Even as he spoke, Iranians were closing the Strait of Hormuz—their most predictable countermeasure, with ever-expanding and still unknowable effects. And the “America First conditions” for “finishing” this job will be … what, exactly? Or even what, approximately?
The closest we have come to an authentic-sounding answer was when Donald Trump said on Fox last week, “I’ll know it’s over when I feel it. When I feel it in my bones.” That quote was chilling because we know that in those few seconds he was, atypically, speaking the truth. And revealing his blindness to the other side’s role in determining when a war is over.
1A) A very stupid statement. And a very wise one.
That Trump quote will be remembered because it was so stupid. A different comment on “how this ends” should be remembered because it was so wise. It came last week from Air Force General Alexus Grynkewich, now commander of US forces in Europe, who spent most of his career as an F-16 fighter pilot and instructor.
You’ll never meet a fighter pilot or an Air Force general who doesn’t believe in air power. But—admirably, and amazingly—General Grynkewich warned a Senate committee about the limits of air power in attaining nearly any of the goals the current war was supposed to achieve.
As he put it, with emphasis added:
We must be clear-eyed about what strategic bombing can and cannot do. Historical data—from the Second World War to more recent campaigns—demonstrates that bombing campaigns rarely, if ever, break the will of a population or force a government to surrender. In fact, they often harden domestic resolve and allow regimes to unify the public against a foreign ‘aggressor.’
While we are effectively destroying Iranian military infrastructure, we are not necessarily achieving the political goal of regime submission.
In simpler terms: Bombs and drones can blow things up. But on their own they have almost never “finished” wars. (“Almost” because of the horrific, complicated exception of Japan, 1945.)
The larger question of the limits of airpower spawns endless debate within the military. For the moment the point is: Trump and Hegseth exult in seeing things blow up, as in a video game, and crowing like teenagers because they’ve “won.” That is not how this story is likely to end.
Also: It is important to note over these troubled months the people who have chosen to be brave, versus those who capitulate or compromise. Let us note and remember this form of valor from General Grynkewich. I’ll return to him at the end of this post.
2) ‘In war, the moral is to the material, as three is to one.’
As noted before, this familiar quote from Napoleon refers both to the morale of troops, for reasons ranging from supplies to leadership, and to the moral aspect of their cause.
On the morale front, I keep noticing a small but significant tell. When beginning any discussion of the ongoing war, military briefers will almost always begin by acknowledging and honoring US troops in action. Especially if some of them have just been killed. It’s a solemn duty to comrades. It shows that respect flows both up and down. It’s all the more important in this “chickenhawk” era, when so many Americans “support the troops” but so few spend time in uniform.
For example, listen to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Cain, at the next regular briefing. He will begin this way, by paying respect to the troops.
Donald Trump never does this. (Except when forced to read from a script, as at State of the Union.)
Last Sunday, when asked aboard Air Force One about the six Air Force members killed in a KC-135 crash, Trump clearly heard the question. He flashed a look of annoyance, ignored it, and turned to other reporters, saying “Who else?”
Trump is visibly uncomfortable talking about or even being near people who have paid gruesome physical prices for serving the nation. Remember when he mocked John McCain for having been captured and made a prisoner of war (and then being tortured). Remember how furious he was at the Atlantic report, later confirmed, that he considered American war casualties to be “losers” or “suckers,” and that he thought it looked bad for him to be near disabled veterans. Now his administration is notably slow in releasing information about this war’s casualties.
The picture at the top of this post is of Trump at a “dignified transfer,” a ceremony at which a president’s demeanor is meant to signal the entire nation’s respect. He manages to makes it all about him.¹ No previous president has ever behaved in a remotely similar way.
Does this directly affect the morale of troops at war? Maybe not. But it’s wrong. And as casualties and disruptions go up, more and more people who are bearing the burden will notice. Parents, who have lost sons or daughters. Husbands or wives at home, while their spouses are at risk overseas.
2A) Which brings us to morals.
-No representative of the US government has yet apologized to anyone in Iran for the slaughter of some 175 school children, by a US drone. No apology could undo the damage or erase the memory. But its absence is deeply immoral. As are a president’s continued lies about the tragedy.
-While noting people who stand up and speak up for moral principles, let us recognize Ryan Clark, former defensive back with the Pittsburgh Steelers. On The Pivot podcast last week, he was asked about the White House video that used clips of him and others delivering “hard hits,” alongside film of bombs exploding in Iran.
In the three minutes below, you’ll hear more serious discussion from Clark about the morality of war, and of what 99% of Americans owe to the 1% in uniform, than you have heard from anyone in today’s administration. This video has gotten a lot of attention, but in case you haven’t seen it, it’s worth spending three minutes listening to Clark:
Here are some samples of what Ryan Clark says about dignity, respect, and demeanor, again with emphasis added.
War is not a comedy. And for these people to be risking their lives … [and] for our regime to be as unserious, as unprofessional, as laughable and as illegitimate as our leadership is right now, is embarrassing
And it tells you the difference between a public servant and a reality star. Because the reality star needs everybody to know at all times. “Oh, look at me! Look at the attention I’m garnering! We’re doing this for me.”
And the public servant stands at attention for 45 minutes in a salute. Because he understands what those soldiers who gave their lives have done for our country.
He concludes this section:
And I think we’ve lost 100% any credibility. We’ve lost all decorum. We’ve lost all integrity. We’ve lost all character. And I believe that the latest White House post, involving myself and other NFL players is absolutely disgusting and despicable.
A man of character. I think he speaks for more of us than he may realize. And certainly more than Trump or Hegseth can imagine.
3) ‘The persistence of memory.’
Two months ago, at Davos, Donald Trump was ridiculing European countries as “parasites,” whose leaders were “weak” and “stupid,” and whose countries “would not even function without the United States.” Writing off NATO as a joke. Saying that the US “had to have” Greenland, whatever a pipsqueak country like Denmark might think.
In the past week, he has demanded that these same countries support the Iran war effort—which none of them were consulted about. He wants NATO countries to pay a “protection fee” to the US Navy for operations in the Strait of Hormuz. He wants them to send ground troops to Iraq and Syria, to relieve Iran-related strain on US forces there.
The allies’ memory reaches back two full months. They have told him, in essence: Go to hell. The way Germany’s prime minister put it was, “This is not our war.”
4) What if the war comes home?
I asked that question ten days ago. The answer has become almost too obvious, and painful, to discuss. The violent episodes of the past week will almost certainly not be the last.
Remember that one of Iran’s specialties is “sleeper cells,” whose members wait, and deliver vengeance. Served cold.
And remember that staff, budgets, and attention within both Kash Patel’s FBI and Kristi Noem’s DHS have been shifted away from counter-terrorism, and toward immigration control. Remember that yesterday’s news was dominated by the extremist MAGA die-hard Joe Kent walking away, in protest, from the nation’s top counter-terrorism job. Many such positions in the FBI and DHS now sit vacant. Remember that today’s news is dominated by the prospect of the former Mixed Martial Arts fighter, and current trash-talking Senator, Markwayne Mullen replacing Kristi Noem as head of DHS. We’ll get to him, that agency, and its problems in another dispatch.
This is not the lineup you’d want to defend a country against a long-game strategy from Iran.
5) Command presence.
I mentioned last week that the bottomlessly ignorant and destructive US attack on Iran defied every written-in-blood lesson by US and other forces, through the long history of combat.
Lessons about strategy versus tactics. About impulse versus deliberation. About imagining the view from the opponent’s perspective. About being strong, versus showing off.
I ended that section with a contrast between two Secretaries of Defense: George C. Marshall, a genuine hero for his country and the world, and Pete Hegseth, an embarrassment at every level.
Let me close the section this time with another contrast. It begins with a return to Alexus Grynkewich, the Air Force general who warned Senators about the hole that US bombs were digging for the US itself, in Iran.
Here is General Grynkewich, as he testified to the Senate Armed Services committee. Take another few seconds to study his face.
[I changed out the picture due to copyright]
To me, this is the look of a person who has seen things, and thought about them, and has listened and read and learned. It is the look of a serious person, aware of the life-and-death differences his decisions can make. For me, this is the bearing of a leader, who recognizes his duty to those who have put trust in him.If you can stand it, compare this look with any expression you’ve seen on the face of Pete Hegseth. Or Kash Patel. Or Markwayne Mullen. Or Donald Trump.
Here we are, three weeks in.
From the sound of the hearing this morning with Patel, Gabbard and Ratcliffe I’m afraid I have little hope that it’s going to get any better very soon.
