Commentary by Stephen Macaulay
“When President Trump says that Iran is in a place of unconditional surrender, he’s not claiming the Iranian regime is going to come out and say that themselves.” —Karoline Leavitt, press secretary, March 10.
“The U.S. Navy successfully escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz to ensure oil remains flowing to global markets.” —Chris Wright, Energy Secretary, March 10, on X—since deleted.
One of the things the American people — including those who are supportive of Donald Trump — will begin to understand “big time,” to borrow a phrase from Dick Cheney, is that words and claims really have no meaning. Well, there is the meaning they think exists.
Let’s take the Leavitt quote.
It is fairly well understood there is no end game for the war in Iran.
That is, the US military bombs the stuffing out of the place and then …?
As Secretary of Defense War Pete Hegseth put it on March 2: “The mission of Operation Epic Fury is laser-focused: Destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure and they will never have nuclear weapons.”
OK. Disarm them. Then what?
Maybe there was something in the video Donald Trump posted on his social media site announcing the launch of Operation Epic Fury on February 28: “The United States military is undertaking a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests. We're going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally again obliterated. We're going to annihilate their navy. We're going to ensure that the region's terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces, and no longer use their IEDs, or roadside bombs as they are sometimes called, to so gravely wound and kill thousands and thousands of people, including many Americans. And we will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon. It's a very simple message. They will never have a nuclear weapon.”
Yes, obliterate the thing that he said was obliterated last summer during Operation Midnight Fury.
How any of this is going to “ensure that the region’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world” is fanciful because terrorists tend to do DIY things like building IEDs, which they probably will be able to do wherever they can buy fertilizer and electronics.
Let’s go to Wright’s claim.
Didn’t happen.
Hegseth said on March 10, referring to Trump’s social post on the subject: “If Iran does anything to stop the flow of oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America 20 times harder than they have been hit thus far.” He goes on to say death, fire and fury will rain upon them. You've seen the Truth and read it.
“But he takes very seriously the condition of the straits. We have capabilities that no other nation on earth has, and we're certainly working with our energy partners across the administration to control for that. That's part of that scoping of this.”
Well, that may be the “scoping,” but while pre-war there were 20 million of barrels of oil floating through the strait, now it is 1 million.
Perhaps Hegseth needs to go to his local Mobil station to find out how things are going in that regard.
But Wright probably wanted to make people think things are going much better than they are.
Or maybe he wanted his boss to think so.
Again: Yes, the US is bombing the you-know-what out of the Iranian military assets, but while we have “capabilities that no other nation on earth has,” a mine or a drone that takes out an oil tanker is enough to take that one million down to zero million.
And as 20% of the world’s petroleum goes through the strait, and as gasoline prices in the US have gone up about 20% since the start of the war, the Energy Secretary surely wants to make it seem that things aren’t what they seem.
Which brings us to Leavitt’s observation: “When President Trump says that Iran is in a place of unconditional surrender” then, regardless of whether the Iranian regime has surrendered, they have surrendered because Trump says they have.
Sure, their official military infrastructure may be nothing more than rubble, but again, how does this prevent a whole bunch of people who have nothing to lose because their families and friends have been killed from committing acts of terrorism across the world?
Never mind. If the Trump administration says things are A-OK, then all is good.
As Donald Trump told members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars back in 2018: "Just remember, what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening.”
What he and his minions say is happening is.
Isn’t it?
Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings, where he writes primarily for the right column.