Commentary by Stephen Macaulay
One of the oft-cited points made about the US bombing the stuffings out of the Iranian military and related infrastructure is that it isn’t going to be like US military involvements of the past.
As Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in a briefing on April 24: “Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, as the President has pointed out, all took years, decades, vague missions, shifting sands, little to show for it.”
The implication is that this is not a vague mission.
In fact, Hegseth went on to say: “It's a bold and dangerous mission, a gift to the world, historic, courtesy of a bold and historic president.”
This is all about boldness. The mission. The president. The Hegsethian rhetoric!
Bold. Bold. Bold!
Let’s assume that the mission is to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon. That’s what Hegseth says.
There are other Administration officials — including the man who Hegseth obsequiously describes as “the only president with the guts and moral clarity to finally do something about it”* — who have varying descriptions of why the US is involved.
But if the keeping Iran nuclear weapon-incapable is the mission, then why has the US used, according to The New York Times, 1,100 long-range stealth cruise missiles, more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles, 1,200 Patriot interceptor missiles, and 1,000 Precision Strike and ATACMS ground-based missiles, when according to the bold and historic president that was accomplished some months back?**
Last June, after “Operation Midnight Hammer,” after there were 14 GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrators and over 24 Tomahawk cruise missiles used against the Fordow Uranium Enrichment Plant, the Natanz Nuclear Facility, and the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center, President Trump declared the Iranian nuclear capabilities “completely and totally obliterated.”
So if there is no nuclear material — or, as the President sometimes calls it, just “nuclear dust” — then why are we bombing the heck out of Iran?
Was the obliteration just hyperbole before, and now it is really happening?
According to Hegseth, “the bottom line remains the bottom line, Iran will never get a nuclear bomb.”
While that’s certainly a good objective, then why does Hegseth also say:
“It's worth saying again, for 47 years, Iran has been at war with America, killing our citizens, our soldiers, and our allies, while previous administrations looked the other way.”
Are we at war with Iran because Iran has been at war with America for 47 years (and if that is actually the case, how many Americans have actually been aware of that?) or because we want to keep them from having a nuclear weapon? Hegseth says: “Operation Epic Fury has been laser-focused from the very start.” So which is it? The nuke or the “war with America”? Is it regime change? Is it because Israel was going to start bombing so we had to get in, too? Is it something else entirely?
Doesn’t “laser-focused” imply that there is some pinpoint accuracy here regarding the mission which seems to be rather diffuse, not collimated?
According to Hegseth, “President Trump's fortitude is unshakable and his mission is crystal clear.”
As he cancels negotiations to end the war, and as he has appointed lead negotiators who are not in any way expert in things nuclear (however, if you need some luxury real estate developments, these are your guys), what is crystal clear is that the situation is anything but crystal clear.
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*Apparently the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreed to by the Obama Administration and Iran, which reduced the uranium stockpile, reduced enrichment levels for 15 years, dismantled centrifuges, etc., was a gutless move.
**One could make the argument that these are all tactical munitions and that as the US has them, the US might as well use them. Fair point — but to what end? And what happens should China decide to invade Taiwan and what had once been stockpiles of weapons have been reduced to stockouts? Consider this: as many as 95% of the advanced semiconductors used in the US for everything from missiles to iPhones to, well, lasers, come from Taiwan. If they get in trouble, we really get in trouble.
Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings.