You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
Matthew, Chapter 24.
GBU-57A/B MOP
You can't say civilization don't advance... in every war they kill you in a new way.
Will Rogers.
We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end, and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.
Donald Trump.
We find ourselves with another predictive entry.
Yesterday, June 17, was an extremely odd day. Trump left the G7 meeting austensibly to deal with the war between Israel and Iran, but notably before the topic of the Russian invasion of Ukraine came up.
Trump, of course, had promised to end the war between Ukraine and Russia upon being nominated to the Oval Office.
He lied.
Since that time, he's been an enthusiastic supporter if Israel's ongoing war in Gaza and, as of yesterday, was indicating that the US saved the life of Iran's Supreme Leader, but the US may decide to kill the de facto Iranian head of state itself, something that nations generally do not do and which frankly would make Trump fair game in the eyes of Iranian radicals. Trump might finally get a first hand taste of being the enemy the way he did not in the 1960s.
Threatening to murder, and that's exactly what it would be, the head of a state of a foreign country is moronic, as well as deeply immoral.
It appears that Mike Huckabee, whom Trump stupidly appointed as the American Ambassador to Israel, has Trump's ear, which is dangerous. Huckabee sent a weird missive to Trump yesterday or the day before which Trump praised and reposted. Huckabee is a Christian Zionist/Millennialist Restorationist who seeks to help bring about the Second Coming by advancing the cause of Israel. A minority branch of Protestantism, which itself is a minority of Christians, there's likely nothing Israel could do that Huckabee won't back. He's basically backing the United States entering the war against Iran.
The reason that Israel would want that to occur is depicted above. Israel is attempting to end the Iranian nuclear program, and perhaps achieve much more, from the air. By now it's probably clear that it can't do that without use of a GBU-57A/B MOP, assuming that could even do it. The GBU-57A/B MOP is the worlds' largest deep penetration bunker buster bomb, and it might, but only might, be able to destroy Iran's underground nuclear facilities.
Only one airplane in the world right now can carry the GBU-57A/B MOP, that being the B-2 bomber. The B-52 can also carry then, but none are currently set up to do so. The B-2 can carry two.
And it's highly probable that they've asked the US to deploy them for this purpose.
And fairly probable the US will do so.
June 18, 2025
Israel v. Iran
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Israel claimed Tuesday to have killed a top Iranian general as it traded more strikes with its longtime foe, and U.S. President Donald Trump warned residents of Tehran to evacuate while demanding that Iran surrender without conditions.
From the AP.
On the above, there's a pretty good chance that Trump feels that acting like he's going to attack Iran is going to convince Iran to enter some sort of bargain. Iran is pretty hard to intimidate.
Also, there's a good chance that Trump will TACO the moment and suddenly declare he achieved something, once he thinks over the consequences of attacking Iran, or once clearer heads than Mike Huckabee's get to him. Not that I want him to attack Iran. I think that would be stupid.
If the latter occurs, Trump's loyal fans will claim that he was the master negotiator, but I doubt Israel will quit pounding Iran, and that Iran will quit responding. Israel has the upper hand right now, but it's extremely difficult to win a war only through the air, and Israel has no ability to deploy ground forces against Iran. For that matter, Iran's neighbors likely wouldn't tolerate that. It's an impossibility, however. Air wars degrade over time as targets reduce or become less vulnerable, and Israel is unlikely to be able to protect itself from missile strikes indefinitely.
June 19, 2025
Israel v. Iran
Iran hit Israel with a ballistic missile carrying a cluster munition warhead hitting, amongst other things the Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva.
Donald Trump is weirdly claiming that he'll take two weeks to decide if the US will enter the war, which a competent leader would not announce, even if contemplating it.
Legally entering the war would require a Declaration of War, which won't be occurring and a bare minimum the War Powers Act should come into play.
June 22, 2025
The United States and Israel v Iran
The US hit Iranian nuclear targets yesterday. Trump's speech on the same:
Thank you very much.
A short time ago, the U.S. military carried out massive, precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime. Fordo, Natanz and Esfahan. Everybody heard those names for years as they built this horribly destructive enterprise.
Our objective was the destruction of Iran's nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world's number one state sponsor of terror.
Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not. Future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier.
For 40 years, Iran has been saying. Death to America, death to Israel. They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs, with roadside bombs. That was their specialty. We lost over 1,000 people and hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East, and around the world have died as a direct result of their hate in particular. So many were killed by their general, Qassim Soleimani. I decided a long time ago that I would not let this happen. It will not continue.
I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before, and we've gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel. I want to thank the Israeli military for the wonderful job they've done. And most importantly, I want to congratulate the great American patriots who flew those magnificent machines tonight, and all of the United States military on an operation the likes of which the world has not seen in many, many decades.
Hopefully, we will no longer need their services in this capacity. I hope that's so. I also want to congratulate the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan 'Razin' Caine, spectacular general, and all of the brilliant military minds involved in this attack.
With all of that being said, this cannot continue. There will be either peace, or there will be tragedy for Iran, far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days. Remember, there are many targets left. Tonight's was the most difficult of them all, by far, and perhaps the most lethal. But if peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill. Most of them can be taken out in a matter of minutes. There's no military in the world that could have done what we did tonight. Not even close. There has never been a military that could do what took place just a little while ago.
And I want to just thank everybody. And, in particular, God. I want to just say, we love you, God, and we love our great military. Protect them. God bless the Middle East. God bless Israel and God bless America. Thank you very much. Thank you.
The legality of this is really questionable, as is the wisdom, and effectiveness, of it. And the development of the US openly taking a part in a Middle Eastern War, started by Israel, on behalf of Israel, is a dangerous development. The US has never done that before.
As war is an extension of politics by other means, and all politics is local:
June 23, 2025
The United States and Israel v Iran
Since the US B-2 missions (which were impressively flown out of Missouri in the longest bombing mission of all time), there have global reactions to the strike, some of which praised it. It's clear that European nations generally support them.
Russia issued a statement in which it condemned them and indicated that now other nations may transfer nuclear weapons to Iran. How much Russia can be trusted in regard to anything it states is a clearly open question, but being concerned about this possibility, particularly as Pakistan is nearby, is perhaps merited. Likewise, being concerned about what rogue state North Korea may do is also warranted.
Iran itself has indicated that it will close the Straits of Hormuz and that it will otherwise retaliate.
The morality of this action is debatable and interesting. It's clearly an act of war with no clear exist strategy based on the hope of Iranian concession. However, the argument can be made that waiting until Iran had a nuclear weapon, which they are clearly working on, would put the world in an untenable position.
That it is an act of war was interestingly noted when a Congressman on This Week said Iran could "sue for peace". You only sue for peace in a declared war, which this is not.
A group of Congressmen have put together a war powers resolution seeking to limit further US action. It's all Democrats save for one Republican. If history is our guide, politically most Americans will support action against Iran, at least at first. If things drag on, they'll be discontented. In the short term condemning the strike is probably a bad political move, but in the long term it might not be. If Iran is not cowed into submission, and perhaps its regime can't afford to be, we'll either have to materially support an ongoing Iranian air war indefinitely or become more involved in it. People repeatedly are noting that there will not be "boots on the ground", and there very likely won't be on a largescale, but on a small scale there may very well be. If Iran closes the Straits of Hormuz the U.S. Navy will have to reopen them, and that will be a major task.
cont:
Yeoman's Fourth Law of History at work, and Donald Trump demonstrating that he doesn't know how economies work.
June 24, 2025
The United States and Israel v Iran
On the Iranian retaliation, which was muted:
Apparently a cease fire has been agreed to, although there may have been some post agreement fighting.
A ceasefire isn't a peace agreement. What's going on, and what was achieved, are the real questions.
And of course, Trump is acting weird.
And this:
We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.
Donald Trump.
June 24, 2024
United States and Israel v. Iran.
An early assessment holds that Iran's nuclear facilities were not destroyed, only damages, and they're merely set back in the production of an atomic weapon a few months.
Can't say I'm surprised.
So the US attack may have simply reinforced the Iranian desire for a nuclear weapon.
cont:
A report by an expert on NPR Politics holds that there's no way that Iran's nuclear program was destroyed.
Last edition:
Labels: 2020s, 2025, California National Guard, Civil Unrest, Commandos, Kurds, National Guard, Russia, Russian Air Force, Russo Ukrainian War, Sluzhba bezpeky Ukrainy, Texas National Guard, Turkey, Ukraine, War, Wars and rumors of wars
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