Trump is the little girl who had a little curl
President Trump did something really good. Then he did something remarkably stupid. They both result from the same mindset.
On Saturday night, President Donald Trump helped Israel to a degree rarely seen before in Israel’s 77 year history. Ignoring important voices in the Republican Party and the MAGA movement, Trump took decisive action by sending seven stealth B-2 bombers armed with 14 GBU-57 bunker busters, as well as Tomahawk missiles fired from submarines, to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facility at Fordo, and further damage nuclear sites in Natanz and Isfahan. According to preliminary estimations, the attacks were successful, and have caused extremely serious damage to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Israel had been prepared to continue its war without U.S. intervention, but the decisive action by the United States - the only country to possess non-nuclear bombs of this magnitude and the planes to carry them - unquestionably made the war shorter and easier, and helped Israel avoid the problems associated with other, riskier methods of destroying the Fordo site.
Having given Prime Minister Netanyahu this gift, Trump then announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran; whether Bibi wanted it or not, he clearly had little choice but to accept.
The ceasefire was scheduled to take effect at 7 AM Israel time; over the next six hours, Israel continued to bomb Iranian facilities in order to further consolidate Israeli gains and set back Iranian ambitions as much as possible. Iran, for its part, sent waves of ballistic missiles into civilian areas of Israel for two hours, continuing up to 7:06 AM; five civilians in an apartment building were killed this morning through Iran’s barrage.
At 10:25 AM, Iran fired two more ballistic missiles at Israel, and Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that Israel would respond forcefully to this blatant breach of the recently-implemented agreement.
When Israeli planes were already in the air, Trump responded with a truly remarkable social media post. Writing on Truth Social, the president said that “ISRAEL is not going to attack Iran. All planes will turn around and head home, while doing a friendly ‘Plane Wave’ to Iran. Nobody will be hurt, the Ceasefire is in effect! Thank you for your attention to this matter!” This was clearly a command, and Trump made his displeasure even clearer to reporters on the White House lawn. As transcribed by the Times of Israel, Trump said, “I’m not happy that Israel’s going out now. There was one rocket that I guess was fired overboard [by Iran]. It was after the time limit, and it missed its target. And now Israel’s going out. These guys gotta calm down. Ridiculous… I didn’t like plenty of things I saw yesterday. I didn’t like the fact that Israel unloaded right after we made the deal. They didn’t have to unload. And I didn’t like the fact that… The [Iranian] retaliation was very strong. But in all fairness, Israel unloaded a lot. And now I hear that Israel just went out because they felt [the deal] was violated by one rocket that didn’t land anywhere. That’s not what we want, I’ll tell you. And I’m telling you, I’m not happy about that, Israel, either. All I do is play both sides… Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs the likes of which I’ve never seen before. The biggest load that we’ve seen. I’m not happy with Israel. You know, when I say, okay, now you have 12 hours, you don’t go out in the first hour and just drop everything you have on them. So I’m not happy with them. I’m not happy with Iran either. But I’m really unhappy if Israel is going out this morning because of one rocket that didn’t land, that was shot, perhaps by mistake, that didn’t land. I’m not happy about that.
“You know what? We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f*** they’re doing. Do you understand that?”
Well, Mister President, we understand something. We understand that you are the one who is acting like a childish fool who, in your simplistic narcissism, has completely lost the plot.
When Israel has six remaining hours to take out additional Iranian bombs, missiles, planes and infrastructure which were acquired with the singular goal of destroying the Jewish State, of course it should do everything possible in those six hours to get rid of these murderous weapons. Trump, in contrast, almost seems to believe that this is like a college basketball game, where the winning team displays poor sportsmanship by running up the score rather than giving the loser an honorable exit. Does he not understand that this is no game, but a matter of life and death - specifically the lives and deaths of innocent Israelis?
Trump lives in a simple world where his adversaries get the message and decide to change their ways, simply because he showed them that he’s stronger than they are. (From what I understand, this is likely the way that he ran his real estate empire - pushing people around until they accept his terms.) Now that he has undermined Iran’s nuclear ambitions for the time being, he is treating both Israel and Iran as if they are kindergarteners who need to learn how to play nicely in the sandbox. The fact that Iran has spent 46 years declaring that Israel must be destroyed, and has worked tirelessly to make that goal come to fruition, is irrelevant to the United States commander in chief; according to Trump’s simplistic instincts, Iran received its punishment and now Israel must be magnanimous - as if this is a mindless issue of shaking hands and making up.
And when his silly view of reality doesn’t match the cold, hard facts, he lashes out like a wounded bully.
The reality is that Israel has spent decades allowing its adversaries to attack its citizens, largely without response; Israel only reacted when terrorists went “too far.” Hamas operatives launched incendiary balloons and kites over the Gaza border starting in 2018 in order to set fields ablaze and perhaps tempt a child to pick one up with potentially fatal consequences; yet those who launched them went unpunished. Hamas regularly fired rockets into neighboring towns like Sderot; yet Israel tacitly accepted that such murderous actions would by and large be ignored. In this way, terrorists were emboldened, repeatedly testing Israel while a weary Israel was lulled into inaction… and the result was October 7th.
Never again. Ever since Israel’s defeat of Hezbollah about eight months ago, Israel has made it clear that its new military doctrine includes a policy of zero tolerance. Should Hezbollah, or groups under Hezbollah’s umbrella, launch a single missile, Hezbollah will pay a heavy price. The same holds true for any adversary who tests Israel’s newfound resolve.
Israel’s enemies have tested Israel in various ways - including Hamas during the January-March ceasefire - and Israel has made it clear that it will no longer allow its enemies to launch trial balloons to see if Israel will react. Because this time, yes indeed, Israel will react with force and determination.
When Iran played the same game today by launching two missiles three hours after the ceasefire went into effect - c’mon, will Israel actually break the ceasefire for two measly missiles? - Israel was prepared to respond forcefully. And that was absolutely the correct response.
Until Trump stayed Bibi’s hand - sending Iran the message that if it plays its cards right, it can get into Trump’s good graces. A little more flattery will perhaps enable it to rebuild its nuclear program (which it already promised that it will do), and continue to work towards Israel’s destruction without precipitating an Israeli response. (Did you know that Trump said today that China can purchase Iranian oil without penalty? Apparently, now it’s time to throw the murderous mullahs a bone. That’s what good winners do, right?)
Because Trump is simplistic. He lives in a cartoon world that lacks nuance. Sometimes that simplemindedness benefits Israel, and other times it leads to disaster. And we’ve witnessed both over the past 60 hours.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once wrote:
There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very good indeed,
But when she was bad she was horrid.
That’s President Trump, in a nutshell. A nursery rhyme come to life.
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On the mark with this incisive post, Trump is indeed childish, mercurial, narcissistic, I would call him a modern-day Achashveirosh. Yet one pales to imagine what Kamala would have done if Israel had taken unilateral steps against Iran
Labelling the man who just leveraged the full weight of the U.S. military to disable Iran’s nuclear weapons program a narcissistic “childish fool”, who equates recent events to a “college basketball game”, is more than a bit jarring to my ears.
Trump did more than simply ignore “important voices in the Republican Party and the MAGA movement”. He chose a course that the majority of Americans appear to have opposed. He did that because he believed Iran could not be allowed to possess nuclear weapons. And (as he has pointed out), despite lip-service paid by prior Presidents, he is the one who actually took action to stop Iran. Without U.S. intervention, it seems doubtful — at best, highly speculative — that Israel would have been able to accomplish this goal without incurring enormous risks and losses.
But Trump simultaneously owes a duty to the American people to minimize the potential of the U.S. being drawn into further hostilities, including risks to U.S. troops throughout the Middle East. Consequently, once the main objective was accomplished, it was not unreasonable for the President to insist on a cessation of further hostilities. It would not surprise me if such an expectation was expressed to Israel prior to the President’s commitment.
Israel had the choice to go it alone or enlist the U.S. President’s assistance. Given that it chose the latter, a degree of deference is warranted, as well as expressions of gratitude, not invective.