When I woke up this past Saturday morning to learn that we had launched an attack against Iran, I was shocked. Shocked and horrified. I actually had thought we wouldn’t do anything that stupid. I was wrong.
As the days go by, each additional piece of news makes it clearer that the decision to strike was a colossal mistake. The first assumption to be exposed as mindless was the notion that by our assassinating Iran’s supreme leader, the regime would fall and the war would end quickly. Instead, this profoundly stupid act and the ensuing war are nearly certain to lead to immeasurably negative consequences for the U.S. and our allies.
The assassination has served to make Ayatollah Khamenei a martyr in the eyes of Shia Muslims not only among Iranians but among some 300 million other Shia Muslims. He was 86 and frail, possibly dying of cancer. Shortly before his death, he had said that while his body was failing, he still had his dignity, which he hoped to use in the service of the Iranian people. He didn’t attempt to hide from his country’s attackers and was assassinated at his home. More than one Iranian news anchor broke down while declaring the 86-year-old’s death, with the announcer on state television proclaiming Khamenei had “achieved his long-cherished wish of martyrdom in the holy month of Ramadan.”
That the assassination backfired in its attempt to fracture Iran’s populace is just the start of the adverse consequences and chaos it will bring. The late ayatollah’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, has been named his father’s likely successor. Many Iranian experts have noted that the late ayatollah had issued an edict—a Fatwa—that had been in effect for more than 20 years and that declared that manufacturing nuclear weapons is inconsistent with Islam. Tulsi Gabbard, the current head of national intelligence in the U.S., herself testified under oath before Congress in March of 2025 that Iran had not authorized or resumed the nuclear weapons program that they suspended in 2003, though she did note that Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was at “unprecedented” levels for a state without nuclear weapons. Having enriched uranium does not mean that you are making a nuclear bomb. It means that you could, but you also could be exploring options for alternate energy sources. They have had enriched uranium for 30 years and still do not have a nuclear bomb, to our knowledge, making the point consistent with the fatwa. The new ayatollah’s position on nuclear weapons isn’t known. But, if it is Mojtaba Khamenei, he is thought to be more conservative than his father. He might well permit the development of nuclear weapons.
The very way we evidently decided to go to war has left the U.S. looking weak and stupid. According to both Secretary of State Marco Rubio and House Speaker Mike Johnson, the U.S. struck to protect Israel. Realize that a day before the war started, a spokesman for Oman, which had been acting as a neutral mediator in talks to come to a diplomatic solution, announced that significant progress had been made. In other words, there was a strong suggestion that a deal between the U.S. and Iran might be imminent. Israel, presumably unhappy with the prospect of a new nuclear deal, told the U.S. it planned to strike Iran early Saturday. In separate press briefings, both Rubio and Johnson said that as a result, the U.S. felt it had to strike in order to back Israel up. That the U.S. appears to have conceded its agency to Israel has weakened respect for us not only in the Middle East but throughout the world.
Putting the U.S. on its back foot
The war has reached a significant part of the Middle East, and much damage already has been done. Media sources I regard as reliable and personal sources say America has been put on its back foot not only by the failure of its initial decapitation strike to quickly end the war but also by the ferocious response of Iran, which has quickly turned the war into one of regional scope. U.S. airbases throughout the Gulf States have been attacked. Even civilian targets, such as luxury hotels that cater to the rich and famous, have been struck, including in Dubai, which is a worldwide financial center and arguably the most important Middle East destination for financial firms. Qatar, one of the world’s largest exporters of LNG (liquefied natural gas) also has been hard hit.
Shiite communities in Pakistan and India have engaged in violent protests that include attacks on U.S. consulates. Multiple groups under the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq” umbrella have announced their participation in the fighting, launching drone attacks against U.S. and Israeli interests in response to the killing of Khamenei. Hezbollah in Lebanon has opened a new front, with its flags waved during widespread protests in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen have declared their support of Iran. And despite a news blackout, eyewitnesses and photographs indicate considerable damage has been inflicted on Israel.
Iran, though under constant fire from Israel and the U.S., shows no sign of letting up. While in these early days no one can predict the outcome, worth mentioning is that the U.S. is constrained by limited supplies of weapons and ammunition—a consequence, some argue, of our for-profit military establishment that lacks the kind of surge capacity that has been so successful in countries like Russia. This means that our best, and perhaps only, chance of winning will come within the first two weeks (perhaps less). After that, Iran, which may have some aid from both China and Russia, will likely have a decided edge. But war is notoriously unpredictable, and this is only a best guess, based on many sources.
Iran’s geography makes it a vital crossroads in both land and sea trade. As members of BRICS, both China and Russia are providing Iran with wide-ranging military aid ranging from ballistic missiles to instructions on operating complex military equipment. Both China and Russia would likely benefit from a long war, as long as it does not get out of control—for example, significant damage to energy infrastructure would be profoundly detrimental to all. A longer war would benefit Russia in Ukraine as the shortage of U.S. weapons is already enhancing Russia’s already overwhelming advantage. Weapons shortages also have resulted in U.S. failure to deliver promised weaponry to Taiwan. Though Taiwan is becoming close to a sitting duck, my guess is that China will not attack but rather will take advantage of a weakened U.S. to achieve its goal of making Taiwan an administrative province of China.
Widespread implications
U.S. defeat in Iran would have widespread implications for our global standing. It likely would shatter any hopes of continued American hegemony, not only in the Middle East but throughout the world. Our military capacity would be called into severe question, and, as a corollary, so would our ability to impose economic sanctions. Most significant, a failed war on the current scale would do great damage to an already faltering dollar. If the dollar ceases to be the primary medium for world trade, the U.S. could become a country bereft of critical commodities, as we are currently less than 20% self-sufficient. Why would any provider of critical commodities want to exchange those commodities for paper or IOUs from a country that has no visible way of making payment?
My view is that the war punctuates a process that began with the Ukrainian war and that the outcome will almost surely include the loss of American standing in the world. A big question is to what extent the U.S. economy will remain viable. And just in case you’re not already depressed, I’ll offer one more thought: the question has to be raised about whether a sharply and irrevocably weakened America will choose to lash out in a way that imperils the entire globe. Will the doomsday, clock, already closer to midnight than it has ever been, tick off those final seconds? Let’s hope not.
Part 2: The role of Israel
Trying to peer into the future, my guess is that much will depend on what happens in Israel. An Israel in which Netanyahu continues to call the shots would be terrible for the world. An Israel free of Netanyahu potentially could point to a more welcome world characterized by cooperation that benefits everyone.
In October 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel—an event that clearly supercharged current events— Netanyahu was scheduled to visit Xi Jinping in China. While the agenda wasn’t known, there are, I believe, natural ties between the Chinese and the Jews. The Chinese respect Jewish culture. And as I‘ve often written before, whatever you think about China’s government, China believes in a cooperative world and that a better world for its citizens goes hand in hand with a better world for all. China no doubt appreciates the success that the Jewish people have had in intellectual endeavors. It would not be surprising if the purpose for the meeting had been a desire for China to open the door to Israel eventually becoming a member of BRICS.
Nor would it be surprising if Russia were willing to welcome Israel into BRICS. Russia is more hospitable to Jews than you might think. In the 2010s, a convocation of Jewish rabbis singled out Russia as the best place for Jews to live within the European region. Putin himself makes yearly donations to a Holocaust museum in Russia. It also is known, and has been confirmed by Israelis, that Putin personally paid for an apartment for a Russian émigré to Israel, a Jewish woman who helped raise Putin while both his parents worked.
I write this as someone who grew up with a mostly Jewish identity and as a fervent supporter of the Jewish culture. The Jewish passion for learning, questioning, and fairness took hold of me at a young age. In the wake of recent events, I returned to a piece published in the L.A. Times in 1969 (I have cited it in previous blogs, but it bears repeating). The author was Eric Hoffer, a self-taught philosopher who worked as a longshoreman. A 1956 article in the then-prominent magazine Look featured Hoffer, noting he was Eisenhower’s favorite author. The fame that followed lasted the rest of his life.
Hoffer’s books preached the need for human creativity and individuality. Though not immediately apparent in his writings, he was deeply spiritual (as was Eisenhower). His posthumous notes revealed a strong fondness for Ibsen, from whom he quoted:
“God has implanted in us the seeds of all greatness and it behooves us to see to it that the seeds germinate, grow, and come to flower. We must see learning and growing as a sort of worship. For God has implanted capacities and talents in us, and it is our sacred duty to finish God’s work.”
It is possible, and even likely that Hoffer was thinking of the Jewish people when he wrote down Ibsen’s words. After all, Jews’ spirituality is defined in terms of millennia. Their reverence for learning is evidenced by their winning Nobel Prizes—the most coveted award for intellectual accomplishment—at a rate 100 times higher than would be expected by their percentage of the world’s population.
In 1969, Hoffer penned a piece in the L.A. Times extolling Israel and what he saw as the specialness of the Jewish people. The article begins with the phrase: “The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to any other nations are forbidden to the Jews.” Hoffer continues with references ranging from the Holocaust to the 1967 war—a war in which Israel conquered several much bigger neighbors and then were forced to sue for peace. The article ends with the chilling sentence: “I have a premonition that will not leave me: as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the Holocaust will be upon us all.”
Israel’s path from the haven of an oppressed minority to a country that today many accuse of genocide against their neighbors is, as Hoffer eerily foretold, closely linked to America’s path from a brilliant beacon of freedom to an ask-no-questions oppressor. In both cases the path is closely linked to the transmutation of spirituality into materiality. Israel’s trajectory mirrors our own. Ours started with a turn away from gold as a monetary center to a sole reliance on fiat currency. Israel’s star began to dim when in the early 1970s it started to accept ever greater help from the U.S. in financing its defenses. (The 1967 war was financed almost entirely by Israel’s own resources.)
I believe that our latest attack on Iran can be bookended with the Ukraine war, which began four years earlier. Shortly after the Ukraine war began, I commented in a blog that I felt as if a higher power was telling the West, if not all of humanity, that we must choose between cooperation or possible extinction. Whether you felt that Russia was the invader or was provoked to invade by the West, the undeniable truth was that the West had chosen to support Banderites—the incontrovertible direct political descendants of the Nazis who, as acknowledged by Ukraine’s first president had been complicit with the Germans in conducting the Holocaust—rather than supporting a country which had sacrificed some 20 million citizens manning the eastern front in the Allies’ victory over the Nazis in WWII. Biden, his ardent backer, Cheney, and the team of rogues including Sullivan and Blinken, will go down among the most villainous Americans in the still relatively short history of this Republic. The screams of death from innocent Jews, Poles, and others rang hollow in their ears.
Iran has a small Jewish population, and according to many sources there is no discrimination against them. Indeed, Barbara Demick, author of the book Life of Jews Living in Iran, writes: “Jews in the Islamic Republic of Iran are formally to be treated equally and free to practice their religion. There is even a seat in the Iranian parliament reserved for the representative of the Iranian Jews.” Newspapers ranging from the Christian Science Monitor to the Guardian have noted the favorable treatment of Iranian Jews, and one source even noted that no Iranian Jew had accepted a cash offer to move to Israel.
What I’m leading up to: I think that under the right circumstances, Israel could be viewed as a brilliant cherry atop a group of sovereign countries who provide the bulk of the world’s goods and services – part and parcel of a cooperative and productive world.
But there is one deeply ironic impediment: Israel’s current leader Benjamin Netanyahu. No civilization in world history has been free from the occasional rotten apple. The Jewish culture, in common with civilizations of China and Russia, has been around for millennia. It should be able to withstand Netanyahu, but he is the key to how this unfolds. Israel probably wouldn’t be doing what it is doing today without Netanyahu. Israel could be the bridge to peace, but it will take another person running the country. I believe we are at a critical inflection point in history, and I can only hope that Hoffer’s words—“as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the Holocaust will be upon us all” –do not prove prophetic.
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