🌊 The Strike That Got Us Here

I'm so disheartened that too few of my fellow Americans understand the threat a nuclear Iran is to the US, regardless of Israel (although, as the only Jewish state in the world, I abhor the idea that we should abandon them, which is tantamount to their extinction).  However, my sense is that too few have personal experience with any of these regions to understand what it's really like in terms of authoritarian mentalities.

In 1976, my father went to the Air War College with the future head of the Israeli Air Force, a senior Saudi Air Force leader, and a senior Iranian Air Force leader, amongst many other nationalities.  We all got along famously and, when our fathers were off duty, we had picnics, ate at each others' homes, and had many family outings together.  It was a different time.

After Air War College, our families kept in touch.  After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, we never heard from the Iranian officer or his family ever again... the Iranian change to not just the Middle East, but the world, had begun, and it started with the brutal execution of many of the most moderate, pro-West members of Iranian society, especially the military.

Many of the "NOT OUR WAR" (all caps, since emotion, not logic, makes for most discourse in the US anymore) pundits and posters out there have not set a foot outside North America (maybe they've been to Europe, but I'm guessing most have never been to the regions where much of this danger to the US originates).  Further, few of them understand the Munich Agreement (where Neville Chamberlin basically assured WWII by appeasing Hitler), the Budapest Agreement (where the US, UK, and France guaranteed Ukraine's security if they'd give their nukes to Russia... whoops), or that when Iranians chant "Death to the Great Satan" they are NOT talking about Israel, they're talking about America... and they mean it.

The general good-naturedness of Americans and most other Westerners is a tremendous asset... but a liability in times like these if it leads to thinking that everyone (esp. those with nukes or large militaries) behaves similarly underneath it all... at least at the leadership level.

This is hard for most to internalize if you have not seen in it in-person (and this is in no way challenging the intellect or intentions of my fellow citizens).  You understand it viscerally much more when you've been there (as in your recent journey to Pakistan).

I have studied in Beijing before the great "opening" of China; worked with clients under the authority of the CCP; been a few miles from the Korean DMZ as sirens blared with a North Korean warning; stared into the cold, calculating eyes of Dmitri Medvedev as we prepared for our talk at the Skolkovo Innovation Center outside Moscow; been in an American cyber center watching live attacks on our infrastructure by nation-state hackers; engaged with a Ukranian Telco to help keep their systems up post the invasion; mediated my own colleagues from Russia, Eastern Europe, and the Nordics as they went after each other in a meeting the day after Russia invaded Ukraine; and I've listened to the horrific story of an Israeli client who set up a tech start-up in Gaza to try and help the Palestinians develop industry, only to have his daughter murdered on 10/7 and his 25 Palestinian employees to never be heard from again.

To be clear, in all these cases, across all nationalities, religions, cultures, etc., I found the vast majority of folks to be kind, engaging, and capable.  I still have many friends from all these places.  But their governments and institutions?  In anything less than a fully democratic/republican system, they are frequently focused on domination and conquest (whether land, assets, or people).  Despite Whoopi Goldberg's comments, we are NOT all the same, especially at the governmental level.

Conflict IS the way of the world and it is unlikely to change as long as the natural law of survival of the fittest remains immutable.  Is The West the "fittest" anymore?  Highly debatable when it comes to geopolitics and military scale.  In the 20th century, the US (along with allies with similar values) was a hallmark of helping maintain a world order in which conflicts remained largely regional since WWII.  Much of this was because many of these countries leaders didn't just remember the devastating lessons of WWII, they experienced them personally.  In the 21st century, all these leaders are gone.

Now we face a world in which the hard-won learnings of global conflict are distant to virtually all Western citizens (most especially US citizens, who have not experienced a war on US soil in over a century).  Yet the rise of technology (not just nukes, but intercontinental and space-based delivery systems, AI, cyber-terrorism, etc.) moves so fast that there is limited time to get on "war footing" for the unprepared.  If not stopped early, aggressors can achieve their aims in literally a matter of days, if not hours, if they possess game-changing military capacity.

In the case of Iran, the world is focused on their nuclear capacity, but many Americans seem unconcerned because they don't see any impact for the US, given the distances.  Yes, current estimates are that Iran can only get strike capability for Europe and the US by the 2030s... but that's not very long from now.*  Furthermore, focusing only on Iran's organic capacity is a huge mistake.**  The notional "Axis of Evil" of the early 2000s is now a reality, as evidenced by the regular and large-scale exchange of armaments and coordination of militaries 

This beautiful, yet flawed, thing that we have, the American Experiment, is wonderful and resilient... yet the pace of military and technology developments globally means we can't be isolated and unprepared as we were before WWI and WWII.  There simply will not be enough time to turn the tide, so to speak, if even a small amount of nukes are brought to bear.

We are essentially in a low level WWIII right now.  No one wants to see precious American lives lost.  However, when we have committed allies who are willing to sacrifice THEIR lives on the front lines of the battle between democracy and authoritarianism, without US "boots on the ground", and just need military and economic assets to stop the spread at a relatively early stage, what should our answer be?

With historical context and an understanding of the pace of military technology and authoritarian advancement, the answer should be obvious.  It is literally existential for the US and The West. Yet, in a nation with citizens focused predominantly on social matters, will anyone even take the time to understand these facts deeply enough to reach this conclusion?  I guess we'll see... likely sooner rather than later.

Trump must do what`s right for America not Israel