This is among those rare points at which JVL allows for the possibility of a happy outcome, regime change, and at the top, under scenario A. To be fair, he qualifies it as unlikely, but, uncharacteristically for JVL, he allows for the possibility.
I can help: The odds are zero. It has never happened anywhere. Yet the possibility is always dangled before us, particularly during Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom, as if it's a point in favor of bombing. There may be points in favor of bombing, but things that won't ever, ever happen just aren't.
There must be an inbuilt optimism in humans as concerns war. Could be an atavism from our primate days, but we sure like to make room for cheerful outcomes to violence, even if it's not us doing it (it's Trump). I am seeing this everywhere lately: "Well, nobody was ever bombed into regime change, but there's always a first time!"
JVL - If you’re not familiar with William Spaniel’s YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@Gametheory101), you might find it interesting. His area of expertise is how wars start and stop, and provides educational, non-partisan analysis of international war goings on.
Much appreciation for all your writing and youtubing!
Or maybe not…amazing what goes around comes around. Came of age in the 70’s and remember the nuclear scares and anxiety we had as nukes proliferated. With treaties it stabilized and anxiety subsided. Hello anxiety again. Thanks R’s. Great job.
This is dark even for you, JVL. The trouble is that doesn't make it wrong.
I wonder if it makes sense to ask what areas require a slower, more deliberative pace and which need more efficiency. I see some big areas where those of us paying attention are dissatisfied with this whole "Move fast and break things" approach, at least in certain areas - tariffs and unpredictability in the business environment generally, rule of law especially as it relates to people swooped up in ICE raids, and now Iran all jump to mind Other areas arguably do need less plodding action.
The question is are enough people paying attention. I really don't know.
I also suspect we have a failure of patience and hope going on. Even before Trump (or at least between Trump, under Biden), I think a lot of people were convinced life was intolerable, that their leaders could never do enough, that everything was falling apart around them. I don't know how much of that was Trump constantly negging the country, COVID giving people a chance to pause and think about how well their life was working, or things being substantively worth, or at least worse in a way we were more aware of, like with social media increasing our dissatisfaction with our lives. But somewhere along the line, for whatever reason, people seemed to become so dissatisfied with their live he usual solutions no longer seemed sufficient.
Which category is driving that? Again, I really don't know.
The one thing I'm certain of is I miss feeling like life was basically tolerable, good even, and we could afford to take our time and get things right. It was nice. So much better than this; and I'd like to find some people I could slow down and get back to that with. Not to the old institutions necessarily, just the sense we were better off with some guardrails and with some ability to talk things through. I hate how pie-in-the-sky that feels even to yearn for these days. But it *was* nice, and I miss it deeply.
Man, I always agree with JVL so hard, but I *really* really disagree with #2.
Liberal democracy is inefficient? Really? As compared with what?
As compared with a fictitious dictator who makes efficient and effective decisions on behalf of the entire nation? Okay sure, this fictitious dictator is more efficient than a liberal democracy.
But is liberal democracy less efficient than...
...Mao? Stalin? Hitler? Ayatollah Khamenei? Nicolas Maduro? Fidel Castro? Vladimir Putin? Kim Jong Un? Did you happen to notice how Xi Jingpin's COVID response went?
How about we go further back. Were liberal democracies less efficient than the Kaiser? The Ottoman Sultan? How about the King of Spain or the ancient European feudal lords of old? Less efficient than the Japanese Shoguns or the late period Roman Emperors?
I understand that trump, who leads our country, is pushing the country to become a fascist state and his movement expressly shares that goal. But we are plainly not a fascist state YET, as we are all still here talking instead of being murdered in a gulag. And it is the byproduct of 250 years of American liberal democracy that's currently pummeling Iran into a pulp (both the US and Israeli militaries are product of that legacy), and a liberal democracy in Ukraine gutting the once-mighty Russian army.
Now, sure, you could point out that Trump is "just doing stuff" and that Congress wouldn't let him "just do stuff" if it was asserting it's proper role. But there are several gaping holes in that argument. Some of what trump and his cronies are doing is they're "just" taking bribes, "just" putting unqualified hacks in leadership positions, "just" firing qualified generals for being black or women, and "just" starting wars with no geostrategic long-term plan.
As we are bombing Iran, do we really need to be reminded that poorly thought out, anti-democratic interventions of yesteryear *helped give rise to the mullahs in Iran!* It was exactly this idea of "just do stuff" and "realpolitik" that gave us many of the biggest dangers we face in the world today. It was congress and liberal democrats (all lower case, I don't mean the party) that toppled sadam and gave us today's Iraq -- some people would say that's bad, but JVL's not one of them! (Neither am I btw, I think the Iraqis are way better off living in a republic and way less dangerous to everyone else, though that may not have justified the cost of the war).
I don't think you can call something inefficient if the only more efficient options are either theoretical or fictitious.
Why did CENTCOM not inform Kuwait defense of the 3 F-15s operating in their airspace at the same time Iran was attacking them after our attack on Iran. When you put assets in harm's way do we no longer discuss such contingencies? Is this a portent of the Pentagon under Hegseth?
And then there are issues regarding what happens in the US related to all this.
First there are oil and gas prices - rapidly rising and while the US is a major producer (somewhat reliant on our new "opponent" above in Canada. This will surely help Trump's anti-affordability and anti- inflation campaigns. Under Trump the US oil and gas reserves have been shrinking, probably to help keep market prices low, and now less available to keep prices down as the Persian Gulf shuts down and the world heads into a major oil and gas price and availability crisis.
Second - a number of commenters have looked at one major reason for this war being another way to present an opportunity to interfere with the upcoming elections. In my devious mind I can easily imagine that it's all part of a plan to set up a domestic terrorism opportunity which would then present Trump with a domestic counter terrorism opportunity for martial law. It may seem far fetched but it all seems part of the unsaid Trump plan to MAKE AMERICA A SITTING DUCK by destroying most of our domestic and foreign counter intelligence infrastructures. This was expanded in just the last few days - Patel decimated the FBI Iran counter-terrorism staff (aka the experts that have prevent domestic Irani assassination and other efforts until now) while Noem last Thursday fired her cyber counter terrorism chief (albeit a completely incompetent one like his boss)!!! What on earth excuse is there to do this just as we go to war with Iran which has a full cadre of terrorists throughout the world ? It seems to be more than coincidental at the start of the attacks on Iran. But it does feel like a plan to repeat here the German Reichstag fire which the Nazis (who probably set it) used as an excuse for power grabbing. Even if Trump hasn't read this history his assistants no doubt have.
I got into a social media slap fight about how this war is illegal. The bootlicking sheeple came to the aid of the President telling me that it was allowed under the War Powers Act, 2001 AUMF (which was to address Al Qaeda and Iraq, not start new wars in Iran), and a litany of other fig leafs. None of this is true, but Fox news said it, so it's gospel. Nevermind they were arguing 12 months ago that we should be America First, etc.
I will say this, it's very helpful how our President is showing us where the leaks in the democracy dike walls are. There's a lot of hole-plugging that needs to happen when this is all over. I pray that we've learned a lesson or three and don't do our usual pendulum swing, whataboutism. We really need a humble George Washington-like figure who is ok having constrained power and realizes the value of fixing this for the next geneations.
You haven’t considered that Israel likely wants to level Iran the way it leveled Gaza. Trump has no stomach for deaths, no staying power, and no exit strategy. Our worst case is that he will use the war as a smokescreen for other nefarious actions. He and Noem have already cancelled the asylum protections for Somali’s. Certainly ICE thugs are beating immigrants up as usual and sending people -illegal and not, and even Americans - to their prisons. Prisons which give out no information about who is incarcerated, no information about internal conditions nor the health and welfare of those incarcerated.
What no one is talking about is that oil prices are going up so inflation will be going up and Americans will be pissed. Then I suspect Trump will redouble his efforts to fix or prevent an election.
Look, I continue t believe that the removal of the Ayatollah was a good thing. His existence on this Earth has been the closest thing to Hitler for decades. The amount of mass casualties and killings in the name of his regime has to be close to just about some of the worst authoritarian regimes in the history of the world.
That said, I wrote a Substack back on January 6th of this year. Link below:
The point of the discussion was to compare my 40+ year old decision to learn how to ski and take chances I've never taken before and compare it to Donald Trump. The point was that once you cross the line, it naturally gets easier and easier to keep going.
Here's the thing: Donald Trump's domestic agenda is failing miserably. His effort to fix the economy has led to an Affordability Crisis where the cost to survive (defined as costs of housing, healthcare, energy/heat and food) have all increased at a pace between 2% and 8%. His lone success on that Affordability scale has been saving a few dimes on gasoline at the pump. But, if you do the math on a 25 gallon vehicle that gets say 20 miles per gallon, the average American is saving just a few bucks every week or two. So, maybe that American saves $200-$300 per year thanks to his effort to lower gas prices. But, that doesn't help when monthly home payments are now 30% above what they were five years ago, health insurance just spiked >20% thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill and expiring ACA credits and electricity prices are skyrocketing thanks to the advent of Datacenter Hyperscalers and LNG exports causing natural gas prices to increase over 60% as the major feedstock for every power plant in the United States (40% of total electricity today is powered by natural gas). Add in the ICE mess that is still encompassing cities like Minneapolis/St. Paul, and it's safe to say everything at home is going haywire. So, why not topple a regime and install a puppet (i.e. Venezuela).
As I put it in my Substack, I imagined Trump's mind going something like this:
“Oh, but what if I just tried to be a little greedy? What if I stopped with this pizza [styled skiing] nonsense of restriction and slow navigation through the trail of presidential decision making? What if I just tiptoed into a coup? What if I just dabbled in regime change? What if I just nibbled on the crust of imperialism? I mean, it’s not like I’m going to just ignore my stated beliefs of America First. Hell, I’ll be pushing America First on everyone outside America. That’s okay, right? It’s just one leader. It’s just one leader in a crappy country full of oil. I just need to do this one thing…this one time…and it’s all good.
Okay, let’s cross that line!”
And, with Venezuela, it was easy! It felt "Goooooooooooood" to be the guy who toppled Venezuela. Spheres of freaking influence, right?
And, as I said, once you do it once, it gets easier and easier to rationalize the decision to cross the line of dictator toppling. I mean, heck, the biggest issue so far was tariffs and the SCOTUS said, "Nope, you can't do that that way. But, you could do it this way." Talk about Ole-ing like Dorn on Major League.
Look, the problem with our Democracy was that it assumed three branches of government would remain independent. That simply is no longer the reality (if it truly ever was). But, one thing is for sure: despite his best efforts to be the dictator he wished he could've been in Trump 1.0, the shallowness of knowledge surrounding his lizard brain today forgot there is one difference between Iran and Venezuela: Religious Zealots.
Venezuela was a typical dictatorship and gangster state. Iran is a religious zealot organization whose leaders believe a plethora of virgins awaits them once they die for the cause. So, to believe that things will go as smoothly as it has for Venezuela (smoothly is a relative term when it is applied to Venezuela) could be thought of as naive, at best. Your situational outcomes are all plausible and span the probability spectrum well. But, let's be honest, this already is not Venezuela. And, this administration truly thought it would be.
I am glad you brought up the autocracy angle. I am more sympathetic to the Israeli mission than most here. But there is no American mission than Trump likes blowing stuff up because it makes him feel big. For all practical purposes, there is no official American rationale that can be treated as being offered in good faith. To the extent there are perfectly good reasons for this, no one believes that's why Trump is doing this.
But also, it proves that no one cares about any more about Congressional input into anything. Even when Trump is gone, there will be an appetite for a president who rules like a king on all sides.
Constitutional government was nice while it lasted.
In other news, Kash Patel fired multiple FBI agents in charge of Iranian Counterterrorism in the past month because they were also the guys who did the investigation of Trump and his top-secret documents in the bathroom at Mar-a-Lago.
Let me show you this really neat trick where I take this bucket of gasoline and make the fire bigger so that I can argue that I need a fire engine.
Trump told the Iranian people: “Take over your government. It will be yours to take.” This sounds like great advice for the American people too. Election day is only eight months away!
This is among those rare points at which JVL allows for the possibility of a happy outcome, regime change, and at the top, under scenario A. To be fair, he qualifies it as unlikely, but, uncharacteristically for JVL, he allows for the possibility.
I can help: The odds are zero. It has never happened anywhere. Yet the possibility is always dangled before us, particularly during Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom, as if it's a point in favor of bombing. There may be points in favor of bombing, but things that won't ever, ever happen just aren't.
There must be an inbuilt optimism in humans as concerns war. Could be an atavism from our primate days, but we sure like to make room for cheerful outcomes to violence, even if it's not us doing it (it's Trump). I am seeing this everywhere lately: "Well, nobody was ever bombed into regime change, but there's always a first time!"
JVL - If you’re not familiar with William Spaniel’s YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@Gametheory101), you might find it interesting. His area of expertise is how wars start and stop, and provides educational, non-partisan analysis of international war goings on.
Much appreciation for all your writing and youtubing!
Or maybe not…amazing what goes around comes around. Came of age in the 70’s and remember the nuclear scares and anxiety we had as nukes proliferated. With treaties it stabilized and anxiety subsided. Hello anxiety again. Thanks R’s. Great job.
“What if a butterfly flaps its wings in Tehran and you get a coup in Pakistan, which is a nuclear power.”
Well damn. I thought I’d heard everything from JD that could freeze my soul but then ….
(And on reflection not something I would disagree with)
This is dark even for you, JVL. The trouble is that doesn't make it wrong.
I wonder if it makes sense to ask what areas require a slower, more deliberative pace and which need more efficiency. I see some big areas where those of us paying attention are dissatisfied with this whole "Move fast and break things" approach, at least in certain areas - tariffs and unpredictability in the business environment generally, rule of law especially as it relates to people swooped up in ICE raids, and now Iran all jump to mind Other areas arguably do need less plodding action.
The question is are enough people paying attention. I really don't know.
I also suspect we have a failure of patience and hope going on. Even before Trump (or at least between Trump, under Biden), I think a lot of people were convinced life was intolerable, that their leaders could never do enough, that everything was falling apart around them. I don't know how much of that was Trump constantly negging the country, COVID giving people a chance to pause and think about how well their life was working, or things being substantively worth, or at least worse in a way we were more aware of, like with social media increasing our dissatisfaction with our lives. But somewhere along the line, for whatever reason, people seemed to become so dissatisfied with their live he usual solutions no longer seemed sufficient.
Which category is driving that? Again, I really don't know.
The one thing I'm certain of is I miss feeling like life was basically tolerable, good even, and we could afford to take our time and get things right. It was nice. So much better than this; and I'd like to find some people I could slow down and get back to that with. Not to the old institutions necessarily, just the sense we were better off with some guardrails and with some ability to talk things through. I hate how pie-in-the-sky that feels even to yearn for these days. But it *was* nice, and I miss it deeply.
Man, I always agree with JVL so hard, but I *really* really disagree with #2.
Liberal democracy is inefficient? Really? As compared with what?
As compared with a fictitious dictator who makes efficient and effective decisions on behalf of the entire nation? Okay sure, this fictitious dictator is more efficient than a liberal democracy.
But is liberal democracy less efficient than...
...Mao? Stalin? Hitler? Ayatollah Khamenei? Nicolas Maduro? Fidel Castro? Vladimir Putin? Kim Jong Un? Did you happen to notice how Xi Jingpin's COVID response went?
How about we go further back. Were liberal democracies less efficient than the Kaiser? The Ottoman Sultan? How about the King of Spain or the ancient European feudal lords of old? Less efficient than the Japanese Shoguns or the late period Roman Emperors?
I understand that trump, who leads our country, is pushing the country to become a fascist state and his movement expressly shares that goal. But we are plainly not a fascist state YET, as we are all still here talking instead of being murdered in a gulag. And it is the byproduct of 250 years of American liberal democracy that's currently pummeling Iran into a pulp (both the US and Israeli militaries are product of that legacy), and a liberal democracy in Ukraine gutting the once-mighty Russian army.
Now, sure, you could point out that Trump is "just doing stuff" and that Congress wouldn't let him "just do stuff" if it was asserting it's proper role. But there are several gaping holes in that argument. Some of what trump and his cronies are doing is they're "just" taking bribes, "just" putting unqualified hacks in leadership positions, "just" firing qualified generals for being black or women, and "just" starting wars with no geostrategic long-term plan.
As we are bombing Iran, do we really need to be reminded that poorly thought out, anti-democratic interventions of yesteryear *helped give rise to the mullahs in Iran!* It was exactly this idea of "just do stuff" and "realpolitik" that gave us many of the biggest dangers we face in the world today. It was congress and liberal democrats (all lower case, I don't mean the party) that toppled sadam and gave us today's Iraq -- some people would say that's bad, but JVL's not one of them! (Neither am I btw, I think the Iraqis are way better off living in a republic and way less dangerous to everyone else, though that may not have justified the cost of the war).
I don't think you can call something inefficient if the only more efficient options are either theoretical or fictitious.
Why did CENTCOM not inform Kuwait defense of the 3 F-15s operating in their airspace at the same time Iran was attacking them after our attack on Iran. When you put assets in harm's way do we no longer discuss such contingencies? Is this a portent of the Pentagon under Hegseth?
And then there are issues regarding what happens in the US related to all this.
First there are oil and gas prices - rapidly rising and while the US is a major producer (somewhat reliant on our new "opponent" above in Canada. This will surely help Trump's anti-affordability and anti- inflation campaigns. Under Trump the US oil and gas reserves have been shrinking, probably to help keep market prices low, and now less available to keep prices down as the Persian Gulf shuts down and the world heads into a major oil and gas price and availability crisis.
Second - a number of commenters have looked at one major reason for this war being another way to present an opportunity to interfere with the upcoming elections. In my devious mind I can easily imagine that it's all part of a plan to set up a domestic terrorism opportunity which would then present Trump with a domestic counter terrorism opportunity for martial law. It may seem far fetched but it all seems part of the unsaid Trump plan to MAKE AMERICA A SITTING DUCK by destroying most of our domestic and foreign counter intelligence infrastructures. This was expanded in just the last few days - Patel decimated the FBI Iran counter-terrorism staff (aka the experts that have prevent domestic Irani assassination and other efforts until now) while Noem last Thursday fired her cyber counter terrorism chief (albeit a completely incompetent one like his boss)!!! What on earth excuse is there to do this just as we go to war with Iran which has a full cadre of terrorists throughout the world ? It seems to be more than coincidental at the start of the attacks on Iran. But it does feel like a plan to repeat here the German Reichstag fire which the Nazis (who probably set it) used as an excuse for power grabbing. Even if Trump hasn't read this history his assistants no doubt have.
I got into a social media slap fight about how this war is illegal. The bootlicking sheeple came to the aid of the President telling me that it was allowed under the War Powers Act, 2001 AUMF (which was to address Al Qaeda and Iraq, not start new wars in Iran), and a litany of other fig leafs. None of this is true, but Fox news said it, so it's gospel. Nevermind they were arguing 12 months ago that we should be America First, etc.
I will say this, it's very helpful how our President is showing us where the leaks in the democracy dike walls are. There's a lot of hole-plugging that needs to happen when this is all over. I pray that we've learned a lesson or three and don't do our usual pendulum swing, whataboutism. We really need a humble George Washington-like figure who is ok having constrained power and realizes the value of fixing this for the next geneations.
You haven’t considered that Israel likely wants to level Iran the way it leveled Gaza. Trump has no stomach for deaths, no staying power, and no exit strategy. Our worst case is that he will use the war as a smokescreen for other nefarious actions. He and Noem have already cancelled the asylum protections for Somali’s. Certainly ICE thugs are beating immigrants up as usual and sending people -illegal and not, and even Americans - to their prisons. Prisons which give out no information about who is incarcerated, no information about internal conditions nor the health and welfare of those incarcerated.
What no one is talking about is that oil prices are going up so inflation will be going up and Americans will be pissed. Then I suspect Trump will redouble his efforts to fix or prevent an election.
Scary days ahead. See you on the streets
Look, I continue t believe that the removal of the Ayatollah was a good thing. His existence on this Earth has been the closest thing to Hitler for decades. The amount of mass casualties and killings in the name of his regime has to be close to just about some of the worst authoritarian regimes in the history of the world.
That said, I wrote a Substack back on January 6th of this year. Link below:
https://jamesshort.substack.com/p/once-you-cross-the-line-it-naturally?r=1aj8nb
The point of the discussion was to compare my 40+ year old decision to learn how to ski and take chances I've never taken before and compare it to Donald Trump. The point was that once you cross the line, it naturally gets easier and easier to keep going.
Here's the thing: Donald Trump's domestic agenda is failing miserably. His effort to fix the economy has led to an Affordability Crisis where the cost to survive (defined as costs of housing, healthcare, energy/heat and food) have all increased at a pace between 2% and 8%. His lone success on that Affordability scale has been saving a few dimes on gasoline at the pump. But, if you do the math on a 25 gallon vehicle that gets say 20 miles per gallon, the average American is saving just a few bucks every week or two. So, maybe that American saves $200-$300 per year thanks to his effort to lower gas prices. But, that doesn't help when monthly home payments are now 30% above what they were five years ago, health insurance just spiked >20% thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill and expiring ACA credits and electricity prices are skyrocketing thanks to the advent of Datacenter Hyperscalers and LNG exports causing natural gas prices to increase over 60% as the major feedstock for every power plant in the United States (40% of total electricity today is powered by natural gas). Add in the ICE mess that is still encompassing cities like Minneapolis/St. Paul, and it's safe to say everything at home is going haywire. So, why not topple a regime and install a puppet (i.e. Venezuela).
As I put it in my Substack, I imagined Trump's mind going something like this:
“Oh, but what if I just tried to be a little greedy? What if I stopped with this pizza [styled skiing] nonsense of restriction and slow navigation through the trail of presidential decision making? What if I just tiptoed into a coup? What if I just dabbled in regime change? What if I just nibbled on the crust of imperialism? I mean, it’s not like I’m going to just ignore my stated beliefs of America First. Hell, I’ll be pushing America First on everyone outside America. That’s okay, right? It’s just one leader. It’s just one leader in a crappy country full of oil. I just need to do this one thing…this one time…and it’s all good.
Okay, let’s cross that line!”
And, with Venezuela, it was easy! It felt "Goooooooooooood" to be the guy who toppled Venezuela. Spheres of freaking influence, right?
And, as I said, once you do it once, it gets easier and easier to rationalize the decision to cross the line of dictator toppling. I mean, heck, the biggest issue so far was tariffs and the SCOTUS said, "Nope, you can't do that that way. But, you could do it this way." Talk about Ole-ing like Dorn on Major League.
Look, the problem with our Democracy was that it assumed three branches of government would remain independent. That simply is no longer the reality (if it truly ever was). But, one thing is for sure: despite his best efforts to be the dictator he wished he could've been in Trump 1.0, the shallowness of knowledge surrounding his lizard brain today forgot there is one difference between Iran and Venezuela: Religious Zealots.
Venezuela was a typical dictatorship and gangster state. Iran is a religious zealot organization whose leaders believe a plethora of virgins awaits them once they die for the cause. So, to believe that things will go as smoothly as it has for Venezuela (smoothly is a relative term when it is applied to Venezuela) could be thought of as naive, at best. Your situational outcomes are all plausible and span the probability spectrum well. But, let's be honest, this already is not Venezuela. And, this administration truly thought it would be.
I am glad you brought up the autocracy angle. I am more sympathetic to the Israeli mission than most here. But there is no American mission than Trump likes blowing stuff up because it makes him feel big. For all practical purposes, there is no official American rationale that can be treated as being offered in good faith. To the extent there are perfectly good reasons for this, no one believes that's why Trump is doing this.
But also, it proves that no one cares about any more about Congressional input into anything. Even when Trump is gone, there will be an appetite for a president who rules like a king on all sides.
Constitutional government was nice while it lasted.
No words for this distraction. Except, I fear. this is part of a plan to call off the mid-terms.
In other news, Kash Patel fired multiple FBI agents in charge of Iranian Counterterrorism in the past month because they were also the guys who did the investigation of Trump and his top-secret documents in the bathroom at Mar-a-Lago.
Let me show you this really neat trick where I take this bucket of gasoline and make the fire bigger so that I can argue that I need a fire engine.
Trump told the Iranian people: “Take over your government. It will be yours to take.” This sounds like great advice for the American people too. Election day is only eight months away!
Dicatators like to start wars, but have a problem finishing them. Sometimes the war finishes the dictator instead. Let it be so.
My momma told me that war is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.