Iran
POSTNOTE June 24, 2025: a summary of Iran-U.S. political history up to today, here.
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To help orient you:
pdf of the below: Iran Lebanon Israel area
Tehran Iran to Jerusalem Israel: here (about 1,150 road miles). That’s about the same distance as from St. Paul to New York City. This is also a good opportunity to get a fix on the Strait of Hormuz, on the southeast side of the map by Oman.
Iran is more than twice the size of Texas and has about three times as many people. (about 91 million people in more than 600,000 square miles,
Personal opinion: the bombing yesterday was a catastrophic blunder. But we are stuck with its consequences long term.
(I saw no good end with our aggressive response to 9-11-01. 20 years later, a generation, our official military engagement with Iraq-Afghanistan ended. And there are some who think we should still be there….
The same prediction applies to what has happened in the last several days, and as I predicted at the Israel response to the Hamas after Oct. 7.)
No side owns “righteous”. All sides are “enemy” to the other. There is never, and there never will be, a “winner”, as I think we will see evolve over the near and distant future.
POSTNOTE: Many have connections to this conflict. For instance, I have a grandson who’s an active duty Marine. He’s nowhere near this area, but his life will doubtless be affected in coming months. Another American relative is on active military duty in Ukraine. We don’t know the exact assignment but he’s been there for a long while, and is not yet home. Personally, I was in the U.S. Army during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October, 1962, so I have some first hand experience, which I recently wrote about here.
Regardless of personal or family experience, everyone of us has a stake in what is happening right now. Get actively involved.
COMMENTS (more at end):
from Joyce, a.m. June 22: What my Rabbi wrote about the bombing: Tonight I want to share what is weighing on my heart. I know I won’t say everything just right, and some of it might not sit well with you — but I speak from a place that honors different truths that exist at the same time. First, my prayers are with all of us for strength. The US has now bombed Iran and no one knows what the morning may bring. My heart and prayers are with my people, nearly half the Jewish worldwide population who live in Israel and who – alongside Palestinian Muslim and Christian Israelis, Bedouin, Druze, Christian, and Buddhist Israelis and residents and visitors – are in harms way. And for Jews around the world who unfairly face antisemitism based on the actions of Israel and based on the whole complicated mess of this most ancient hatred, may we remain resilient and safe. My prayers are with all Americans who had no vote in this decision and who will face what will come. My prayers are with all Iranians who have suffered too long from this theocratic regime. My prayers are with all Palestinians in Gaza who have suffered too much from Hamas first and foremost and from the most rightwing government in Israel’s history, regardless of how defensible any actions might be. My prayers are with all Palestinians in the West Bank, who face violence from rogue Jewish settlers and an IDF that at times turns away and is at times complicit. And my prayers are with the 22 living hostages in Gaza including Omri Miran whose father and wife I met in Hostages Square a year ago. We will not forget you. And may grieving families bury the 31 murdered hostages held in captivity soon and speedily.
And even with all this, my heart heavy with the reality of war, tonight my prayers are for peace. This is not the prayer for peace I prayed in the 1990s. It is a more tired and wary prayer but nevertheless sanguine about what might emerge from this defining moment.
from Sue, in response to Joyce’s forward: This prayer is full of all the things we are feeling today (and for the last year and a half). No one is untouched by the racially- or tribally-inspired hatred that leads to the violence that we have seen and are seeing increase in the Middle East. We are all victims as we see our world become rougher, coarser, and less compassionate; as we watch our children and grandchildren grow up in the “new normal” created by Trump, Hamas, Netanyahu, Assad, and the theocratic rulers of Iran. And the latest threat of widespread war, and even nuclear war, makes a mockery of our prayers for peace. I wish I shared the author’s sense of hope.
from Judy: Thank you Dick for this piece. This is a scary time and one I could never have imagined in my lifetime.
from Claude: Thanks for a great post, Dick…Iran has closer to 91 million people according to a Google search. It is a big, strong country and we just launched an act of war against it.
from Brian: Thanks so much for your post. As far as I can see it, Iran almost asked for this. They’ve said they want to destroy the USA and Israel. No go.
from Ryan: A song from a young balladeer in Arkansas, a voice of the new generation, (if you’re fortunate, as I was, the next song in rollover on YouTube is Simon and Garfunkel from 2009, “Sounds of Silence”.)
from Molly, forwarding a Facebook post bt Anne Lamott.
I said to the kitty as we were getting up this morning, “I wish I had better news for you.” I didn’t want to get out of bed, but I had to let the dog out. And I turned on the news: Shock and awe again, same old same old; here we are. possible end of the world, or at the very least, horror. Sigh. Panic. Numbness. Rage. Hopelessness.
So now what? Well, again, same old same old. We do what we’ve always done after unfathomable brutality, from going to war on Iraq to the shootings at Sandy Hook to Uvalde.
After the election last year, feeling complete defeat and fear, I asked myself what I could possibly do to help. After a second cup of coffee, I smote my forehead and remembered I can write.
This morning, feeling complete terror about what bombing Iran will unleash, on what it will be like for America to live in a pariah nation, I dug out some posts I wrote on earlier mornings after, and have cobbled together this inadequate response:
At some point we will get back to marches and registering voters, but today? Today we can unleash waves of love on each other, our families and communities and even our extremely disappointing selves, because love is bigger than any bleak shit and barbarity that the world throws at us. We will have hope again, because of this love, because we always do again, eventually. We have to remember that today. Susan B Anthony’s great niece said in times of horror and hopeless, “We remember to remember.” We remember having come through the apparent end of the world other times, and of having resurrected.
What is helpful right away is to stick together in our horror, grief, anxiety and cluelessness. We cry or shut down, we blame, despair, rage, pray; gather in community, or isolate. I recommend that we do this today. Some of us won’t be able to eat at all, some of us will eat our body weight in ice cream and fries; some of us can’t turn off the TV, some of us can’t turn it on. These are all appropriate. Today we just keep the patient comfortable.
If you don’t know what else to do right do, do love: take a big bag of food over to the local food pantry. Don’t forget Oreos for the kids and Ensure for the elderly. Walk around the neighborhood and wave or hug everyone and pick up litter. My husband Neal said that everything true and beautiful can be discovered in a ten minute walk. Love and beauty are truth.
Talking and sticking together is usually the answer. We become gentler, more patient and kind with each other, and that’s a small miracle. It means something of the spirit is at work. For me, it is grace made visible. It doesn’t come immediately, or by bumper sticker, and it doesn’t come naturally. What comes naturally is rage and blame. Blame R Us. But Grace bats last.
We never gave up on peace and love before, and we won’t now. We’ve always even danced again eventually, with limps. But it’s the “eventually” that feels so defeating. It takes time for life to get itself sorted out. I so hate this and do not agree to this, but have no alternative, because it is Truth: healing and peace will take time. And in the meantime, always always always always, we take care of the poor. This will help you more than anyone else, and put you in Jesus and Buddha’s good graces.
After an appropriate time of being stunned, terrified and in despair, we sigh and help each other back to our feet. Maybe we ask God for help, or Gus, the great universal spirit. We do the next right thing. We buy or cook or serve a bunch of food for the local homeless. We give a few dollars to the vets and mothers begging at busy intersections, no matter our tiny opinions on their hygiene or enterprise. We return phone calls, library books, smiles. We donate money as we are able. We practice radical self-care and say hello gently to everyone, even strange people who scare us. We go to the market and flirt with lonely old people In the express line with their coupons. It can’t be enough but it will be.
I have no answers but do know one last thing that is true: Figure it out is a bad slogan. We won’t be able to. Life is much wilder, complex, heartbreaking, weirder, richer, more insane, awful, beautiful and profound than we were prepared for as children, or that I am comfortable with. The paradox is that in the face of this, we discover that in the smallest moments of taking in beauty, in actively being people of goodness and mercy, we are saved.
My Thoughts about War with Iran
Gail Hughes
A key assumption underlying the call to attack Iran is that Iran is very close to developing nuclear weapons. We’ve heard that for at least 10 years, maybe 20. Obviously that claim was false 10 years ago, so what’s changed now? Tulsi testified under oath before Congress that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons and it would take three years to do so. Trump responded that it doesn’t matter what Tulsi said. Then Tulsi said that Iran is near nuclear development, but did not give an explanation as to why she changed her story. Why isn’t the U.S. Intelligence Agency report valid? Is there new info? If so, from where – Israeli Intelligence, perhaps? If that’s the case, wouldn’t Tulsi and/or Trump say so? Since this is central to U.S. decision-making re Iran, it should not be accepted on faith; it really deserves an explanation.
I suspect that Tulsi changed her story because she is a military officer, and since Trump is Commander in Chief, her duty is to defer to him. And why would Trump not accept what his own Intelligence Agency says? I suspect it’s because, as Trump says, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapons program because this war is not about nuclear weapons development; it’s about a determination to attack Iran, no matter what. The real reason for attacking Iran might not be something that the public would support.
We’ve seen this movie before, over and over, targeting one country after another. The leader of the country is said to be evil, a New Hitler who has Weapons of Mass Destruction or in some other way is a danger to the world; ‘evidence’ (later revealed to be fake or perhaps there is an event that turns out to have been a False Flag) is provided to prove how evil he is; the situation is urgent: we must attack that country in a pre-emptive strike before it destroys the world, and time is of the essence; we’ll just launch a precision strike. Don’t worry, we won’t engage in Regime Change (though with Iran, it’s already escalated to Regime Change); it will have the support of the population of the enemy country, whose people will welcome us with flowers; it will be quick and easy, lasting three months or less. There is censorship and denigration of anyone who questions any component of the Official Narrative. After we launch the war, the goals escalate to Regime Change, rationale may shift, the timeframe greatly extends, and it becomes another Forever War. We spend millions or billions of dollars, the country is totally destroyed, and it hasn’t achieved world peace because soon we’re in yet another war. Remember when Wesley Clark said that the Pentagon had a plan to attack 7 countries in 5 years? And that didn’t include Afghanistan, which we’d already attacked, or a bunch of other countries such as Haiti and Yemen. Anyway, the 7 countries were: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran. The first six have already been attacked and destroyed, the target of international war crimes. Lebanon had been the Switzerland of the Middle East; Libya under Gaddafi had the highest standard of living in Africa, but he wanted to create a United States of Africa and develop a gold-based currency. Gaddafi dismantled his nuclear weapons program and was rewarded by being attacked. So Iran is the only one left. But there will be others after Iran, I predict: China, Russia, North Korea, and any other country that is insufficiently obedient to the U.S.
None of these has been shown to be a ‘good war’; none has ended well. I don’t think a war in Iran will end well, either. Iran is not Iraq: It is bigger and much more powerful. And, like the war in Ukraine, it has more potential to escalate into all-out nuclear war that will destroy not only Iran, but Israel, the U.S., and everyone else.
P.S. Even if Iran had actual nuclear weapons, what motivation would they have to launch a first strike on Israel? To do so would be suicide, because they would immediately be pulverized by pretty much the entire world.
In his rush to make sure everyone knows how tough he is and not realizing that he is an insecure narcissistic five-time draft dodger, donnee’ sent the bombers into Iran to make that precision pinpoint executed bombing and taking out Iran’s nuclear capability in one strike. As donnee’ is finding out after all of that dumb bottom boasting, the actual bomb damage assessment after the dust cleared and donnees bravado was still hanging from the rooftops, the damage claimed by the draft dodge was a little bit over stated. Donnee’ will soon to begin to realize that he has poked the dragon a bit too hard just to show how tough he is as he sees US forces in the area being attacked and bombed and perhaps Iran being given some nuclear bombs to sue by its friends. Such a childish man child who would be king with no Republicans in Congress save for a vey few who have enough SISU to do anything other than to cheer donnee’ on while having their attached securely to his bottom! Such a weak and insecurity driven national and international leader and so dangerous because of his cowardly driven need to prove how tough he is!