Seeing Benjamin Netanyahu stand up there and lie about Iran's "nuclear weapons program" was one of the worst performances ever given. A grade school drama production could have done better. And would have been more convincing because children are better able to believe in fantasy, especially the fantasies they tell others.
Even worse, Netanyahu expects the world to believe this, all the while IDF snipers are killing kids in Gaza. Is this not surreal? Netanyahu reminds me of Colonel Kurtz from the movie Apocalypse Now. All the while going upriver, Captain Willard thinks Kurtz is on to something. But then he sees Kurtz and is astonished by the level of madness Kurtz has descended into. The world is an unwilling Willard to Netanyahu's Kurtz.
Even that is too simple an explanation. The fact is, Netanyahu is gambling with his own country's fate but doesn't see it. He thinks that if he can just convince the United States to attack Iran, there will be no consequences to Israel. It is perfectly clear he is wrong. No one is going to forget that it was him who needled an unstable Trump into attacking Iran. But should Israel join a US coalition, it certainly will not escape.
Be that as it may, Netanyahu thinks the US can launch its famed Tomahawk cruise missiles at Iran and run, as it did in Syria. Not so fast! Syria air defense shot down most of the Tomahawks in the last attack on Syria, which the US government has been worked feverishly to deny. There is no solid evidence Tomahawks launched into Iran will reach their targets. Therefore, it would take aircraft to attack Iran. But the truth is, the US military has not taken on an air attack where it will face vast surface-to-air missile batteries and fighter/interceptor aircraft since the Vietnam War. Where, by the way, it lost quite a few aircraft which is how Senator John McCain was captured in his days as a navy aviator.
Let's not forget that Russian air defense radar operating in Syria could track incoming US warplanes and pass the information on to Iran. The US could do nothing about it without provoking the Russians and possibly losing the host aircraft carriers that launched the warplanes to begin with. Of course, the United States could send out strategic bombers such as the B-1 and B-52s. But, again, the US lost B-52s to enemy fire in the Vietnam War so even that option is not without serious risk. Again, these planes are not invisible to radar. Yes, the US has stealth aircraft. But after they drop bombs, they're no longer hidden. They might get in, but will they get out?
Netanyahu also assumes Russia will continue to sit this out. At some point, Russia and probably China are going to have had enough of the US and Israel sowing discord and conflict in a region they are hoping for closer trade relationships with. Russia and China want peace and harmony in the Middle East because that is necessary for the trade relationships they desire. The United States and Israel want discord and conflict because it keeps the region from uniting together in their own interests which do not include the United States and Israel. Of all the nations in the region, Iran holds the most promise of becoming a regional superpower that could challenge American hegemony. And that is what frightens the United States.
Netanyahu might be saying this from his own Kurtz-like personality. Or he could be saying this at the behest of US interests. Maybe it was the price for the release of the jailed spy Jonathan Pollard, who funneled US nuclear secrets to Israel for years. Either is possible. Or, perhaps, both are. The madness of Netanyahu is clear, given the actions of the Israeli military in Gaza who are certainly acting upon his orders. The world watches IDF snipers shoot children and giggle about it. The world sees this, fidgets in its chair, and does what? Worries about whether Trump paid off Stormie Daniels to keep quiet a rather distasteful peccadillo. An affair that, honestly, didn't kill anyone so why get so focused on it?
The movie Apocalypse Now didn't intend to portray the madness, hypocrisy, and insanity of war. But it did. It came at a time that the United States still hadn't recovered from the way the Vietnam War tore the social fabric here. It literally ripped the scab off and forced the United States to confront what it had done. But it didn't stay that way. Because it was only a couple years later Reagan told us, no, the Vietnam War was a "noble cause" and movies appeared to cast a heroic light on the war not a few years after that. And now even Apocalypse Now has flipped from unintended antiwar movie to being watched by pro-war people who actually think Kurtz is the hero and not a tragic character who lost the battle for his own mind and took all his followers along with him.
History is a tragedy but when it repeats itself it's a farce. And no one knows that better than Israel and the United States who accuse every nation of having nuclear weapons programs when the only country to use them against people was the United States. And the only nation in the Middle East who has nuclear weapons is Israel. So it goes that Iraq went down and no one was really surprised when it was revealed they didn't have a nuclear weapons program. Well, Israel knew it already before 2003. Because it was them who destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981. But no one has learned that the United States and Israeli "lies of mass destruction" programs are alive and well.
Jack Perry is a writer who lives with his wife in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. When talking about the ambitions and goals of the United States government, Jack warns: “Always Assume It’s A Scam.” Jack writes, bakes bread, and is a Path pilgrim and wayfarer of this world.