This winter has been so cold that it was not until Sunday, March 8, that I was finally able to ride my bike. I had a goal as to how far I wanted to ride: 25 miles, which I was able to do. However, it felt like I rode 75 miles. The helmet felt heavy, the seat was uncomfortable, and my back hurt. I chalk it up to not exercising enough during the winter, my weight gain, and getting older. That is why it is so important to exercise even when you are younger. The failure to do so catches up to you later in life. I remember that not long ago, I would ride 45 miles at the beginning of the season without a problem.
My goal is to be ready for the Five Boro Bike Tour the first week in May. One advantage of signing up for bike rides is that it creates a goal with an incentive.
Now on to my main column: the US-Israel war against Iran. That is how it is being framed. If you read the right-wing Jewish papers, you would think that everyone in the USA supports the war. That is not reality. Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Iran has been an enemy of Israel and has supported those who were attacking Israel with money, weapons, and training. Thus, in the portion of the country with strong support for Israel, the war is popular.
However, in the rest of the country, the war is unpopular. America has the scars of Iraq and Afghanistan, which at the beginning had public support but turned out to be quagmires. Therefore, getting the public on board was going to be a tough sell. There was no attempt before the war started to explain to the public that if diplomacy would not work, then military force would be necessary. In contrast, the Bush administration argued that Saddam Hussein was preparing weapons of mass destruction. Even though later on the claims were found to be unjustified, that didn’t change the fact that the administration understood the importance of spelling out to the public why it needed to go to war.
Also, unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, there was no attempt to get US allies on board except Israel, who was already on board.
Even after the war began, the administration has done a horrible job explaining the reason why Iran had to be attacked at this time. There have been shifting justifications, including blaming it on Israel. That claim, which was mentioned by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, was that Israel became aware of a meeting of Iranian leadership and was going to wipe them out. Once that happened, Iran would blame the United States and attack the US. Thus, the US should attack first. In other words, the United States does what Israel wants them to do. Israel, a/k/a the Jews, are getting us into a war. It sounds like what Charles Lindbergh, who was the leader of the original America First in 1940 and 1941, would have said to keep the US out of World War II.
Then there is the shifting goal of the war. Is it regime change, or knocking out ballistic missiles, or destroying the Iranian nuclear weapon program, or just to weaken them? Then Trump said the United States and Israel have to decide together what should be done. In other words, Israel could force the USA to continue the war, although the US wants out. Again, this will be used by those who hate Israel and Jews to show that the Jews are controlling the United States.
The Iranians know that they cannot win on the battlefield. Instead, they want to hit the United States where it hurts. They have engaged in conduct to affect the supply of oil that can be produced and shipped in order to raise the price. They know that Americans will not be happy with higher gas prices and will put pressure on Trump to declare victory and end the war. Sure enough, the price of a barrel of oil has increased, which led to a spike in gas prices. The fact that the gas being pumped today has nothing to do with the increase in oil prices is irrelevant for those who are using the oil price increase as an excuse to raise gas prices. The cost to the gas station for gas being pumped is lower than the current oil price. Don’t expect when the price of a barrel of oil falls that the gas price will fall at the same rate. Then the excuse will be that the gas the stations are selling was based on the higher price.
Since Trump keeps changing his mind as to how long the war should be and what the goals are, it may be foolhardy to predict what will happen. Nevertheless, I expect Trump to put pressure on Israel to stop bombing, and by the end of the month, he will walk away and claim victory despite another hardline government led by a Khamenei.
