written 15 March, 2026
published 22 March, 2026
On Friday, March 13th, the Ukiah Daily Journal included a column by Marc Thiessen, a loyal presidential supporter, defining victory in Iran. He assumes this will be quick, a historic end to terrorism in the Middle East, the beginning of a new age of harmony. Iran's military will be destroyed, the government will collapse, and the Iranian people will install a government answerable to American. Maybe Thiessen's wishful thinking will come to pass, but it reads like a first draft for a badly scripted reality TV show.
In actual reality, the president began the war (not an excursion) without building support from Congress, the American people, or any of our allies, other than Israel. There was no planning for removing endangered Americans from the region. There was no planning for the Iranian response to close the Straits of Hormuz to shipping. He acted as though the Iranians would just fold up because he hit them hard. These are not the actions of a planner, but of a petulant toddler.
No matter how it unfolds, we have broken the Middle East, again, and will have to live with the consequences. We use $6M missiles to destroy $20K drones. Tanker traffic has been halted, more from lack of shipping insurance than actual damage to ships so far. This abruptly cuts the flow of crude oil, natural gas, and fertilizer out of the region and food into the region. Some regional refineries are being attacked by Iran, hindering production, and others are shutting down because there is no place to send their product. Restarting such complex systems can take months. Benchmark crude oil is now solidly above $100/barrel, up from $60 a month ago, creating increased global economic chaos. The longer the conflict last, the worse it is for Republicans, as their leader started this with no end in mind.
Beyond the professed war on terrorism, there are darker reasons behind why this war may be happening now.
As more Epstein files are finally being released, and new information arrives, such as the recent testimony by Richard Kahn, Epstein's accountant, those chickens are coming home to roost. Since even the president's most diehard supporters don't like shielding pedophiles, this war creates a distraction.
The president avoids prosecution by virtue of being in office, which gives him incentive to become ruler for life. However, Republican policies are increasingly unpopular, and they may lose control of the House, and perhaps the Senate, in midterms this fall, if a fair election is held. The FBI fired the people working to control domestic actions by foreign terrorists. Perhaps the president is hoping Iranian sleeper cells will create havoc. Or possibly popular protests will become violent. Either event would be an excuse for him to declare martial law, and cancel elections, already on his wish list. These are possibilities serving the needs of a desperate corrupt incompetent.
But the world doesn't revolve around just this president. Now that America has demonstrated that it is OK to ignore international laws, and destroy anyone who offends us, other countries may act in kind. China has stated for decades that Taiwan is part of China, and it is only a matter of time before they reabsorb that island the way they took back Hong Cong.
The US has committed much of our military to the Persian Gulf, and is busy blowing up our finite stock of missiles, and bombs. Imagine if next Monday we read China has invaded Taiwan. What could the US do? Do you think our president would be capable of dealing with an adversary that is more of a match than the light weight adversaries we have invaded recently? Taiwan produces 95 percent of the advanced semiconductors in the world. War there would halt that immediately. Added to the current energy chaos, this would immediately crash the global economy.
I don't believe the president is a Chinese agent, even though he is acting like one. His war on domestic renewable power systems enriches his friends in the short term, but abandons the entire future to China, which is the world leader in solar, batteries, and EV's. But I do believe he is such an incompetent fool that he has disrupted international cooperation, created chaos in the Middle East, and spiked energy prices at record levels, all for personal aggrandizement. China may just take advantage of that gift, without even having to recruit him. Such a leader.
