A recap of events spiraling out of control in the Middle East on Tuesday.
Trump meeting with German Chancellor Freidrich Merz in the Oval Office Tuesday. (White House)
TUESDAY
7 p.m. EDT: Al Jazeera reports that Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ground forces are being deployed to the northern border with Iraq to defend against a feared incursion by Iranian Kurds. The IRGC needs to stop the Kurds to prevent uprisings by the Baluchis in the south, said an analyst on Al Jazeera.
Large Arab and Azeri minorities in the country could also become active. If Israel and the U.S. survive the missile and drone war, their strategy is to support these ground insurgencies.
U.S. ground troops could be joining in. On Monday, Trump told the New York Post: “I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground — like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it. I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.’”
On Tuesday, Iranian drones attacked the U.S. consulate in Dubai. Videos showed fire and smoke rising from the building.
Israel conducted an airstrike against a building Qom where the 88-member Assembly of Experts was meeting to choose a successor to the assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran says there were no casualties. The rabid IDF is trying to stop new supreme leader from being appointed.
France said it was sending the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle to the eastern Mediterranean.
Trump said the U.S. might deploy the Navy to escort commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz, which has closed. A fifth of the world’s oil and gas normally flow through the strait.
The New York Times reported that Iran has damaged radar and communications systems at seven different U.S. bases in the region.
The U.S. has used a missile against Iran that was banned by the expired Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM) is a ballistic missile that can fly beyond the 310-mile-range banned by the I.N.F. treaty, the NYT reported.
During an official visit to Sydney, Australia, Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, tried to reverse his early enthusiastic support for U.S.-Israeli aggression, criticizing both countries, because they “acted without engaging the United Nations or consulting with allies, including Canada.”
3:45 pm EST: Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to reporters before briefing members of Congress. He tried to cover up the facts of naked, unprovoked Israeli-U.S. aggression against Iran, which did not threaten the U.S.
On Monday he made the bizarre statement that Iran’s attack was “imminent” because the U.S. knew Iran would strike back. What was “imminent” was the U.S. attack on Iran, not Iran’s retaliation.
On Tuesday Rubio kept digging himself a deeper hole with these quotes:
- “The bottom line is this: the president determined we were not going to get hit first. It’s that simple, guys. We are not going to put American troops in harm’s way.”
- “The president had already made a decision to act. On the timing, the president acted on the timing that gave us the highest chance of success.”
- “The president made a decision, and the decision he made was that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ballistic missile program, that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ability to conduct these attacks.”
He then threatened what sounded like total war on Iran. “We’re gonna unleash Chiang on these people in the next few hours and days,” Rubio said. The NYT explains: “The phrase, which is used as a euphemism to indicate that one is about to use overwhelming force, dates to the Cold War, when it was a rallying cry for those who urged the United States to arm Chiang Kai-shek to retake China from the Communists.”
“You’re gonna really begin to perceive a change in the scope and in the intensity of these attacks as frankly, the two most powerful air forces in the world take apart this terroristic regime and defang it and take away its ability to threaten its neighbors or hide behind a zone of immunity that allows them to develop their nuclear ambitions,” Rubio said. Of course, U.S. intelligence said Iran was not developing a nuclear weapon and was no imminent threat to the U.S.
A letter Trump was obliged to send to Congress also made no case of an imminent Iranian attack on the U.S. The letter says the U.S. aim is only to “neutralize Iran’s malign activities” and to “advance vital United States national interests, including ensuring the free flow of maritime commerce through the Strait of Hormuz.”
1 pm EST: Trump ended a 35-minute Oval Office session with reporters and German Chancellor Freidrich Merz at his side, who supported him all the way on Iran. These are the most important points made by Trump:
- He boasted about damage inflicted on Iran, exaggerating that “just about everything has been knocked out,” including Iran’s Navy, Air Force, air detection, radar, and missile capabilities, even though extensive Iranian attacks on Israel, Gulf Arab states, and U.S. military bases continued through the day.
- Tried to explain the decision to attack Iran. Trump said, “We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack.” It was part of his crude language demonizing Iran. Trump provided no evidence an Iranian attack was “imminent,” a legal hurdle in the U.S. War Powers Act, which is due to be voted on this week in Congress.
- Contradicted his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who said the U.S. joined the aggression only because it knew Israel was going, with or without the U.S. Instead, Trump said he “might have forced Israel’s hand.”
- Called Iranian leaders “bad people” who “killed 35,000” protesters, (an unverified figure) and said “the leader of the pact is gone,” denigrating the assassinated supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
- Regarding who he thinks the U.S. will install in Tehran, Trump said “most of the people we had in mind are dead,” and “now we have another group, they may be dead also,” adding “pretty soon we’re not going to know anybody.”
- He said he wasn’t interested in the Shah’s son taking over (like he rejected Corrine Machado for Venezuela), adding that “somebody from within maybe would be more appropriate” or “somebody that’s there, that’s currently popular, if there is such a person.” Meaning, the U.S. has not thought this through before pulling the first trigger.
- Trump said the worst thing that could happen was if “somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person, That could happen. We don’t want that to happen,” revealing what an insanely dangerous crap shoot this is.
- Trump called Spain’s refusal to allow the U.S. to use Spanish bases “terrible,” saying “we’re going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don’t want anything to do with Spain.”
- He blasted British PM Keir Starmer, saying “this is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with,” because Britain won’t allow the U.S. use of its base at Diego Garcia, “that stupid island that they have, that they gave away. They ruin relationships. It’s a shame.” Last May, Britain gave the islands back to Mauritius with a limited right of return to the Chagos islanders. Britain has leased the base for 99 years.
- He called the Gulf Arab states “neutral,” just minding their own business becoming victims of evil Iran. Trump failed to mention the U.S. is launching its attacks from those nations and Iran is hitting them to get the U.S. to stop. The Washington Post reported that after Benjamin Netanyahu, the greatest pressure on Trump to attack was exerted by Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, even though he publicly said the U.S. could not use Saudi air bases.
- Facing an ammunition shortage, Trump complained about the U.S. giving “massive amounts of ammunition” to Ukraine. Later he said on social media the U.S. has a “virtually unlimited supply” of munitions, and “wars can be fought forever.” He wrote: “The United States is stocked, and ready to WIN, BIG!!!”
That is total rubbish of course, as U.S. ammunition supplies are a key factor in whether its aggression succeeds or fails. Having run for his second term against “forever wars” his choice of words that wars can be fought “forever” should not sit well with his base.
If the U.S. and Israel run out of interceptor missiles before Iran runs out of offensive missiles rendering Israel vulnerable to Iran’s hypersonic missiles, which they have yet to use, there is the most frightening option left to fanatics running Israel. They may want to bring down the whole region with them.
11 am EST: House Speaker Mike Johnson said a vote on a War Powers resolution won’t happen before Thursday and that he wouldn’t support it because it might “hamstring” what he thinks is a justified war. — Joe Lauria
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