Villainous lunacy is abundant these days as the bombing of Iran by Israel and the United States continues.  The rationale for this illegal pre-emptive war that not only lacks legitimacy but should land its perpetrators in the docks of the International Criminal Court, continues to get increasingly muddled.  With US President Donald Trump now given to giving press conferences on the conflict, loony bin mutterings are becoming increasingly the norm.

A common assumption behind these attacks is Israel’s firm, unremitting stranglehold on the US President.  Combined with the considerable influence of what John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt called the “Israeli Lobby”, American foreign policy in the Middle East has been tenanted by Israeli interests.  And Israel has shown itself to be a particularly bruising tenant in this regard.

While the central rationale is both fantastic and mendacious – namely, the destruction of a nuclear capability that had been, in any case, apparently obliterated last June – the view that Iran was going to unilaterally strike either Israel, the United States, its allies or all of the above, is fascinatingly absurd. 

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In a classified briefing with Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill on 2 March, senior administration officials put forth the position that Israel had already planned to strike Iran, with or without US support.  Present were Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the increasingly deranged Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine.  Prior to the briefing, Rubio put forth the view that “there was going to be an Israeli action.  We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer high casualties.”  Israeli impulsiveness proved the heaviest of tails in wagging the dimmest of dogs.

This less than convincing explanation worried Virginia

Democratic Senator Mark Warner, who serves as vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.  “This is still a war of choice that has been acknowledged by others that it was dictated by Israel’s goals and timeline.” 

Democratic Senator Mark Warner, who serves as vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.  “This is still a war of choice that has been acknowledged by others that it was dictated by Israel’s goals and timeline.” 

He questioned whether American lives should be put at risk when an alleged imminent threat was directed at an ally.  “Israel is a great ally of America.  I stand firmly with Israel.  But I believe at the end of the day when we are talking about putting American soldiers in harm’s way and we have American casualties and expectations of more, there needs to be the proof of an imminent threat to American interests.  I still don’t think that standard has been met.”  Had Iran actually posed an imminent threat to the US, “better planning” should have been in place.

An even clearer statement of the foolish rationale was allegedly put to conservative broadcaster and commentator Tucker Carlson by Trump himself, suggesting that Israel had essentially painted him into the smallest of corners.  Carlson, according to The New York Times, had attempted no fewer than three times in meetings at the Oval Office to argue why the US should not go to war with Iran.  Reasons for not doing so included risks to US military personnel, the soaring effects of war on energy prices and concern about how Washington’s Arab partners would react.  He surmised that it was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s desire to strike Iran that was the sole reason the president was considering a military effort.  It would be prudent, suggested Carlson, if the Israeli PM was restrained in his bellicosity.

Carlson has also personally expressed the view that the war took place “because Israel wanted it to happen. This is Israel’s war.  This is not the United States War.”  It had been launched on a freight of “lies” and orchestrated by Netanyahu’s beguiling approach.

Carlson has also personally expressed the view that the war took place “because Israel wanted it to happen. This is Israel’s war.  This is not the United States War.”  It had been launched on a freight of “lies” and orchestrated by Netanyahu’s beguiling approach.

“The point is regional hegemony.”  Israel wanted “to control the Middle East” and “sow chaos and disorder” in the Gulf.

Another right-wing commentator, Megyn Kelly, reiterated what had been a central, even canonical line of MAGA: “No one should have to die for a foreign country.”  The four servicemembers (there were actually six) who had given their lives for the US “died for Iran or for Israel.”  The war was clearly Israel’s and based on a fictional threat. “Does it make any sense to you that Iran was planning pre-emptive strikes against us?  Obviously, it doesn’t.”

READ: Bernie Sanders blasts Israeli premier as ‘extremist,’ criticizes US role in Iran war

Trump was dismissive of both Carlson and Kelly, slipping into that habit common to megalomaniacs humming before a mirror: he referred to himself in the third person.  “I think MAGA is Trump – not the other two.”  The movement wished “to see our country thrive and be safe, and MAGA loves what I’m doing.”  Carlson’ could “say whatever he wants.  It has no impact on me.”

Israel, however, did and does, though Trump, in what can only be regarded as piffling nonsense, is now promoting the view that Israel was the second hitter, with the US taking the bold lead.  “We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first,” he reasoned at a bilateral meeting with Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz.  As he “didn’t want that to happen”, Trump thought he “might have forced Israel’s hand, but Israel was ready and we were ready.” 

Hegseth, in another mad, uneven display before the press, also laid the entire blame for the war on Iran itself.  “We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it.”  Not that the facts even mattered.  International law did not exist.  “No stupid rules of engagement, no national-building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars.”  (What do politically correct wars look like?)  He sums up the jungle attitude to conflict, a deranged, semi-literate Tarzan whose views would sit well with the state machinery of Nazi Germany, one that showed the world how best to avoid international protocols and violate the laws of war in the name of streaky fantasy and monstrous ego. 

OPINION: Going native in the Trump jungle: How it became legal to attack Iran

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