Nuclear weapons changed the rules.

 Teheran has responded to Israel’s recent killing of the leader of Hezbollah and one of Iran’s senior military officers with another largely ineffective missile attack on Israel.  Simultaneously, Israel appears to have initiated its ground offensive into Lebanon.  The United States helped Israel repel the Iranian missiles and continues to argue for a ceasefire.  Everybody in the entire world is looking over their shoulder at our forthcoming election.  The expectation on all sides being that the election of Harris means continuation of the ineffective Biden policy of appeasement, while the election of Trump would mean a return to a hard-nosed American effort to thwart Teheran’s malevolence.  I agree with this appraisal and fully support an immediate effort to stop the radical Shite attempt to dominate the Middle East, for all kinds of reasons, and I argue that we have to do even more - much more - if we are to secure our future.

There are enough reasons to stop Teheran, if we think only about the Middle East, but, as I have pointed out in previous articles, there are broader ramifications that spill out into the wider challenges facing us.  Teheran is allied with both Moscow and Beijing and the radical Shite mullah’s success or failure in the Middle East will significantly impact our relationship with these two major antagonists in Europe and Asia.  We may well be the richest country that has ever existed, but our wealth is finite and we have an infinite number of things that need our attention.  We are in the mess that we are in right now in very large part because you and I refuse to think about anything outside of our immediate existence.  We replace thought with wishful thinking and it is going to get us killed because this is a democracy.  Our national policy can only be as effective as you and I make it.  If we are too busy with our puny personal concerns, to give a rat's ass about our fellow humans, we are going to get ourselves killed - pure and simple.

If I were in a position to influence policy, I would be advocating more fulsome support of Israel’s military effort, and a full court press on our relationship with every country on earth to isolate Teheran and eventually eliminate the radical leadership, even if it requires additional American involvement in the process on the ground.  I would also be advocating for a far, far more effective effort to significantly improve the lives of all, repeat all, of the people living in the Middle East.  In my mind, it is essential that both be done, and done well, if we are to secure a more peaceful future.  The one, without the other, ensures more killing down the road a few years.  At best it is going to be one hell of a task because all of the killing going on right now will argue for more killing in the future, just as it has over the past several millennia.

The Middle East needs us, and, whether we want to or not, we must provide the leadership necessary to thwart the present drift toward nuclear annihilation of far too many people - including you and me.   There is no way that we can continue to exist independent of the rest of this shrinking, overcrowded world.  Nuclear weapons changed the rules.  I will vote for Trump, but I will also continue to criticize you and me for not demanding a more intelligent approach to life on this troubled orb.  Remember that no weapon has ever been invented that was not eventually used.  In the case of nuclear weapons it was us, you and me, that first used the damn things.  If you think for one moment that a radical religious fanatic or a shriveled up has-been of a dictator wannabe won't use the damn things, you are stupid beyond belief.