A Serious Lecture

The late night talk show hosts have typically been comedians, but when these folks stop trying to be funny and castigate more than half the population of the country because we happen to have traditional values, why bother to watch them? Johnny Carson certainly did not lambaste the values of fellow Americans, and he was often actually funny. It is sad that those of a certain age think entertainment is watching a performer who needs several writers tell them how stupid they are if they love their country and hold their President in high esteem. 

A Confused Narcissist

"Missiles, Iran can have their stinking missiles" is the line coming from Trump, perhaps filtered through Sierra Madre. All of a sudden one of the very legitimate casus belli does not mean beans to the dotard in the Oval Office. Trump may not be as addled as Fading Joe is and was, but he is not far behind. 

Vance Not Credible

Vice President Vance ignores the danger that Iran has posed to America since the fall of the Shah. He has incorrectly framed the current conflict as all about Israel. If the so-called "Little Satan" of the Jewish State had never existed, the Islamic Republic would still deplore and attack the United States, just as it has done since it captured our embassy and took hostages in Tehran at the inception of the Ayatollah regime in 1979. Vance also dismisses the yearning for freedom by the vast majority of the Iranian people. Our Vice President and Tucker Carlson share a world view and mindset that is blame the Jews first and always. 

Iran's Unearned Victory

Do you think France would give up the right to national defense because a couple of other countries had fought each other and then demanded the French take it easy on those who attack them? No nation would ask the French for this suicidal concession, but if they did, Paris would certainly never agree to it. Neither should Israel! 

The Worst Outcome

Donald Trump encouraged the Iranian people to rise up against the despotic mullahs then left them to swing in the wind. The President has permitted the Ayatollah tyranny to remain the ruling menace to the freedom-seeking Persian People and the religious minorities of the Islamic Republic. Trump is also tying Israel's hands in their attempts to defend their beleaguered country from Tehran's terrorist proxy armies. An American President finally seemed to be standing up to the world's leading sponsors of terror and the hostage takers and murderers of many US troops, but then for reasons unknown, decided to fold like a cheap suit and capitulate to the bloody-handed jihadists he had kicked all over the battlefield. This loss for liberty and decency in the world should be laid at the feet of Vice President Vance with his buddy Tucker Carlson and did not just bowl over Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth, who it has been reported were pushing for regime change in Iran to spare the world the dire future threat that the Twelvers still pose but left the Iranian People who Trump had pushed to revolt under the boots of their oppressors. 

The Fickle Friend

Donald Trump said Syria would do better overseeing Lebanon than Israel. The leader of Syria is a literal head-chopping terrorist who has changed out of jihadi garments into Western suits. A conscienceless murderer is still a threat even if his new outfit was tailored on Savile Row. Iran cannot be trusted, nor Damascus, not Qatar either, and Pakistan who hosted the negotiations between the Islamic Republic and America had to know or certainly should have known they were hosting Osama bin Laden a few blocks from their version of West Point. None of the so-called interlocutors Trump has been dealing with is trustworthy or actually seeking peace. The one truth I must shout from the rooftops is every Muslim nation America was employing to "resolve" the Iran crisis actually wants to see Israel erased as a Jewish state. Nations do not have friends but only interests, and while it is manifestly in Trump's interest to declare victory and go home where the GOP will have more of a chance at preserving Republican majorities in both houses of Congress; Israel must not stop defending the tiny beleaguered democracy from all the bloodthirsty tyrants that surround it. 

In the Neighborhood

The Jewish State can't subcontract the safety of Israelis to a world leader, no matter how powerful or friendly in the past, thousands of miles away. President Trump has undeniably done things that helped Israel, but as President of the United States, he is responsible for American security, while Netanyahu in the roughest area on the globe must protect his people and his country first. The IDF should never give a foreign country veto authority over how and whether Jews defend themselves. Of course, Tehran wants to end the robust America-Israel alliance, but the leaders of these two democracies should be wise enough never to permit this breakup to happen.