Theater of the Absurd.

The war in Iran rages on. The discrepancies between the IDF and the US armed forces strategies start to show: Bibi’s intentions have been clear from the start, albeit the shared hail Mary appeal to the Iranian people to rise up, issued in the first days of the war, stated by both him and the felon in chief, who has come up with too many rationales for the US involvement to keep track of. Yet we are at war and this is what war looks like.

Israel is a very small country with a population of 10 million people. The Israelis have been fighting a war of survival since 1947 and defending their sovereignty since the dawn of their independence in 1948. They have no people to spare and no room to maneuver. Every casualty is a terrible loss and every inch of land is more precious than anywhere else in the world. This is why when threatened, Israel projects its power beyond its borders and preemptive warfare is key to victory.

No matter who holds power in Israel, these facts never change; the only difference lays in the tactics, timing and execution - and that is a very important distinction but, in effect, the fundamentals of Israel’s military response to threats to its territory remain, regardless of the composition of the Knesset. This abstraction helps to understand the context of Israel’s position in this war, however I fear it is not enough to make it acceptable to the world at large, this time.

It is not about the sound logic of a small country with no room for strategic movement within its borders, but about the credibility and integrity of the two leaders allied against the Iranian regime. Both are untrustworthy criminals who cling to power to escape justice, who desperately are trying to destroy their respective judicial systems and are doing all they can to ensure electoral success at the expense of electoral integrity. Not the kind of people you trust to start a war.

Once again: Israel has a case for making sure the Iranian government is set back decades in terms of its military capability, but the US only gets to benefit from that if it declares itself clearly acting on behalf of that goal. For Israel, the benefits of this achievement are clear and immediate, for the US they are distant in time and space, making them hard to justify from a stand alone perspective. The fundamental difference between the two countries is the threat level.

To an American citizen, the Iranian regime is almost an abstract threat; the full extent of its terror both in Iran and around the world is not as obvious. To an Israeli, that threat is only too real and immediately recognized. Any significant increase in Iran’s military power poses an existential threat to Israel, not to the United States. When that happens, any Israeli government has no difficulty making its case to the people. This is not true outside Israel.

Israelis fight for their freedom every single day. They have been doing it since 1948; meanwhile the rest of the world is distracted by big things and insignificant ones, from the Cold War to the price of the gallon of gas, and since the Soviet era they have been effectively infected by the anti-Zionist virus, which is no small factor in this equation. This brings us home, to the effects of and reactions to the current war.

Living in a democracy can be a bïtch. There’s all sorts of things to consider when it comes to analyzing matters of this magnitude, the most important of which is building a case to justify whatever action is required. Because of our people’s understanding of the Middle East, and taking into account what I mentioned above, coupled with our infamous record of interventions in that part of the world, making the case for war with Iran is extremely difficult.

The diaspora people living in the US make it even harder: Israeli Americans and Iranian Americans don’t need much convincing about the need to inflict maximum damage to the Iranian regime, while those of Arab origins who align with Palestinian interests see a weakened Iranian theocracy as a threat to their aspirations, which basically are summarized by the destruction of Israel. In this scenario, the bulk of the people from these regions living in the US are themselves threatened.

This is where tribal extremism comes into play: to the uneducated, the uninvested, or the radical, stereotypes are easy. Jews want to kill Arabs, Arabs want to kill Westerners, Persians want to make Iran great again. Basically, every Jew, Arab and Persian in the United States becomes, respectively, a Kahanist, a Jihadi, or a Pahlavi hard liner. The fact there are enough sympathizers of all these radical views among each of these diasporas to reinforce this nonsense doesn’t help.

Quick note on the “make Iran great again” crowd: it is what it sounds like; diaspora Iranians who would love to have a government similar to our current one in Tehran. The Shah himself muddying the waters by declaring to be a transitional figure at the same time he is scheduled to show up at CPAC, on the same stage Viktor Orbán stood. Several Iranian voices in the diaspora frequently quote and amplify MAGA die hard Christian nationalists. Make Iran great again, indeed.

The results are not only harmful to any of the rational arguments made against the Ayatollah’s regime: they have the potential to become catastrophic as a consequence of the chaos they create. Case in point: Jake Lang. A seemingly irrelevant antisemitic scoundrel who shows up to promote the inane “Islamophobia” concept any chance he gets; which begs the question: is he really that irrelevant or is he a symptom marker? I believe he is the latter.

Leading an “anti-Islam” protest in NYC, aimed at Mamdani, he purposefully aligns himself with the Jewish community that expresses legitimate concerns about the NY city mayor’s views regarding Israel. The optics are deceiving but accepted by the uneducated masses: a neo-Nazi takes action against a figure identified as a threat by the Jewish community so Jews must really be neo-Nazis after all. If this sounds stupid to you, as it does to me, it’s because you know what Palestine is.

The Jake Lang case study is but a small example of the confusion that is being created, by design, around the war in Iran. Those praising TFG for his role in this war, especially those of Jewish and Persian origins, should take notice it was presented to the military as a holy war, falling a little short of calling it a Crusade. If that doesn’t give you pause I don’t know what will. The Iranian people will be lost in a conflict that barely used it as an excuse. That is the tragedy.

The reality is, in spite of the legitimacy of the Iranian diaspora’s aspirations, they will live to fight another day while many in Iran will not, and those who manage to survive the war they apparently can’t take advantage of, and the ongoing brutal crackdown of their fanatical regime, will continue to suffer the ineptitude of a global community that will gladly throw them under the bus for $2 a gallon of gas. There’s no moral clarity here.

Iran deserves to be free, but all the wrong people are in charge. How ironic is it the best chance for the Iranians to free themselves happened as a result of the actions of people who couldn’t care less about them. There are rumors of dissent among the ranks of the Iranian regular military and, at this point, the hope of a civil war between them and the IRGC seems like the Iranians best chance. A long shot, a terrible prospect, the result of 47 years of various forms of appeasement.

Diplomacy may still have a part in this play, but only when this act is over. And not a soul in this planet knows how it will end; not even the very few among us who know exactly why it really started. Will Iran be free of its regime? Will a more radical one emerge? No one really knows. The reality is most of us can only try to change the play writers, so the next act can at least look rational, because right now it’s just bat shit crazy. The theater of the absurd.

Don’t fake it. Make it.

The master plan doesn’t exist. There is a theory that pretends to explain why exactly seven democrats voted yes on the government funding bill that includes more money for ICE: it states that ICE is already funded “for years to come” by the so called “big beautiful bill” and the negative impact of a shut down would deny Democrats the ability to win the midterms. It also states that there are provisions for ICE accountability and oversight, negotiated into the bill passed yesterday.

According to this theory, Democrats in the House cleverly expressed a large majority of no votes, demanded by the people, and selected the exact number of yes votes from members in red or very purple districts to “take the fall”, ensuring the objectives I mentioned. Sounds like a plan, Stan? Not really. Never mind all the facts that make this “plan” a bad one, the main reason this is hog wash is that if it were true it didn’t need to be a secret. They could have explained it to us.

I believe either there was no such plan or they knew the rationale for it wouldn’t pass the smell test with us. I’m inclined towards the no plan hypothesis. I also believe there was plenty of negotiations to keep ICE active, because that was telegraphed by members of the House and Senate during the past weeks: the body cams, the training, the oversight, all the provisions regarding ICE were put out there by senior Democrats, and each time we told them no.

If indeed there was a plan to sacrifice the exact number of House Democrats on the altar of public opinion, it was not designed to stop ICE but to stop us from going ape shit on all of them and allow the Democratic leadership to save face. Everyone knows the costs of a government shut down but we also know the cost of surrendering to fascism. Each time we miss the opportunity to push for real change, in the current political environment, we’re giving up without a fight.

The idea ICE can be reined in by oversight and body cams is ludicrous. This isn’t political chess; it’s political suicide. If there was indeed a way to achieve positive results without a government shut down there are no reasons to keep it a secret, and to pretend this was some sort of master plan on a chess board is gaslighting. There was no plan. Only the delusional survival game of politicians who put their careers ahead of our needs. They think they can make it to the midterms.

Their position, in real terms, is that there will be an inevitable blue wave in November, caused by the fascist policies and actions of the regime. It feels like every Renee Good, every Liam Conejo Ramos, represent a few more thousand votes for them, which is a terrible thing to say and yet they do nothing but pay lip service to them. The doom sayers will tell you there’s nothing they can do but weather the storm until November. I call bullshit.

More importantly than shutting down the government at every spending bill vote they can slow it down to lethargic levels just by using Congress procedural norms. They can call a quorum for every single vote on every single issue, they can filibuster every single debate, they can delay every single nomination, they can stay in session indefinitely and describe the horrors we are experiencing in excruciating detail every single day. They do none of this consistently. Only occasionally.

The result? If you google “filibuster” you will find out that Cory Booker holds the record for it, a session I remember well as I watched live the senator keeping an eye on the clock as the seconds to said record were running and his colleagues interrupted him to celebrate the achievement. We got a record. Yay, I guess. I hope the few dollars he got from it were worth it: more and more these actions look like fund raising events. Because that’s all they are, in the end.

I am growing old and tired. I have no fucks left to give. I became a citizen of this once great nation knowing it was great because of its promise: the promise to be better, to do better, to evolve. I pledge allegiance to the flag I always revered as a symbol of freedom over Nazism only to see it desecrated by fascists who fly it as their own. This country has not lost all hope because of those who fight for that exact promise and see the flag as I do. But it’s getting harder.

I never imagined I would become citizen and watch my country of choice turn into a dystopian nightmare, where fascists with antisemitic roots become champions in defense against antisemitism at the same time democrats with civil rights roots rally around Islamic fascism and terrorism apologists; a world where victims are only believed if they are the right kind of victims at the same time history is being erased and rewritten before our eyes. Yet here I am. Yet here we are.

At least I can still vote. For now. I can still do everything I can to make a difference. I can still hope we got a shot at this. We can do it together, no matter what we believe in, as long as it’s not fascism - ANY kind of fascism. I never fell for selective outrage and I can see those who practice it in the trenches with the rest of us. We can deal with them later. I don’t expect their help: they are performers in their own fascist play. This is not new. This is exactly the same.

Everything I wrote about during the campaign of 2024 is as valid today as it was then. The people who allowed fascism to take power by clinging to their delusions of political purity will never vote for Democratic candidates. They see Social Democracy as just another form of “capitalist” system. They may vote for some “Socialist Democrats” running as Democratic Party candidates and you know what? That’s fucked up but we can deal with them as we save our democracy. Fuck them.

Their appeal will fade as their true colors are revealed and, right now, every single vote against the regime counts. Think of them as the Soviets in WW2. I hope that, at the very least, they think of us too as the Western Allies of old and don’t fuck this up. I don’t place much trust in that hope, but the fight is on and we HAVE to win. Like in 2024 I place my hope in those who usually don’t vote because the bad is getting terribly worse, but I am not too sure about them either.

In retrospect, however, after the orange turd’s first term it was the decisive factor: a lot of people who didn’t use to vote got off their indifference and voted against the government. That did not happen in 2024, but it can happen now, as it did in 2020. I do hope so. Still, unlike our disappointing Democratic members of Congress, I don’t think victory is assured in November. We must fight.

That fight includes holding their feet to the fire, vote in every primary like our lives depend on it and after that close ranks and put an end to this fascist regime. Like in the fight against Nazi Germany, victory is the goal. We can deal with “the Soviets” later. I know a lot of people suffered after VE Day, and I know we lost Eastern Europe to keep Western Europe free. But it doesn’t have to be like that again. Now we know what happened after, and we are ready to fight it as well.

Keep demanding the impossible. Keep telling our elected officials to fight. Yes, fuck it, shut it down: stop pretending they’re playing a secret game of chess. We see them. Demand they use every tool at their disposal to grind this regime to a halt. Let them know they can try to run from abolishing ICE, but they can’t hide. We know who they are and we will never forget or forgive. But keep your eyes on the fucking ball. And fucking FIGHT.