Posts Tagged ‘WORLD WAR 1’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 2, 2026 at 12:05 am
“Neither peace nor war—nor a policy” accurately describes the current state of relations between the United States and Iran.
On February 28, 2026, President Donald Trump—in concert with Israel—launched an unprovoked series of devastating airstrikes against Iran. Suddenly he faced an enemy he could neither bribe nor intimidate.
And, by late May, definite parallels had formed between Adolf Hitler’s disastrous attack on the Soviet Union and Donald Trump’s attack on Iran.
Operation Barbarossa erupted on June 22, 1941, swallowing at least two million dead and wounded Soviet soldiers and another three million POWs (most of whom died in captivity under barbarous conditions).
The Wehrmacht occupied the western half of the Soviet Union. But then the seemingly unstoppable Blitzkrieg ground to a halt—owing to unexpected and increasingly fierce resistance by Russians and the advent of the infamous Russian winter.
Adolf Hitler
Jonathan Trigg, in his vividly-written nonfiction book, The Battle of Stalingrad Through German Eyes, observes that when Hitler’s prediction of a six-week victory turned sour, he didn’t have a fallback strategy to win the war.
Nor did the General Staff have a solution. Every country they had invaded—Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, France, Greece, Yugoslavia—-had capitulated. Its government had sued for peace or gone into exile. When Great Britain refused to surrender, Hitler had no answer, and he had none for the Soviet Union.
Panzer commander Ewald von Kleist admitted: “There were no plans for a prolonged struggle. Everything was based on the idea of a decisive result before the end of autumn 1941.”
Like Hitler, Trump had believed that:
- He could force Iran’s leaders to submit to his demands: Surrender their uranium stockpiles and promise to never build a nuclear bomb.
- His war would end successfully in four to six weeks at most.
Finally, like Hitler, Trump had no alternative plan for a prolonged struggle.
True, he could turn Iran into a radioactive pile of rubble by using nuclear weapons. Or he could order an all-out invasion of Iran—a country 2.4 to 2.5 times larger than Texas—requiring tens of thousands of troops.
But both options would be hugely unpopular among Americans—especially in an election year when Republicans were threatened with the loss of the House of Representatives and/or the Senate.
As a result, Trump could only threaten or deliver more impotent airstrikes.
Donald Trump
After a two-week ceasefire was announced on April 8, the following diplomatic activities occurred:
- April 11–12: Vice President JD Vance met with Iranian delegates in Islamabad for the highest-level diplomatic engagement between the two nations since 1979. The talks stalled over Iran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities.
- April 13: The United States launched a naval blockade on Iranian ports, suspending oil shipments.
- April 20–21: Trump warned that a lack of an extended deal would result in the resumption of bombing. The deadline was extended indefinitely while waiting for a unified Iranian proposal.
- June 17: Trump and Iranian President Pezeshkian signed a 14-point interim Memo of Understanding (MoU). The agreement established a 60-day negotiation window regarding Iran’s nuclear program and lifted the U.S. port blockade in exchange for the safe passage of commercial vessels.
- June 26: Trump announced that Iran violated the newly signed ceasefire after launching four one-way attack drones at cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
- June 26–27: The U.S. military executed strikes against Iranian sites in response to the drone attacks, placing the future of the diplomatic agreement in jeopardy.
On June 28, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it launched missiles and drones at United States bases in Kuwait and Bahrain.
Following the exchange of fire, the United States and Iran accused each other of violating the ceasefire agreement.
The IRGC said that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed gave Iran the right to control passage and navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, and from now on, violating ships would be dealt with more forcefully than in the past.
Strait of Hormuz
The Strait of Hormuz had operated freely as an international waterway before the 2026 war. An estimated 110 to 160 commercial and oil vessels had safely transited the 21-mile passageway on an average day.
The Trump administration is demanding that it remain freely open to all ships. Iran, having discovered that controlling the Strait gives it leverage over the world’s oil-based economy, is determined to exact tolls from ships that pass through it.
After the latest American strikes on Iran were announced, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started. If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!”
Given the conditions cited above, that is highly unlikely.
So long as Iran continues to exert its will against the world’s greatest superpower, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’ unguarded statement will prove highly accurate:
“The Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating, or rather, very skillful at not negotiating, letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result.
“An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards. And so, I hope that this ends as quickly as possible.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on July 1, 2026 at 12:10 am
On August 1, 1914, Germany declared war on Russia. It did so after Russia mobilized its military to protect Serbia after Austria-Hungary declared war on the Serbian nation.
Four years later, Russia was devastated. After suffering massive casualties, its armies were in full retreat. Czar Nicholas II capitulated on March 15, 1917, after bread riots broke out in St. Petersburg, then the nation’s capital.
And the newly-installed Bolshevik government was faring no better in repelling the German invaders. Moreover, Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolsheviks, had made pulling Russia out of a disastrous war a major selling point of their propaganda campaign to win support.
Vladimir Lenin
Fortunately for them, the government of Kaiser Wilhelm II was equally anxious to end to its war with Russia. Doing so would allow it to transfer huge numbers of soldiers to the Western Front—hopefully before the United States could intervene on behalf of France and England.
On March 3, 1918, Russia and Germany signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, withdrawing Russia from World War 1.
Under the terms of the treaty, Russia lost control of Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and its Caucasian provinces of Kars and Batum. The lands comprised 34% of the former empire’s population, 54% of its industrial land, 89% of its coalfields, and 26% of its railways.
(The treaty was annulled when Germany signed the Armistice of November 11, 1918 when surrendering to the victorious Allies.)
The treaty was a humiliation for the new Soviet government. Leon Trotsky, leading the Russian delegation, at first refused to sign the agreement. But he also offered an end to hostilities, hoping to spark a proletarian revolution in Germany. He referred to this tactic as “neither peace nor war.”
The Germans were having none of it. Neither was Joseph Stalin, then a rising figure in the Communist government. Stalin’s scathing description of Trotsky’s phrase: “Neither peace nor war—nor a policy.”
Joseph Stalin in 1917
“Neither peace nor war—nor a policy” also describes the current state of relations between the United States and Iran.
Resuming the Presidency on January 20, 2025, Donald Trump threatened military invasions of Canada and Greenland and attacked Venezuela to snatch its dictator/president Nicolás Maduro. He ordered military strikes on suspected drug smuggling boats and cartel operations in the Caribbean, the Pacific and Ecuador.
Domestically he attacked such major universities as Columbia, Brown and Cornell for their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) polices and/or alleged antisemitism. To restore their frozen federal funding, Columbia agreed to pay $200 million; Brown paid $50 million and Cornell paid $30 million.
But on February 28, 2026, Trump—in concert with Israel—launched an unprovoked series of devastating airstrikes against Iran. Suddenly he faced an enemy he could neither bribe nor intimidate.
Bombing of Tehran
To Trump’s surprise and dismay, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz—through which about 20%-25% of the world’s total liquid petroleum consumption (about 20–21 million barrels per day) flows.
Overnight, gas prices surged. By late May, the national average for a gallon of regular gas reached $4.56, compared to roughly $2.98 before military operations began.
On March 11, Trump had told a reporter: “You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won. We won the, in the first hour, it was over.”
On April 5—Easter Sunday, no less—Trump posted on his website, Truth Social: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open up the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”
This was followed on April 7 by another post: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
Donald Trump
But then Trump backed down after experts and international organizations such as Amnesty International warned that attacking civilian infrastructure would constitute war crimes under international law.
On April 8, Trump and Iranian leaders agreed to a two-week ceasefire—less than two hours before Trump’s deadline.
But then Trump ordered the United States Navy to blockade Iran’s ports—even after Iran officially declared the Strait of Hormuz open again.
In response, Iran declared the Strait closed as long as the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports remained in place.
This left Trump with two unpalatable choices: Expand his unpopular war and watch gas prices continue to rise, or remove the naval blockade and appear weak.
By late May, the Strait of Hormuz remained closed and crude oil prices continued to rise throughout the world. And so did the prices of all goods transported to market.
And, by late May, definite parallels had formed between Adolf Hitler’s disastrous attack on the Soviet Union and Donald Trump’s attack on Iran.
Hitler, confident in a swift victory over the Soviet Union in 1941, told his Chief of Staff, General Alfred Jodl, “We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.”
Adolf Hitler
Operation Barbarossa erupted on June 22, 1941, swallowing at least two million dead and wounded Soviet soldiers and another three million POWs (most of whom died in captivity under barbarous conditions). The Wehrmacht occupied the western half of the Soviet Union.
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In Entertainment, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 29, 2026 at 12:10 am
Major Dundee is a 1965 Sam Peckinpah Western focusing on a Union cavalry officer (Charlton Heston) who leads a motley troop of soldiers into Mexico to rescue three children kidnapped by Apaches.
Along the way they liberate Mexican villagers and clash with French lancers trying to establish Mexico as a French colony under would-be emperor Archduke Maximilian 1.
The Wild Bunch is universally recognized as Peckinpah’s greatest achievement. It has certainly had a far greater impact on audiences and critics than Major Dundee. According to Heston, this was really the movie Peckinpah wanted to make while making Dundee, but he couldn’t quite get his mind around it.
As a result, Dundee’s virtues have been tragically overlooked. It has a larger cast of major characters than Bunch, and these are men whose character an audience can truly admire and identify with:
- The charm of Benjamin Tyreen (Richard Harris), a Confederate lieutenant forced into Union service;
- The steady courage of Sergeant Gomez (Mario Adorf);
- The quiet dignity of Aesop (Brock Peters), a black soldier;
- The quest for maturity in young, untried bugler Tim Ryan (Michael Anderson, Jr.);
- The on-the-job training experience of impetuous Lt. Graham (Jim Hutton); and
- The stoic endurance of one-armed Indian scout Sam Potts (James Coburn).
These men are charged with a dangerous and dirty mission, and do it as well as they can, but you wouldn’t fear inviting them to meet your family.
Major Dundee (Charlton Heston)
That was definitely not the case with The Wild Bunch, four hardened killers prepared to rip off anyone, anytime, and leave a trail of bodies in their wake. The only place where you would have felt safe seeing them, in real-life, was behind prison bars.
The Wild Bunch
Dundee is an odyssey movie, in the same vein as Saving Private Ryan. Both films start with a battle, followed by the disappearance of characters who need to be searched for and brought back to safety.
Just as Dundee assembles a small force to go into Mexico, so, too, does Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) do the same, with his hunting ground being France.
Dundee’s men retrieve the kidnapped children and survive a near-fatal battle with Indians. Miller’s men twice clash with the Germans before finding their quarry, James Ryan.
Before Dundee can return to the United States, he must face and defeat a corps of French soldiers. Before Miller can haul Ryan back to safety, he must repulse a German assault.
Both groups of soldiers—Dundee’s and Miller’s—are transformed by their experiences in ways neither group could possibly articulate. (Miller, being a highly literate schoolteacher, would surely do a better job of this than the tight-jawed Dundee.)
Dundee’s soldiers return to a United States that’s just ended its Civil War with a Union victory—and the death of slavery. Miller’s soldiers return to a nation that is now a global superpower.
Of course, Ryan was fortunate in having Steven Spielberg as its director. With his clout, there was no question that Ryan would emerge as the film he wanted.
Peckinpah lacked such clout. And he fought with everyone, including the producer, Jerry Bressler, who ultimately held the power to destroy his film. This guaranteed that his movie would emerge far differently than he had envisioned.
Sam Peckinpah
In 2005, an extended version of Dundee was released, featuring 12 minutes of restored footage. (Much of the original footage was lost after severe cuts to the movie.)
In this new version, we fully see how unsympathetic a character the martinet Dundee really is. Owing to Heston’s career of playing heroes—such as Moses and El Cid—it’s easy to overlook Dundee’s arrogance and lethal fanaticism and automatically view him as a hero.
If he is indeed that, he is a hero with serious flaws.
And his self-imposed mission poses questions for us today:
- Where is the line between professional duty and personal fanaticism?
- How do we balance the success of a mission against its potential costs—especially if they prove appalling?
- At what point—if any—does personal conscience override professional obligations?
Whether intentionally or not, in Major Dundee, Peckinpah laid out a microcosm of the American history that would immediately follow the Civil War.
Former Confederates and Unionists would forego their regional animosities and fight against a recognized mutual enemy—the Indians. This would prove a dirty and drawn-out war, stripped of the glory and (later) treasured memories of the Civil War.
Just as Dundee’s final battle with French lancers ended with an American victory won at great cost, so, too, would America’s forays into the Spanish-American War and World Wars 1 and 11 prove the same.
Ben Tyreen’s commentary on the barbarism of French troops (“Never underestimate the value of a European education”) would be echoed by twentieth-century Americans uncovering the horrors of Dachau and Buchenwald.
And America would learn to project its formidable military power at great cost. Toward the end of the movie, Teresa Santiago (Senta Berger), the ex-patriot Austrian widow, asks Dundee: “But who do you answer to?”
It is a question that still vividly expresses the view of the international community as this superpower colossus hurtles from one often-disastrous conflict to the next.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 13, 2026 at 12:07 am
A dictator can die of illness or old age.
But there are other ways a tyrant can be forced to give up power—such as Gaius Caligula, Adolf Hitler and—possibly—Joseph Stalin.
Death by Fellow Bureaucrat
Joseph Stalin ruled as absolute dictator of the Soviet Union from January 21, 1924, to March 5, 1953—29 years.
Joseph Stalin
Throughout his nearly 30-year reign over the Soviet Union, at least 20 million men, women and children died—from executions, deportations, imprisonment in Gulag camps, and a man-made famine through the forced collection of harvests.
Robert Payne, the acclaimed British historian, vividly portrayed the crimes of this murderous tyrant in his brilliant 1965 biography, The Rise and Fall of Stalin.
According to Payne, Stalin was planning yet another purge during the last weeks of his life. This would be “a holocaust greater than any he had planned before.
“This time there would be a chistka [purge] to end all chistkas, a purging of the entire body of the state from top to bottom. No one, not even the highest officials, was to be spared.”
Then, on March 5, 1953, Stalin died—officially from a cerebral hemorrhage.
He was 73 and in poor health from a lifetime of smoking, drinking and little exercise. But he could have died of unnatural causes.
In the 2004 book, Stalin’s Last Crime, Vladimir P. Naumov, a Russian historian, and Jonathan Brent, a Yale University Soviet scholar, assert that he might have been poisoned.
If this happened, the occasion was during a final dinner with four members of the Politburo. Two of these were Lavrenti P. Beria, chief of the secret police, and Nikita S. Khrushchev, who eventually succeeded Stalin.
The authors believe that, if Stalin was poisoned, the most likely suspect was Beria. The method: Slipping warfarin, a tasteless and colorless blood thinner also used as a rat killer, into his glass of wine.
In Nikita Khrushchev’s 1970 memoirs, he quotes Beria as telling Vyacheslav M. Molotov, another Politburo member, two months after Stalin’s death: “I did him in! I saved all of you.”
It’s entirely possible that Donald Trump’s “Presidency-for-Life” may end by natural causes.
He’s 79, and despite his repeated boastings that he’s the healthiest President in United States history, clearly he isn’t.
He is grotesquely overweight, doesn’t exercise, falls asleep in public appearances and slurs his words. Much of his diet consists of greasy, artery-clogging fast food—such as from McDonald’s and KFC.
He stays up late at night, pouring out his hatred for countless real and imagined enemies on his website, Truth Social.
But that is not the only way his reign could disappear in other ways:
- The Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet could invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This allows the removal of the President when he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” The Vice President then becomes President.
- Within the Senate and House of Representatives, Republicans could stop backing his every infamy and secure his impeachment and conviction.
- Generals could protest publicly Trump’s attacks on their intelligence and even patriotism—or his racist and sexist firings of professional military officers.
- FBI agents could initiate their own unofficial investigations of Trump’s crimes and leak those results to the press. It was through such leaks that Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein brought down Richard Nixon.
* * * * * * * * * *
More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman, authored The Discourses on Livy, a work of political history and philosophy. In it, he outlined how citizens of a republic can maintain their freedoms.
One of the longest chapters—Book Three, Chapter Six—covers “Of Conspiracies.” In it, those who wish to conspire against a ruler will find highly useful advice. And so will those who wish to foil such a conspiracy.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Above all, he notes how important it is for rulers to make themselves loved—or at least respected—by their fellow citizens:
“Note how much more praise those Emperors merited who, after Rome became an empire, conformed to her laws like good princes, than those who took the opposite course.
“Titus, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus and Marcus Auelius did not require the Praetorians nor the multitudinous legions to defend them, because they were protected by their own good conduct, the good will of the people, and by the love of the Senate.
“On the other hand, neither the Eastern nor the Western armies saved Caligula, Nero, Vitellius and so many other wicked Emperors from the enemies which their bad conduct and evil lives had raised up against them.”
In his better-known work, The Prince, Machiavelli warns rulers who—like Donald Trump–are inclined to rule by fear:
“A prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred: for fear and the absence of hatred may well go together.”
By Machiavelli’s standards, Trump has made himself the perfect target for a conspiracy:
“When a prince becomes universally hated, it is likely that he’s harmed some individuals—who thus seek revenge. This desire is increased by seeing that the prince is widely loathed.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 10, 2026 at 12:16 am
A dictator can die of illness or old age. That’s what happened to Francisco Franco (Spain), Mao Zedong (China) and Fidel Castro (Cuba).
But there are other ways a tyrant can be forced to give up power—such as the following three.
Death by Bodyguards
First up: Gaius Caligula, the “Mad Emperor” of Imperial Rome.
Caligula’s reign spanned March 18, 37 A.D. to January 24, 41 A.D.—four years.
Gaius Caligula
Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
He became Emperor in 37 A.D. after succeeding the Emperor Tiberius, his uncle who had adopted him as a son after his father died.
Caligula’s reign began well—and popularly. He gave Tiberius a magnificent funeral—then recalled to Rome all those whom Tiberius had banished, and ignored all charges that Tiberius had leveled against them.
He gave bonuses to the military and allowed the magistrates unrestricted jurisdiction, without appeal to himself.
But in October 37 A.D. he fell seriously ill or perhaps was poisoned.
Caligula soon recovered but emerged a changed man. He began claiming to be a god, and killing or exiling anyone he saw as a threat. He ordered his victims tortured to death with many slight wounds: “Strike so that he may feel that he is dying.”
Among his litany of crimes, according to his biographer, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus:
“He forced parents to attend the executions of their sons, sending a litter for one man who pleaded ill health, and inviting another to dinner immediately after witnessing the death, and trying to rouse him to gaiety and jesting by a great show of affability.”
For all his cruelty and egomania, the trait that finally destroyed Caligula was his joy in humiliating others.
His fatal mistake was to taunt Cassius Chaerea, a member of his own bodyguard. Caligula considered Chaerea effeminate because of a weak voice and mocked him with names like “Priapus” and “Venus.”
On January 22 41 A.D. Chaerea and several other bodyguards hacked Caligula to death with swords before other guards could save him.
Death by Suicide
Next up: Adolf Hitler, dictator of Nazi Germany from January 30, 1933, to April 30, 1945—12 years.
He was born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn in Austria-Hungary.
Adolf Hitler
He was appointed Chancellor—chief law enforcement officer—of Germany on January 30, 1933, by President Paul von Hindenburg. Upon Hindenburg’s death in 1934, Hitler assumed the Presidency and established himself as absolute dictator.
From 1933 to 1939 he presided over Germany’s rapid economic recovery from the Great Depression, the defiance of restrictions imposed on Germany after World War 1, and the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia, where millions of ethnic Germans lived.
These accomplishments won him widespread popular support.
But after absorbing Czechoslovakia in 1938, Hitler felt himself invincible. On September 1, 1939, his armies attacked Poland—and unintentionally ignited World War II.
After conquering Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Greece and Yugoslavia, he made his two greatest mistakes of the war: He invaded the far more powerful Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, and declared war on the equally more powerful United States on December 11.
Parallel to unleashing a war that slaughtered 50 million people, Hitler orchestrated the extermination of at least six million Jews during the Holocaust.
By April, 1945, Germany faced destruction from the advancing Russians on the East, and from the advancing Americans on the West.
On April 30, with Russian forces only blocks from his underground bunker, Hitler lifted a heavy 7.65mm Walther PPK pistol to his right temple, bit on a cyanide capsule, and pulled the trigger.
Just as Caligula’s mangled remains were hastily burned and buried in the Horti Lamiani gardens, Hitler’s body was hastily cremated in the Reich Chancellery garden.
Last up: Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union from January 21, 1924, to March 5, 1953—29 years.
Born on December 18, 1878, in Georgia, Russia, he hated Czarist rule and in 1903 joined the Communist Bolsheviks party, led by Vladimir Lenin, to overthrow it.
Joseph Stalin
On November 7, 1917, Lenin overthrew the Provisional Government, which had taken power in February, after Czarist rule collapsed.
Stalin became a member of the new Soviet government, gradually working his way to the position of General Secretary. When Lenin died on January 21, 1924, Stalin outmaneuvered Leon Trotsky, his major rival for the succession, and became absolute dictator.
Starting in 1934, a series of massive purges followed—most notably between August, 1936, and March, 1938.
Throughout his nearly 30-year reign over the Soviet Union, at least 20 million men, women and children died—from executions, deportations, imprisonment in Gulag camps, and a man-made famine through the forced collection of harvests.
Robert Payne, the acclaimed British historian, vividly portrayed the crimes of this murderous tyrant in his brilliant 1965 biography, The Rise and Fall of Stalin.
According to Payne, Stalin was planning yet another purge during the last weeks of his life. This would be “a holocaust greater than any he had planned before.
“This time there would be a chistka [purge] to end all chistkas, a purging of the entire body of the state from top to bottom. No one, not even the highest officials, was to be spared.”
Yet Stalin did nothing to calm their fears. He often summoned his “comrades” to the Kremlin for late-night drinking bouts, where he freely humiliated them.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on December 19, 2025 at 12:27 am
On December 17, 2019, President Donald J. Trump sent a vicious, self-pitying letter to Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Seventy-four years separate Adolf Hitler’s “Last Political Testament” from Trump’s letter to Pelosi. But the similarities between the two are uncanny.
ADOLF HITLER: I have further never wished that after the first fatal world war a second against England, or even against America, should break out. Centuries will pass away, but out of the ruins of our towns and monuments the hatred against those finally responsible whom we have to thank for everything, international Jewry and its helpers, will grow.
DONALD TRUMP: Your first claim, “Abuse of Power,” is a completely disingenuous, meritless, and baseless invention of your imagination. You know that I had a totally innocent conversation with the President of Ukraine….
The second claim, so-called “Obstruction of Congress,” is preposterous and dangerous. House Democrats are trying to impeach the duly elected President of the United States for asserting Constitutionally based privileges that have been asserted on a bipartisan basis by administrations of both political parties throughout our Nation’s history.
ADOLF HITLER: Three days before the outbreak of the German-Polish war I again proposed to the British ambassador in Berlin a solution to the German-Polish problem — similar to that in the case of the Saar district, under international control. This offer also cannot be denied.
DONALD TRUMP: You are turning a policy disagreement between two branches of government into an impeachable offense — it is no more legitimate than the Executive Branch charging members of Congress with crimes for the lawful exercise of legislative power.
ADOLF HITLER: I die with a happy heart, aware of the immeasurable deeds and achievements of our soldiers at the front, our women at home, the achievements of our farmers and workers and the work, unique in history, of our youth who bear my name.
DONALD TRUMP: You and your party are desperate to distract from America’s extraordinary economy, incredible jobs boom, record stock market, soaring confidence, and flourishing citizens.
ADOLF HITLER: From the sacrifice of our soldiers and from my own unity with them unto death, will in any case spring up in the history of Germany, the seed of a radiant renaissance of the National-Socialist movement and thus of the realization of a true community of nations.
DONALD TRUMP: There is far too much that needs to be done to improve the lives of our citizens. It is time for you and the highly partisan Democrats in Congress to immediately cease this impeachment fantasy and get back to work for the American People. While I have no expectation that you will do so, I write this letter to you for the purpose of history and to put my thoughts on a permanent and indelible record.
One hundred years from now, when people look back at this affair, I want them to understand it, and learn from it, so that it can never happen to another President again.
Adolf Hitler / Donald Trump
ADOLF HITLER: Before my death I expel the former Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring from the party and deprive him of all rights which he may enjoy by virtue of the decree of June 29th, 1941….
Before my death I expel the former Reichsfuhrer-SS and Minister of the Interior, Heinrich Himmler, from the party and from all offices of State….
Göring and Himmler, quite apart from their disloyalty to my person, have done immeasurable harm to the country and the whole nation by secret negotiations with the enemy, which they conducted without my knowledge and against my wishes, and by illegally attempting to seize power in the State for themselves.
DONALD TRUMP: Before the Impeachment Hoax, it was the Russian Witch Hunt. Against all evidence, and regardless of the truth, you and your deputies claimed that my campaign colluded with the Russians — a grave, malicious, and slanderous lie, a falsehood like no other.
You forced our Nation through turmoil and torment over a wholly fabricated story, illegally purchased from a foreign spy by Hillary Clinton and the DNC in order to assault our democracy.
Yet, when the monstrous lie was debunked and this Democrat conspiracy dissolved into dust, you did not apologize. You did not recant. You did not ask to be forgiven. You showed no remorse, no capacity for self-reflection. Instead, you pursued your next libelous and vicious crusade—you engineered an attempt to frame and defame an innocent person.
* * * * *
Adolf Hitler opened World War II with a lie—that Polish forces had attacked a German radio station. He ended it with another lie—that “Jewish interests” had forced war on an innocent Germany.
Donald Trump opened his administration with a lie—that his inaugural crowd had been far bigger than that of his predecessor, Barack Obama. On the eve of impeachment, he chose to lie again—that Pelosi “engineered an attempt to frame and defame an innocent person.”
Few tears were shed for Adolf Hitler when his “Last Political Testament” was unveiled after his suicide.
Nancy Pelosi’s reaction to Donald Trump’s letter was equally appropriate: “It’s really sick.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on December 18, 2025 at 12:10 am
For Donald Trump, self-pitying past is repeatedly prologue.
On December 15, 2025, he viciously attacked recently murdered movie director Rob Reiner for not worshiping him.
On December 17, 2019, he had attacked Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the House of Representatives, for the same reason.
The House was expected to vote on two articles of impeachment against him the next day. Specifically, these condemned him for:
Article 1: Abuse of Power: For pressuring Ukraine to assist him in his re-election campaign by damaging former Vice President Joe Biden, his possible Democratic rival.
Article 2: Obstruction of Congress: For obstructing Congress by blocking testimony of subpoenaed witnesses and refusing to provide documents in response to House subpoenas in the impeachment inquiry.
Trump was ensured an acquittal in the United States Senate, where Republicans held a 53 to 47 member advantage. Yet he knew that only three other Presidents had faced impeachment—Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.
Trump didn’t care about history, nor was he even knowledgeable about it. But he did care about labels—those he gave his enemies and those they gave him. And he desperately wanted to avoid having “impeachment” attached to his name in American Presidential history.
Donald Trump
Trump had tried—and failed—to head this off by insults and intimidation. Just two days earlier, he had tweeted about the Speaker: “Nancy’s teeth were falling out of her mouth, and she didn’t have time to think!”
So, on December 17, he sought to do in a letter what he had failed to do on Twitter. He sent a ranting and insulting six-page letter to Nancy Pelosi.
Nancy Pelosi
The Washington Post estimates that from the day he took office—January 20, 2017—to October 9, 2019—Trump had made 13,435 false or misleading claims.
And in sending his letter to Pelosi, he remained true to form.
His letter had no precedent in American history. But there was such a precedent in German history—specifically, the infamous “Last Political Testament” of Adolf Hitler.
Hitler dictated this to a secretary at 4 a.m. on April 29, 1945, shortly after marrying his longtime mistress, Eva Braun. The marriage occurred in his bunker in Berlin under the bomb-shattered Reich Chancellery.
Even 50 feet below ground, the structure shook as bombs continued to rain from American and British planes. And, at ground level, a more deadly threat was fast approaching: At least one million enraged Russian soldiers, seeking vengeance for the devastation wrought on their country from 1941 to 1945.
Hitler knew the end was closing in on him. He had many times spoken of suicide, and now he was determined to cheat his enemies of the pleasure of killing or capturing him. But before he ended his life, he was determined to have the last word.
Adolf Hitler
Which is where “My Political Testament” comes in.
Seventy-four years separated Adolf Hitler’s testament from Donald Trump’s letter to Nancy Pelosi. But the similarities between the two were uncanny.
ADOLF HITLER: More than thirty years have now passed since I in 1914 made my modest contribution as a volunteer in the first world war that was forced upon the Reich.
In these three decades I have been actuated solely by love and loyalty to my people in all my thoughts, acts and life. They gave me the strength to make the most difficult decisions which have ever confronted mortal man. I have spent my time, my working strength and my health in these three decades.
DONALD TRUMP: After three years of unfair and unwarranted investigations, 45 million dollars spent, 18 angry Democrat prosecutors, the entire force of the FBI, headed by leadership now proven to be totally incompetent and corrupt, you have found NOTHING!
Few people in high position could have endured or passed this test. You do not know, nor do you care, the great damage and hurt you have inflicted upon wonderful and loving members of my family. You conducted a fake investigation upon the democratically elected President of the United States, and you are doing it yet again.
ADOLF HITLER: It is untrue that I or anyone else in Germany wanted the war in 1939. It was desired and instigated exclusively by those international statesmen who were either of Jewish descent or worked for Jewish interests.
I have made too many offers for the control and limitation of armaments, which posterity will not for all time be able to disregard for the responsibility for the outbreak of this war to be laid on me.
DONALD TRUMP: The Articles of Impeachment introduced by the House Judiciary Committee are not recognizable under any standard of Constitutional theory, interpretation, or jurisprudence. They include no crimes, no misdemeanors, and no offenses whatsoever. You have cheapened the importance of the very ugly word, impeachment!
By proceeding with your invalid impeachment, you are violating your oaths of office, you are breaking your allegiance to the Constitution, and you are declaring open war on American Democracy.
You dare to invoke the Founding Fathers in pursuit of this election-nullification scheme — yet your spiteful actions display unfettered contempt for America’s founding and your egregious conduct threatens to destroy that which our Founders pledged their very lives to build.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on December 12, 2025 at 12:57 am
Most Americans believe the United States is immune from the same fates of democracies that have become dictatorships.
Not so New York University historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat. Appearing on the November 13, 2023 edition of The PBS Newshour, she warned:
“Since 2015, [Donald Trump] started….using his rallies and campaign events for radicalizing people. And he started saying, oh, in the old days, you used to hurt people. The problem is, Americans don’t hurt each other anymore.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat
Humblewarrior, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
“So now he’s going into a new phase of openly dehumanizing his targets so that will lessen the taboos in the future. And we see that, in 2025, he’s got plans for mass deportations, mass imprisonments and giant camps.
“So you need people to be less sensitive about violence, either committing it themselves or tolerating it. And I see that as….the reason he’s using this dehumanizing rhetoric now, to prepare people.”
A historical example: The Weimar Republic, the constitutional federal republic in Germany which lasted from November 9, 1918 to March 23, 1933.
During its 14-year existence, the Republic granted Germans rights they had never enjoyed—and which would be ruthlessly suppressed during the 12-year Third Reich that replaced it.
Among those rights:
- Freedom of speech
- Freedom of assembly
- Privacy of mail, telegraph, and telephone
- Free and secret elections
- All citizens were eligible for public office
But the Republic had dangerous enemies—Communists on the Left, and Nazis on the Right. And it was plagued by charges of illegitimacy and even treason—for its members’ having signed the Treaty of Versailles ending World War 1.
Adolf Hitler joined the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party in 1919—the year after World War 1 ended.
Adolf Hitler
In 1923, he staged a coup attempt in Bavaria—which was quickly and brutally put down by police. He was arrested and sentenced to less than a year in prison.
After that, Hitler decided that winning power through violence was no longer an option. He must win it through election—or appointment.
He repeatedly ran for the highest office in Germany—President—but never got a clear majority in a free election.
When the 1929 Depression struck Germany, the fortunes of Hitler’s Nazi party rose as the life savings of ordinary Germans fell. Streets echoed with bloody clashes between members of Hitler’s Nazi Stormtroopers and those of the German Communist Party.
Germany seemed on the verge of collapsing.
Germans desperately looked for a leader—a Fuhrer—who could somehow deliver them from the threat of financial ruin and Communist takeover.
In early 1933, members of his own cabinet persuaded aging German president, Paul von Hindenburg, that only Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor could do this.
Paul von Hindenburg
Hindenburg considered Hitler a dangerous radical. But he allowed himself to be convinced that, by putting Hitler in the Cabinet, he could be “boxed in” and thus controlled.
So, on January 30, 1933, he reluctantly appointed Adolf Hitler Chancellor—the equivalent of Attorney General.
On August 2, 1934, Hindenburg died, and Hitler immediately assumed the titles—and duties—of the offices of Chancellor and President.
His rise to total power was now complete.
In 2015, Donald Trump declared his candidacy for President.
At that time:
- The country was technically at war in the Middle East—but the fate of the United States was never threatened, as it had been during the Cold War.
- There was no draft; if you didn’t know someone in the military, you didn’t care about the casualties taking place.
- Thanks to government loans from Barack Obama, American capitalism had been saved from its own excesses during the George W. Bush administration.
- In contrast to the scandals of the Ronald Reagan Presidency, the Obama administration had been scandal-free.
- Nor had there been any major terrorist attacks on the country—as had occurred on 9/11 under President George W. Bush.
Yet—16 months after announcing his candidacy for President—enough Americans fervently embraced Donald Trump to give him the most powerful position in the country and the world.
Donald Trump
The message of Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign had been one of hope—“Yes, We Can!”
That of Donald Trump’s campaign was one of hatred toward everyone who was not an avid Trump supporter: “No, You Can’t!”
White supremacists comprised the overwhelming majority of the audiences at Trump rallies. They knew that demographics were steadily working against them. Birthrates among nonwhites were rising. By 2045, whites would make up less than 50 percent of the American population.
The 2008 election of the first black President had shocked Fascistic whites. His 2012 re-election had deprived them of the hope that 2008 had been an accident.
Then came 2016—and the possibility that a black President might be followed by a woman: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
And the idea of a woman dictating to men was strictly too much for them to bear.
So, on November 8, 2016, Donald Trump—lacking any government experience and best known as the host of a reality TV show—was elected President of the United States.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on December 11, 2025 at 12:10 am
More than two years after he tried to establish himself as a dictator, Donald Trump remained free.
And he was still repeating “The Big Lie”: That he won the 2020 Presidential election but was cheated of victory by widespread voter fraud.
This was on a par with “The Big Lie” that had gripped Nazi Germany after World War 1: That the nation had been “stabbed in the back” by civilian Communists and Jews.
The result: Two-thirds of Republicans still rejected the legitimacy of the 2020 election of Joe Biden.
Facing 91 criminal charges in four criminal cases, Trump—unlike any other criminal defendant—was not even required to post bond.
In Florida, he faced 40 felony counts for illegally withholding highly classified government documents. Yet a judge he had appointed—Aileen Cannon—repeatedly delayed the start of his trial.
According to former United States Attorney Joyce Vance, her goal was clearly to delay the trial past the November, 2024, Presidential election.
Aileen Cannon
Trump repeatedly slandered—and even threatened—prosecutors, witnesses, judges and jurors in the four cases he faced. He claimed he was simply exercising his right to “freedom of speech” as a Presidential candidate.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who was overseeing Trump’s election interference case, imposed a limited gag order on Trump in October, 2023. But this was lifted by the U.S. Court of Appeals while it heard appeals from Trump’s lawyers, who wanted it removed completely.
Most ominously, an August 29, 2023 story by the Associated Press reported: Right-wing “think tanks”—led by the long-established Heritage Foundation—were plotting to remake the federal government into a Fascist dictatorship:
“With more than a year to go before the 2024 election, a constellation of conservative organizations is preparing for a possible second White House term for Donald Trump, recruiting thousands of Americans to come to Washington on a mission to dismantle the federal government and replace it with a vision closer to his own….
Heritage Foundation
Ser Amantio di Nicolao, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
“Trump-era conservatives want to gut the ‘administrative state’ from within, by ousting federal employees they believe are standing in the way of the president’s agenda and replacing them with like-minded officials more eager to fulfill a new executive’s approach to governing.
“Much of the new president’s agenda would be accomplished by reinstating what’s called Schedule F — a Trump-era executive order that would reclassify tens of thousands of the 2 million federal employees as essentially at-will workers who could more easily be fired.”
Meanwhile, Trump openly called for ending Constitutionally-granted freedoms:
On December 3, 2022, he wrote in a Truth Social post:
“Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”
A November 14, 2023 analysis by CNN’s Stephen Collinson warned:
“The former and possibly future commander in chief aspires to strongman power if he wins back the White House next year. He believes his authority would be absolute. He wants vengeance against his political enemies. He’d pose the greatest challenge to the rule of law and the Constitution in modern times, seek to crush press freedoms and gut the machinery of government.
“None of this is speculation. Trump is saying and showing exactly what he would do in his rallies, social media posts, interviews, lawyers’ filings and even appearances in court that he uses to stigmatize the legal system. And Trump’s ambitions should be taken seriously because one year from the election, President Joe Biden’s reelection hopes are far from secure.”
As an example of Trump’s rhetoric, Ruth Ben-Ghiat professor of history at New York University and author of the bestselling book, Strongmen, cites the former President’s address on Veterans Day, 2023:
“We will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections, and will do anything possible, they will do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American dream.”
Speaking on the November 13, 2023 edition of The PBS Newshour, Ben-Ghiat said:
“Since the fascists, authoritarians always want to do two things—they want to change the way that people see violence, making it into something necessary and patriotic and even morally righteous, and they want to change the way people see their targets. And so they use dehumanizing language. And former President Trump is doing both.
“He’s been using his rallies since 2015 to shift the idea of violence into something positive. And now he’s starting to use dehumanizing rhetoric, all these groups who live like vermin. And this is what the original fascists did.
“Hitler started talking about Jews as parasites in 1920. So by the time he got in 1933, Germans had been exposed to this dehumanizing rhetoric for 13 years.
“And Mussolini literally talked about rats. After he had become dictator in 1927, he said, we need to kill rats who are bringing infectious diseases and Bolshevism from the east. And so this matches up with Trump talking about immigrants bringing disease and other such things.
“So this is very dangerous rhetoric with a very precise fascist history.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on December 10, 2025 at 3:26 am
On January 6, 2021, President Donald Trump appeared at the Ellipse, a 52-acre park south of the White House fence and north of Constitution Avenue and the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
A stage had been set up for him to address tens of thousands of his supporters, who eagerly awaited him.
Trump ordered them to march on the Capitol building to express their anger at the voting process and to intimidate their elected officials to reject the results of the 2020 Presidential election.
The Stormtrumpers marched to the United States Capitol—and quickly brushed aside Capitol Police, who made little effort to arrest or shoot them.
Capitol Police facing off with Stormtrumpers
- One attacker was shot as protesters forced their way toward the House Chamber where members of Congress were sheltering in place.
- Members of the mob attacked police with chemical agents or lead pipes.
- A Capitol Hill police officer was knocked off his feet, dragged into the mob surging toward the building, and beaten with the pole of an American flag.
- Several rioters carried plastic handcuffs, possibly intending to take hostages.
- Others carried treasonous Confederate flags.
- Shouts of “Hang Pence!” often rang out.
- Improvised explosive devices were found in several locations in Washington, D.C.
- Many of the lawmakers’ office buildings were occupied and vandalized—including that of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a favorite Right-wing target.
Stormtrumpers inside the Capitol Building
More than three hours passed before police—using riot gear, shields and batons—retook control of the Capitol.
And Trump?
- After giving his inflammatory speech, he returned to the White House—to watch his handiwork on television and rage-tweet against Vice President Mike Pence.
- He was “delighted” at the attack—and surprised that others weren’t, as angry Republican Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse said later.
- He initially denied requests to mobilize the National Guard.
- Six hours after the rioting began, Pat A. Cipollone, the White House Counsel and other officials intervened and deployed the National Guard.
- While the rioting was still erupting, Trump posted a video on Twitter: “I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us….But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order….So go home. We love you. You’re very special.”
His administration was closing with the same contempt for law and democracy that had characterized it from its outset.
Joseph R. Biden legitimately assumed the Presidency on January 20, 2021.
Yet it was only on November 22, 2022, that his handpicked Attorney General, Merrick Garland, appointed Jack Smith as independent special counsel.
Smith had served in the Justice Department as an assistant U.S. attorney, acting U.S. attorney and head of the agency’s Public Integrity Section.
From 2008 to 2010, Smith worked as investigation coordinator for the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands. He thus oversaw cases against government officials and militia members accused of war crimes and genocide.
Jack Smith
He now became responsible for overseeing two preexisting Justice Department criminal investigations into Trump.
On June 8, 2023, a grand jury indicted Trump on seven federal criminal charges related to his handling of classified documents. This marked the first time in American history that a serving or former president had been indicted on a federal criminal charge.
On August 1, a second grand jury indicted Trump on four more federal felony counts for attempting to overturn the 2020 Presidential election and inciting a riot against Congress on January 6, 2021.
Meanwhile, Trump publicly attacked Smith as even notorious Mafia bosses like John Gotti never dared attack their prosecutors.
Trump attacked Smith as “deranged” and a “Trump-hating prosecutor,” adding that “his wife and family despise me much more than he does.”
A typical Trump post on his website, Truth Social, exploded on August 28, 2023:
“It has just been reported that aides to TRUMP prosecutor, Deranged Jack Smith, met with high officials at the White House just prior to these political SleazeBags Indicating me OVER NOTHING.
“If this is so, which it is, that means that Biden and his Fascist Thugs knew and APPROVED of this Country dividing Form of Election Interference, despite their insisting that they ‘knew nothing.”
Such attacks led the Justice Department to increase the security detail for Smith from two to at least four deputy U.S. marshals on a 24-hour basis.
Many of Trump’s supporters believed that Smith was acting on behalf of President Biden to deprive Trump of the chance to run for the White House a third time.
The January 6 coup attempt proved beyond doubt his followers’ capacity for violence.
On November 14, 2023, the Justice Department urged a Washington, DC, appeals court to uphold the gag order against Trump in his federal election subversion criminal case. Prosecutors charged that Trump’s attacks on Smith and his family demonstrated why restrictions on Trump’s speech were necessary.
“There has never been a criminal case in which a court has granted a defendant an unfettered right to try his case in the media, malign the prosecutor and his family, and …target specific witnesses with attacks on their character and credibility,” Smith’s team told the US DC Circuit Court of Appeals in a filing.
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NEITHER PEACE NOR WAR–NOR A POLICY: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 2, 2026 at 12:05 am“Neither peace nor war—nor a policy” accurately describes the current state of relations between the United States and Iran.
On February 28, 2026, President Donald Trump—in concert with Israel—launched an unprovoked series of devastating airstrikes against Iran. Suddenly he faced an enemy he could neither bribe nor intimidate.
And, by late May, definite parallels had formed between Adolf Hitler’s disastrous attack on the Soviet Union and Donald Trump’s attack on Iran.
Operation Barbarossa erupted on June 22, 1941, swallowing at least two million dead and wounded Soviet soldiers and another three million POWs (most of whom died in captivity under barbarous conditions).
The Wehrmacht occupied the western half of the Soviet Union. But then the seemingly unstoppable Blitzkrieg ground to a halt—owing to unexpected and increasingly fierce resistance by Russians and the advent of the infamous Russian winter.
Adolf Hitler
Jonathan Trigg, in his vividly-written nonfiction book, The Battle of Stalingrad Through German Eyes, observes that when Hitler’s prediction of a six-week victory turned sour, he didn’t have a fallback strategy to win the war.
Nor did the General Staff have a solution. Every country they had invaded—Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, France, Greece, Yugoslavia—-had capitulated. Its government had sued for peace or gone into exile. When Great Britain refused to surrender, Hitler had no answer, and he had none for the Soviet Union.
Panzer commander Ewald von Kleist admitted: “There were no plans for a prolonged struggle. Everything was based on the idea of a decisive result before the end of autumn 1941.”
Like Hitler, Trump had believed that:
Finally, like Hitler, Trump had no alternative plan for a prolonged struggle.
True, he could turn Iran into a radioactive pile of rubble by using nuclear weapons. Or he could order an all-out invasion of Iran—a country 2.4 to 2.5 times larger than Texas—requiring tens of thousands of troops.
But both options would be hugely unpopular among Americans—especially in an election year when Republicans were threatened with the loss of the House of Representatives and/or the Senate.
As a result, Trump could only threaten or deliver more impotent airstrikes.
Donald Trump
After a two-week ceasefire was announced on April 8, the following diplomatic activities occurred:
On June 28, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it launched missiles and drones at United States bases in Kuwait and Bahrain.
Following the exchange of fire, the United States and Iran accused each other of violating the ceasefire agreement.
The IRGC said that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed gave Iran the right to control passage and navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, and from now on, violating ships would be dealt with more forcefully than in the past.
Strait of Hormuz
The Strait of Hormuz had operated freely as an international waterway before the 2026 war. An estimated 110 to 160 commercial and oil vessels had safely transited the 21-mile passageway on an average day.
The Trump administration is demanding that it remain freely open to all ships. Iran, having discovered that controlling the Strait gives it leverage over the world’s oil-based economy, is determined to exact tolls from ships that pass through it.
After the latest American strikes on Iran were announced, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started. If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!”
Given the conditions cited above, that is highly unlikely.
So long as Iran continues to exert its will against the world’s greatest superpower, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’ unguarded statement will prove highly accurate:
“The Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating, or rather, very skillful at not negotiating, letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result.
“An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards. And so, I hope that this ends as quickly as possible.”
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