By Terence Smith
“It’s an incoherent war,” Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said the other day on NPR as he emerged from a briefing about the ongoing and increasingly costly U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran and Lebanon.
That rang true to me. We are in the third week of a vast and complex, multi-front, ill-considered war that was launched at the incessant urging of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Bibi, as he is known, met repeatedly with President Trump at Mar a Lago and the White House, hammering on the urgent need to devastate Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah. Half-convinced, the President joined for his own reasons.
Unsaid, as far as we know, but apparent to all, was the political benefit such a distraction would provide to both men. A major, two-front war would postpone Bibi’s ongoing corruption trial, keep him out of jail and enhance his shaky political standing in Israel in the months prior to the next Israeli election, which must be held by October.
The inevitable wall-to-wall coverage of the war would also
distract attention from the Epstein files, the faltering U.S. economy and the lack progress in Gaza and Ukraine, topics the President would prefer not to see on page one.
So, the rockets red glare appeared over Teheran, Kharg Island and other targets in Iran and Beirut and southern Lebanon and today’s headlines deal with the price of oil and NATO’s non-response, not politics at home. The focus is on the Strait of Hormuz, not Bibi’s failures on October 7th in Gaza, or Donald Trump’s low approval ratings.
But, stay tuned. Wars, like elections, have consequences. Especially “incoherent wars.”