Friday Insights-June 27, 2025
Did we or didn't we "obliterate?"
On Thursday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and other administration officials briefed Senators on the B-2 attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. The briefing, Senator Chuck Schumer said, raised more questions than it answered. Other Senators at the briefing were split, by party, of course, on the success of the attack.
Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) got it best. He said it is impossible to confidently assess the success of the attack without more intelligence.
America finds itself in a debate over whether the attack achieved its goal of effectively ending Iran’s effort to build a nuclear weapon. This debate was avoidable. President Trump should not have declared it a stunning victory immediately, before more conclusive intelligence on the attack was available. The nuclear facilities had been smashed into smithereens. The President spoke of “complete oblivion.”
Some of us, despite being impressed with how the raid was executed, wondered if the risky raid was necessary at all. We would have preferred a diplomatic solution and recognized that the raid could have precipitated a larger war.
Many of us also disliked the fact that the administration did not brief congressional Democrats before the raid and did not seek approval from Congress. Trump’s rationale was that briefing Congress would have resulted in intelligence leaks that would have aided Iran and jeopardized the mission. Trump would also tell us that Democrats, being the negative people they are, would not support the raid anyway.
Trump now seeks recognition as a brilliant and courageous military leader. He’s not. By over-hyping the success of the raid, he declared victory before knowing that he “won.” True military leaders do not do that.
When I read his first self-congratulatory statements, I thought, “Hoping it doesn’t make it happen.” I was reminded, again, of Trump and the 2020 election. Trump hoped to win the election so badly that he appears to have convinced himself that he did. The result was January 6, 2021, and the ongoing 2025 efforts to rewrite the history of that insurrection by pardoning the insurrectionists and imposing retribution on those he believes acted inappropriately in holding him accountable for January 6 and other unrelated crimes.
But back to the B-2 raid. Trump now believes he should be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his ongoing efforts to end wars. That is a bit bizarre given America’s role in Gaza as well as the resort to bombs rather than diplomacy in Iran.
And Trump is now attacking Democrats and the press. He’s called for the prosecution of whoever leaked the preliminary intelligence report that suggested the B-2 raid may have only set Iran’s nuclear aspirations back by a few months. He is also suggesting that anyone who does not join him in celebrating the success of the raid shows disrespect for the military personnel who undertook the raid. I haven’t seen Trump saying it, but the implication of his other comments is that not congratulating Trump and the military for the raid is somehow treasonous. It is, of course, not.
I agree with President Theodore Roosevelt. During World War I, in 1918, as former President, Roosevelt said: “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
Thus, let’s welcome questions being raised about the success of the attack on Iran, about whether the President should have sought congressional approval in advance of conducting it, and whether the President has intelligence indicating that the raid was not as successful as he continues to claim and is misleading the American people.
Thank you.
As always, thanks to all of you who read today’s Friday Insights. I appreciate it.
We keep looking at each event in isolation as if we are having a stew and commenting on the potato. How is this related to Ukraine, the recent ‘big deals’ in the gulf states, Syria, attacks on universities and education, travel bans, abductions by masked people, attacks on journalists, demonizing judges, threats of violence (and murders) of politicians who don’t toe the line, threats to neighboring countries, misinformation, centralized personal data by private companies, corruption and grift, the marines stationed in LA, etc.
This act of war on the whim of the president exactly one week after a humiliating military parade is just one dot in a sequence that began before the election. What are the next predictable dots? More purges, more arrests of political opponents, suing more media, alliances with more dictators….?We’re only at the start of a long road that may be leading to the calling off of elections.