CSotD: The Day After the Morning After
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Two days after the attacks on Iran began, the assault continues to dominate political cartooning, though Monday is always quiet as few cartoonists work the weekend.
Deering reminds us that Trump had claimed to have obliterated Iran’s nuclear capability and now says the attacks are intended to stop Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon. At the time of the first attacks, several experts on Iran’s capabilities said the program had not been “obliterated,” but Dear Leader never backed off his claims.
While Iran had protested that their program was only intended to produce enough nuclear material for peaceful use, their work sites were underground in hardened spaces, but that makes sense: The program had been under pressure from abroad until the first, multinational agreement was reached (which Trump tore up in his first administration). Until that treaty, the program was under threat from Israel and other countries, so the safe siting was understandable.
In any case, Dear Leader’s boasts after that first strike are, as the Nixonian phrase goes, “no longer operative” (and do click here. Karoline Leavitt could take lessons.).
Koterba is not the only critic to note the bombing of an Iranian elementary school for girls, but he ties that deadly event into the horrendous damage done to the little girls in the Epstein Files.
The difference, of course, is that hitting the school was unintentional and those poor little girls are collateral damage, which doesn’t erase the tragedy, but those victimized by Epstein and his co-conspirators were damaged intentionally.
Nor has the slow roll out and massive redaction of the files been an accidental “fortune of war.”
Beyond those little schoolgirls, there seems little sympathy for Iran or for the death of Khamenei, as Blower points out both his nuclear development program, for which we have no confirmation, and the massive deaths under his reign, which we know about for certain.
It does seem hypocritical, given the tens of thousands intentionally killed in the latest demonstrations, for the Iranians to wave the bloody blouse over the far smaller number accidentally killed in that school.
Broelman is more specific in calling Khamenei’s death a case of instant karma, though I’m not aware of a bus bombing in his native Australia. But it’s not necessary to have a direct connection to terrorism to find it repulsive, criminal and spiritually unacceptable.
It’s also worth pointing out that, while most international cartoonists cite both Israel and the US in their analysis, Broelman only depicts a US flag on the incoming missile.
And in fact Broelman is specifically critical of Dear Leader, who has boasted of being an appropriate recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and is proud of the silly and meaningless FIFA Peace Prize.
Sack makes use of the FIFA trophy, demonstrating its false, meaningless significance by having Dear Leader use it to kill the dove. Columnists and analysts, too, have noted on how Trump’s boastful but dubious list of wars he has ended contrasts with the actual bombings he has ordered.
His blatant lies about his academic honors, his self-serving nonsense about his one-time athletic prowess and even his more serious ignorance of how tariffs work are a small matter when matched with the fatal truths about his much-vaunted commitment to peace.
His preference for creating a false image rather than genuinely earning honors is demonstrated by his willingness to accept a Purple Heart despite his having evaded military service and a Nobel Peace Prize medal from a woman whose country he attacked.
Jason White suggests, as have others, that Trump’s motivation in joining Israel in attacking Iran is to prop up his sagging popularity with voters, though others also consider it an attempt to distract from his repeated presence in the Epstein Files.
Espinoza points out that those who admire his current action will likely be unhappy if Iran chokes off the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting the international petroleum supply and increasing the cost of gasoline.
Though it should be pointed out that only about a quarter of Americans approve the bombing. If it was an attempt to regain public support, it has certainly not worked.
And Matt Davies suggests that it also hasn’t worked militarily, despite the successful hit on a gathering of major leaders in the government. The death of Khamenei, he says, will do more to inspire the hardliners in Iran.
Kearney emphasizes the futility of killing Iran’s leadership, given the way martyrdom operates in asymmetric warfare. It is as if he were explaining the Hydra in Davies’ cartoon: The more heads you cut off, the more spring up in its place.
And there is no good example of a time when external attacks created positive regime change. There’s been no regime change in Venezuela, simply a change in the person in charge, while the death of Saddam Hussein is an excellent example of creating permanent chaos in a region that, for all its flaws, had been stable.
The most likely outcome in Iran, most observers seem to agree, will be like the divisive horrors we’ve seen in Libya since Muammar Gaddafi was driven from power and executed. Those who made so much political hay out of the assault on the consulate in Benghazi appear to be in the process of creating a sequel.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Paul Fell asks the question facing Americans. It is plain that Dear Leader wants to nationalize the elections, taking control away from the states and putting it in the hands of his administration. The Constitution is clear that elections are the duty of the states, and, so far, most district courts have cleaved to the law, though SCOTUS seems undependable.
But many laws include provisions that come into place in an emergency, and, as Golding points out, Dear Leader declares emergencies not because they’ve happened but because he needs them.
And if that’s not chilling enough, Joyce Vance explains at length how one judge has sounded a furious alarm over how the government has repeatedly failed to comply with judicial orders.
Keep your eyes on the prize.
(YouTube has age-restricted this video. I guess some history isn’t supposed to be taught.)
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