President Trump did it.
President Trump launched the battle for Iran. Today is Day 3 of the joint strikes on Iran conducted by the U.S. and Israel.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dead, which called for celebratory dancing in the streets in Iran. “Khamenei Joins Saddam in Hell, but Iran 2026 Is Not Iraq 2003” is Niall Ferguson’s headline at The Free Press. Ferguson predicts that this war will not be a long drawn-out affair like Iraq. In an impromptu moment, a Sky News host in Australia addressed the late Ayatollah, urging, “You son of a b—h, shame on you, burn in hell!”
Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia is not dancing for joy. “An unwise and unconstitutional attack on Iran,” Kaine says. George Will, who has nary a nice word for the current occupant of the White House, begs to differ. “At last, the credibility of U.S. deterrence is being restored” is the argument of Will’s latest. Will writes:
Some say that U.S. involvement in Iran constitutes a “war of choice.” That too casually bandied phrase rarely fits untidy reality. America’s Civil War was a choice: Lincoln chose not to heed those — they were not few — who agreed with the prominent publisher Horace Greeley. He said of the seceding Southern states, “Let the erring sisters go in peace.” Lincoln chose against such national suicide. Donald Trump’s administration has chosen not to wager U.S. safety on Iran’s abandoning its multi-decade pursuit of nuclear weapons, or on Iran’s acquiring them but not really meaning “Death to America.”
A Wall Street Journal editorial contends that it’s too soon for off ramps for Iran, while Elliot Kaufman highlights the Ayatollah’s fatal mistakes, and Seth Cropsey outlines the Trump doctrine for Iran and beyond. In contrast, many on the left weep for the Iranian theocracy. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani also sides with the theocratic regime.
Andrew McCarthy has a piece in National Review saying that the President doesn’t have to wait until the danger to the U.S. us immanent before striking. An alternative way of expressing this might be: We don’t have to wait until it is too late. Meanwhile, the conflict has widened. Iran has hit U.S. military installations across the Middle East. Iran, however, has also hit civilian targets. There have been three Americans killed. Sending “our immense love and eternal gratitude” to the families of those killed, President Trump acknowledged that there will likely be more. The sad number of U.S. military deaths has risen to four.
The Free Press says that the Iranians who celebrated the death of the Ayatollah have now seen a glimpse of the possibility of democracy and freedom. “Thanks to President Trump, the hour of Iran’s freedom is at hand,” writes Reza Pahlevi, the eldest son of Iran’s last Shah in the Washington Post. He concludes: “God bless America. Long live Iran.” This went over like a lead balloon with frequenters of the Post’s comments, who were notably hostile.
“For Democratic [2028] contenders, Iran war presents opportunity and risk,” Examiner Chief Political Correspondent Byron York observes. A tantalizing snippet:
Fifth in the polls at the moment, Gov. Shapiro was the only Democrat to include criticism of Iran’s leadership in his statement on the war. “Make no mistake, the Iranian regime represses its own people and is the leading state sponsor of terrorism around the world,” Shapiro wrote.
We saw another mass shooting over the weekend. Two people were killed and at least 14 others were wounded in a bar early in the morning in Austin. The shooter, who wore a hoodie and t-shirt with “Property of Allah” on it and allegedly collected fan pix of Iranian “leaders,” was killed by police. I sure hope the authorities can discern his motive.
The Eyes Are Upon Texas. A Senate primary in Texas tomorrow is “heated” and “has Republicans worried.” GOP contenders are Senator John Cornyn, state AG Ken Paxton, and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt. Why are Republicans worried?
“Paxton puts the seat at risk,” the GOP’s main Senate campaign arm, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, wrote in a February memo. It said its internal polling showed that “Cornyn is the only Republican candidate who reliably wins a general election matchup” against either of the Democrats’ likely nominees.
Meanwhile, the Democrats’ stomach for race and gender politics is being tested in the same primary:
In the final weeks of the Senate primary race here, Rep. Jasmine Crockett has accused her Democratic opponent, James Talarico, of supporting ads that are “straight up racist” against her.
She’s called the questions about her electability in the red state a “dog whistle,” aimed at demeaning her as a Black woman and picked up the endorsement of the 2024 Senate Democratic nominee, who blasted Talarico for allegedly privately referring to him as a “mediocre Black man.”
California prides itself on being enlightened. Demographer Joel Kotlin notices an irony: the Golden State’s stringent green policies harm actual workers:
[T]he greatest irony is that both Latinos and African Americans do worse in California than in “unenlightened places” like Texas and Florida.
The key difference in California has been the imposition of draconian environmental regulations, which have devastated industries like construction, manufacturing, and logistics.
It’s what attorney Jennifer Hernandez calls “the green Jim Crow.”
For example, Latinos constitute well over 50% of all California construction workers and the majority working in logistics, according to the American Community Survey.
But due to regulatory constraints, construction in California has been among the weakest in the nation, making it hard to build what the market wants — namely, affordable apartments and modestly-priced single family homes.
Latinos have been hardest hit because many are employed in the “carbon economy,” which relies on energy and has been decimated by regulatory pressures.
Ms. Must has not really kept up with Candace Owens since she accused French First Lady Brigitte Macron of being a man. Now, she is conducting a campaign against Erika Kirk, widow of slain conservative hero Charlie Kirk. USA TODAY columnist Nicole Russell has been staying abreast of Owens’s doings and is disgusted.
Axios reports that “centrist Democrats” have launched a campaign to stop AOC from being their 2028 nominee. We are reliably informed that unicorns, likely numerically superior to moderate Democrats, are also dead set against AOC.
Alan Dershowitz’s name appeared in the Epstein files, so called. What makes him angriest is that he has not been allowed to confront his anonymous accuser, a right guaranteed by the sixth amendment.
I recently recommended Lionel Shriver’s new novel A Better Life. And lo and behold Seth Baron reviews Shriver’s “splendidly paced immigration satire” at City Journal:
In June 2023, then-mayor Eric Adams suggested a solution to the problem of tens of thousands of migrants coming to New York City to take advantage of Gotham’s absurd guarantee of shelter on demand for anyone who asked for it: private individuals could house them. In the event, the idea never came to fruition, and the city wound up leasing or buying thousands of hotel rooms instead. In the fictive world of A Better Life, Adams’s proposal is actually launched, and Gloria Bonaventura—a well-meaning, house-poor, sixty-something divorcee who lives in a rambling, restored Queen Anne with her twentysomething slacker son Nico in leafy Ditmas Park, Brooklyn—enthusiastically signs up to take in one of our “newest New Yorkers,” as just-arrived illegal aliens are routinely called (in real life, not just in the novel).
Events quickly go from bad to worse. Nico spends his days browsing anti-immigration websites and lurking around migrant welcome hubs, much to the dismay of his mother, who devotes herself to liberal good works of the “In this house, we believe” variety. Gloria lavishes attention and praise on Martine, their cheery, hardworking Honduran boarder, whose vague backstory inspires skepticism in Nico. Various insalubrious compatriots of Martine soon turn up, and eventually the menage takes on a comic/horrifying claustrophobic and surreal quality reminiscent of Buñuel (The Exterminating Angel), Polanski (The Tenant, Cul-de-Sac), Sartre (No Exit), or Beckett (Waiting for Godot, Endgame).
