Oil prices are surging as two tankers are burning off the coast of Iraq, while “dire strait” referring to the Straight of Hormuz is today’s most popular pun. It is dire: seven ships have been attacked in the Persian Gulf. Israel is bombarding Beirut, and the terrorist organization Hezbollah is launching attacks on Israel.
Closer to home, we learn that, according to an FBI memo, Iran aspires to attack the coast of California with drones. The New York Post quotes a former Army intelligence officer on this threat. Oh, and nobody’s seen hide nor hair of the new Supreme Leader. Amit Segal of The Free Press has a theory on this (“Where in the World Is Mojtaba Khamenei?”):
The Iranian regime is trying to hide their new Supreme Leader while the IRGC is running the war.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon estimates that the Iran War has cost the American taxpayer $11 billion. To put that in perspective, it’s $2 billion more than low-end estimates of what Minnesota’s Somali welfare fraud cost the American taxpayer.
Oil prices are an immediate concern of the American taxpayer. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal (“America’s Strategic Oil Exports”) says that argues that thanks to former Speaker Paul Ryan’s 2015 deal U.S. crude is now helping the world. New York Post “On the Money” columnist Charles Gasparino acknowledges the problem the war has created but also blames hedge funds.
President Trump is constantly being implored to give the end date for the war and to better explain it. For my money, the Wall Street Journal’s Barton Swaim does an excellent job of explaining for Trump in a column headlined “Trump’s Old-Fashioned War.” It’s a simple explanation:
What’s driving both camps batty is that the only plausible motivation for his order to strike Iran is a judicious and honorable one: that the regime in Tehran constantly menaces America and its allies, and that its rulers can be counted on to continue their pursuit of a nuclear weapon. No bizarre ulterior motive necessary….
Mr. Trump’s logorrhea, together with his habit of describing whatever his administration does in superlative terms, led him on Monday to say the war is “very complete, pretty much.” Yet it goes on. He can change his mind about anything at any time, but Mr. Trump is too old-fashioned to think he can call his presidency a success if the U.S. comes to terms with a belligerent Iran.
Conservative London Telegraph columnist Alister Heath, noting what he calls the “ludicrously defeatist” commentary on the war urges President Trump not to cede victory to “drone-wielding barbarians.” The American Conservative (TAC) on the other hand worries about “The Iran Escalation Doom Loop.” An irony of Khamenei Senior’s tenure, according to an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, is that he cemented the relationship between the U.S. and Israel. A Beirut journalist describes “the war Lebanon never wanted,” but I am going to quote a passage on the novelty of Lebanon—Beirut was once called “the Paris of the Middle East—in the region:
Lebanon is the only Arab country founded on a formal power-sharing system in which Christians serve not merely as a minority to be accommodated but as co-architects of the state. That delicate balance has been under pressure for decades. …
Lebanon’s Christian population was once central to the country’s political and economic life. But sustained waves of emigration—driven by insecurity, economic collapse and political marginalization—have shrunk that role. What was once a confident founding community has become increasingly cautious, reactive and demographically diminished.
Marvel at the viciousness and stupidity of this New York Times “analysis:” “How Hegseth Came to See Moral Purpose in War as Weakness.”
Senate Majority Leader, who unlike Khamenei Jr. is very much in evidence, has teed up the Trump-backed SAVE America Act, which would require an ID for voting, but will not allow the “talking filibuster” that many Republicans demand. The President’s endorsement of a GOP Senate candidate in Texas—Senator John Cornyn and Texas AG Ken Paxton are in a runoff—figures into his effort to pass the SAVE America Act. Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel isn’t so sold on the “talking filibuster.” Townhall’s Kurt Schlichter isn’t sold on Cornyn but he says the incumbent has a better chance to beat “fake Christian Alfred E. Swaggert” (James Talarico). Meanwhile, Karl Rove says “don’t bank on Texas’s turning blue” but adds that the outcome of the Cornyn-Paxton GOP primary is crucial. Speaking of Talarico, the Dems’ latest ‘moderate,” the lad has reportedly been busy deleting names of more radical supporters from his website.
“UT Austin Strikes a Blow to Critical Theory” is a highly recommended City Journal story by John Masko that heralds a promising development in public higher education:
Big things are happening in higher education. Take the recent decision by Jim Davis, president of the University of Texas at Austin, to consolidate four academic departments—African and African Diaspora Studies; American Studies; Mexican American and Latina/Latino Studies; and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies—into a single new Department of Social and Cultural Analysis.
Davis’s move is about more than efficiency. University administrators know that the “studies” disciplines are really just one discipline—critical theory. Davis is announcing that the game is up. Other universities should follow UT Austin’s lead. …
Texas’s consolidation reflects the fact that the “studies” disciplines are not primarily about women, African Americans, America, or whatever their prefix happens to be. Rather, they are about the application to those topics of critical theory—“a lens,” in the words of Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, “that detects power dynamics in every interaction, utterance, and cultural artifact—even when they aren’t obvious or real.”
Aside from disturbing reports that Russia was helping Iran target U.S. operations, the Brics Bloc (say that ten times fast) has been curiously quiet during the Iran war. According to Sadanand Dhumein the Wall Street Journal, that’s because the Brics Bloc is a house of cards. But don’t fall for the hype that China is going green, says Bjorn Lomborg.
“How You Know When Taxpayers Are Being Defrauded?” is the headline on James Freeman’s “Best of the Web” column. Freeman writes about CBS’ investigative report yesterday that shone a light on massive hospice fraud in California and picks up a memorable line from the CBS expose. There were concerns that …
High rates of terminally ill patients later discharged alive
Freeman explores other instances of taxpayers being cheated through large government programs, which should be a hotter topic than it is.
But I’m Betting There Won’t Be a No Kings Rally in Tehran. An LA Times contributor writes that it was a mistake for Iran’s rump government to shift to a hereditary dynasty in picking Khamenei Jr. to succeed his father. John Lott writes that the endgame for gun control is a completely disarmed population.
I have Iran on the brain this morning, but imagine how things might be different if dissident Iranians had access to guns.
Edith Wilson Memoir Discovered. Well, no, Former First Lady Jill Biden will publish a memoir in June. The New York Times says Mrs. Biden “will give her own account of her husband’s fraught re-election campaign and her views on his stunning decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race.” It was stunning all right, but who thinks it was Joe’s decision?
I don’t want to put a damper on the former First Lady’s literary exertions. But there’s probably a better source of insider tales than you’ll find in Jill’s book. President Trump is declassifying a lot of stuff from the Biden administration. Julie Kelly explores this in her “Declassified with Julie Kelly” on Substack. The headline is “Denial of Executive Privilege is the Latest Karmic Episode for Democrats.” Jill, can you compete with this?
