Conventional Wisdom

I referred to the conventional wisdom on the Iran war in yesterday's post. Later in the day, Iran announced that after several days' delay, Mojtaba Khamenei had been designated Supreme Leader, succeeding his father, something that had been generally expected. In yesterday's post, I quoted AI:

Experts and intelligence assessments as of March 2026 indicate that Iran’s political alignment and regime structure are likely to endure despite significant U.S. and Israeli military strikes. While these attacks have decapitated top leadership—including the confirmed death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on March 2—the state's foundational institutions were specifically designed to survive such losses.

. . . Analysts from the Brookings Institution suggest that deeply embedded networks like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Assembly of Experts provide a power structure that remains advantaged over any internal challengers.

We'll have to see how this shakes out, but the news of a new Supreme Leader isn't entirely good for the other side:

Mojtaba Khamenei has risen to the appointment of Iran Supreme Leader, as the country’s national television news service confirmed Monday, however it has since emerged the man following his father into the post has been wounded in an unspecified incident at a time and place unknown.

AP reports television news anchors referred to the mid-level Shiite cleric as “janbaz,” or wounded by the enemy, in the “Ramadan war,” which is how media in Iranian regime refers to the current conflict.

. . . The younger Khamenei has yet to be seen since the conflict began. Indeed he has barely been seen in his entire life.

Mojtaba Khamenei has never held government office, nor given public speeches or interviews, and only a limited number of photos and videos of him have ever been published.

It sounds like if he's stayed in the background all his life, and if he now has medical difficulties, he'll continue out of the public eye, especially given the Israeli promise to take him out. In any case, he appears to be the puppet of the Revolutionary Guards, who applied heavy pressure for his designation.

I quoted another piece of conventional wisdom below that one:

Academic experts, such as Robert Pape of the University of Chicago, warn that air campaigns historically fail to unseat regimes or change their fundamental political alignment, often leading instead to prolonged escalation.

But I asked the oracle, "Was aerial bombing a major factor in the defeat of Germany and Japan in 1945?" It answered,

Yes, aerial bombing was a major factor in the defeat of both Germany and Japan, though its impact varied by theater and remains a subject of historical debate regarding its decisiveness compared to ground and naval forces.

. . . While German industrial production actually increased through 1944, the bombing eventually paralyzed the economy by targeting critical "bottlenecks" like oil refineries and transportation networks.

. . . The air campaign against Japan was more concentrated and, for many historians, more directly linked to the final surrender.

. . . Low-altitude firebombing, such as the Operation Meetinghouse raid on Tokyo, destroyed roughly 40% of Japan's urban areas and cut industrial output in half.

. . . The United States Strategic Bombing Survey concluded that Japan would likely have surrendered by the end of 1945 even without the atomic bombs or a Soviet declaration of war.

On the other hand, the bombing of North Viet Nam was subject to intermittent pauses, which gave them opportunities to regroup and rebuild, severely limiting its effectiveness. But as long as we're talking about Robert Pape, he has a new piece in Foreign Affairs, Why Escalation Favors Iran:

[W]ithin hours, any hope that the precise decapitation strikes would limit the scope of the war was dashed. Iran launched hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones not only at Israel but also across the Gulf. Air raid sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and Haifa. Missiles slammed into interceptors over Doha and Abu Dhabi. At Al Udeid Air Base, in Qatar—the forward headquarters of U.S. Central Command—personnel took shelter as interceptors streaked overhead.

. . . Iran’s strikes cannot be dismissed as acts of scattered retaliation, the flailing lashing out of a dying regime. Rather, they represent a strategy of horizontal escalation, a bid to transform the stakes of a conflict by widening its scope and extending its duration. Such a strategy allows a weaker combatant to alter the calculus of a more powerful foe.

But other analysts like Tom Nash, whom I cited Saturday, claim the indiscriminate retaliation against non-combatant states across the region had the effect of driving those states toward Israel and the US, especially as some players were looking for an excuse to justify just this move. Here's a remarkable op-ed in Al-Jazeera:

The Gulf states have spent years trying to broker peace between Iran and the West: Qatar brokered nuclear talks, Oman provided back-channel diplomacy, and Saudi Arabia maintained direct dialogue with Iran through 2024 and into 2025. Iran attacked them anyway. The idea that the Gulf states have a responsibility, a moral one, to protect Iran from the consequences of its actions because of good neighbourliness is now grotesque in context. Iran did not return good neighbourliness. Iran returned ballistic missiles.

. . . Targeting the territory of other sovereign Arab states in response to the policy decisions of the United States is neither necessary, since diplomatic and United Nations avenues are still available, nor proportional, since it imposes military consequences on states that are not a party to any conflict with Iran.

. . . The record of Iran’s compliance with IAEA regulations, including the enrichment of uranium to a purity level of 60 percent or more in 2023–2024, interference with inspections, the removal of monitoring cameras, and the overall violation of the non-proliferation regime, has undermined the credibility of the state significantly. A state that is itself a violator of the legal regime cannot claim the role of a law-abiding state seeking protection under the norms of the legal regime.

As I noted yesterday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian "issued a statement apologizing for attacks against neighboring countries and claiming that some attacks were carried out independently by regional commanders without directive due to loss of communication". However, the foreign ministry continues to insist that the attacks against non-combatant countries are legitimate acts of self-defense:

But this goes against the supposed advantages of Iran's "mosaic defense", another part of the conventional wisdom:

In anticipation of exactly the sort of missile attack that targets senior members of the Islamic Republic, plans had been put in place that creates a decentralized control of the military, according to military analysts.

If the leadership is killed, then cells of soldiers take direct control of the military materiel under their control and continue fighting without the need for orders coming down from a central command that no longer exists, Gulf News reported on March 2.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi claimed that Tehran can withstand sustained US-Israeli military pressure, able to defend the regime despite a successful “decapitation” hit. . . . He added that the bombings have "no impact" on Iran's ability to conduct war as its capacity to fight does not hinge on a single command centre, city, or leader. Decapitation doesn’t work if there is no one to decapitate.

But whether or not President Pezeshkian wants Iranian forces to stop attacking non-combatant Gulf states, the "mosaic strategy" puts the matter outside his control. This can hardly be to the country's overall advanatage; it has no way to manage policy as conditions change; it's suicide or nothing.

But this question is increasingly moot: in another independent analysis of the war's progress, datareublican says,

As of Day 6, Adm. Brad Cooper (CENTCOM) confirmed Iranian missile attacks declined roughly 90 percent since strikes began [ISW, March 5, 2026]. Per joint intelligence assessment (IDF/CENTCOM briefing), approximately 75% of all launchers destroyed; 100–200 remain. The IRGC Aerospace Force — Iran’s primary instrument of long-range conventional power projection — has been catastrophically degraded in nine days. “Hundreds” of warheads destroyed (conventional missile warheads — Iran has no deployed nuclear warheads). Defense industrial base under systematic attack. This is not a setback. This is the functional end of Iran’s power projection capability.

There are other aspects of conventional wisdom that I won't cover here for the time being, such as the effect of closing the Strait of Hormuz on energy prices and the US economy. And I'm not yet claiming the conventional wisdom is wrong, just that there are reasons for skepticism that it's automatically right. But mainly, I just want to get it spelled out so we can check it later on.

Is Iran In A Constitutional Crisis?

One of the points Tom Nash made in the presentation I embedded in yesterday's post was that the Supreme Leader is essential to maintaining a cohesive regime. Israel took him out on February 28, and so far, he hasn't been replaced.

Iran is reportedly delaying naming a successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader killed over the weekend in U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, for security concerns as Israel has asserted that it will target whoever is instated, while President Donald Trump has doubled down on wanting to influence the selection.

The New York Times reported, citing two unnamed Iranian officials, that while Khamenei’s second-eldest son, 56-year-old Mojtaba Khamenei, has emerged as the strongest contender to take Tehran’s top job, no one has been named out of fear that they will be targeted.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz posted on social media on Wednesday that any leader appointed by Iran to succeed Ali Khamenei would be “an unequivocal target for elimination,” adding that “it does not matter what his name is or the place where he hides.”

This story suggests that another reason Mojtaba Khamenei hasn't been designated is that he's somehow indisposed or unavailable:

Mojtaba Khamenei — the expected next supreme leader — was reportedly wounded in an Israeli air strike.

. . . It’s not clear if Mojtaba, 56, was with his father in the Ayatollah’s compound that was decimated by airstrikes, or if he was targeted in a separate attack on the regime.

The details and extent of his injuries are also not clear.

He has likely gone into hiding as both the US and Israel continue to rain missiles on the Islamic Republic.

The practical result is that the Iranian regime is no longer speaking with one voice:

ran’s Assembly of Experts is set to hold an emergency session on Thursday to formally announce Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of the late Supreme Leader, as the next leader, despite opposition from some members who warn against “hereditary leadership,” Iran International has learned.

But this is the meeting that has apparently been delayed, perhaps indefinitely. The link continues,

Two sources from the offices of Assembly of Experts representatives told Iran International that at least eight members will not attend the emergency session on Thursday in protest at what they described as “heavy pressure” from the Revolutionary Guards to impose Mojtaba Khamenei.

. . . Sources told Iran International that a group of opponents contacted the Assembly’s chairman and members of its leadership board on Wednesday, warning that declaring Mojtaba Khamenei leader could raise public concerns about the leadership becoming hereditary and the Islamic Republic resembling a monarchy.

. . . Another member argued that Mojtaba Khamenei “does not have an established, public clerical and jurisprudential standing,” and for that reason his selection as the state's Supreme Jurist (Vali-ye Faqih) would lack religious legitimacy, the sources added.

. . . Sources said the Guards argue that given the country’s “special conditions” and ongoing security situation, the new leader must be announced as quickly as possible and that any delay could worsen instability and deepen a decision-making vacuum at the top of the system.

The leadership rift deepened within the next few days:

Overnight last night [March 6], Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian issued a statement apologizing for attacks against neighboring countries and claiming that some attacks were carried out independently by regional commanders without directive due to loss of communication.

President Pezeshkian further stating the Temporary Leadership Council in Iran had ordered a halt to attacks on other countries unless their territory is used to attack Iran.

Within hours the remaining elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) rebuked the statement by President Pezeshkian saying the IRGC would continue attacking any/all gulf states as needed. This was followed by the Iranian clergy saying their president was “weak, unprofessional and totally unacceptable.”

Obviously the political, military and religious elements within Iran are not on the same page.

So notwitwtanding the state of Mojtaba Khamenei's health, another issue appears to be that he's the candidate of the Revolutionary Guards, who nevertheless appear not to be in a position to name him formally as Supreme Leader. But even if he were to be named -- which so far seems under serious question -- he would be eliminated within a short time after his naming.

We can safely surmise that Iranian communications and codes have been thoroughly compromisesd, and any communications between any Supreme Leader and any other government functions would simply serve to pinpoint his location. From the links above, assuming Mojtaba is in good health, he nbevertheless can't commuicate for fear of prompting an Israeli bunkerbuster attack. The practical result is that, despite efforts to reconstitute a government, the Iranian command structure continues to be paralyzed.

This all flies in the face of conventional wisdom. I asked the oracle, "Have there been predictions that Iran's political alignment would remain cohesive despite US and Israeli attacks?" It answered,

Experts and intelligence assessments as of March 2026 indicate that Iran’s political alignment and regime structure are likely to endure despite significant U.S. and Israeli military strikes. While these attacks have decapitated top leadership—including the confirmed death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on March 2—the state's foundational institutions were specifically designed to survive such losses.

. . . Analysts from the Brookings Institution suggest that deeply embedded networks like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Assembly of Experts provide a power structure that remains advantaged over any internal challengers.

. . . Academic experts, such as Robert Pape of the University of Chicago, warn that air campaigns historically fail to unseat regimes or change their fundamental political alignment, often leading instead to prolonged escalation.

. . . According to a U.S. National Intelligence Council report, the regime is expected to follow established constitutional protocols to name a successor, with veteran politician Ali Larijani already taking a leading role in a functional interim government.

So there we are. All the right people are telling us that the Iranian regime will just keep on keepin' on. You know what? My money is still on Trump.

Unconditional Surrender

Yesterday, Trump iisued a demand for Iran's "unconditional surrender" in the current conflict. He later clarified it to mean "Unconditional surrender could be that [the Iranians] announce it. But it could also be when they can't fight any longer because they don't have anyone or anything to fight with."

How realistic is this goal? There's been very little overall analysis of the war's progress, either in legacy or alt media. The YouTube video embedded above has what I think is the most complete view both of the military action itself and the changing world environment that it's bringing about. Tom Nash of the Tom Nash report, as best I've been able to track down, is originally from Russia but on his YouTube channel comments primarily on Iran. He appears to be unapologetically pro-Israel.

The major points in his discussion:

• The war will likely last only a few more weeks
• Iran committed a major error by attacking the Gulf states indiscriminately once the war began
• This gave Saudi Arabia, which had been trying to appear more neutral, an excuse to come closer to Israel
• The prior US strategy to avoid direct confrontation with Iran has been proven wrong
• Inaction is no longer the safer option
• The war has alrady repositioned the global chess board, and regime change in Iran is irrelevant
• Partnership with Israel is a force multiplier in the region
• Partnership with Iran is a dead letter
• A direct US military alliance with Israel, including close tactical coordination, was previously unforeseeable
• Israel has completely replaced the UK as the main US strategic partner
• The elimination of Khamenei has undermined the "supreme leader" paradigm
• Iran is delaying his replacement from fear that anyone who is named will also be eliminated
• As a result, the regime is de facto already no longer viable
• Israel's value as a military, intelligence, and geopolitical partner has significantly increased at relatively low immediate cost.

I think the sudden rise in Israel's strategic standing, especially vis-a-vis the UK, has taken many US conservatives by surprise and is an explanation for the increased anti-Semitism in the US right. But I've been coming to the view that the UK was overrated as a world power throughout the 20th century, and 25 years into the 21st, it's a joke.

The Royal Navy has a long and colorful history, and it has saved Britain against its enemies more than once. Sadly, however, Britain’s navy continues to shrink. At the end of 2024, the force was down to roughly 32,000 personnel and 62 commissioned ships.

Except that by the 1916 Battle of Jutland, the upstart German High Seas Fleet fought it to a draw, prompting Admiral Beatty's famous quote, “There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today”. The Grand Fleet remained in port for the rest of the war for fear another admiral could, as Winston Churchill put it, "lose the war in an afternoon". By 1941, with the loss of Force Z to the Japanese near Malaya, this was precisely what happened. The link continues,

By the time of the Falkland Islands War, it was clear the Royal Navy’s focus on becoming an anti-submarine force had left it without the capacity to engage in expeditionary warfare.

The number of major ships in the force declined again, by 74%, after the Falkland Islands campaign.

. . . What is clearly needed is a plus-up in UK defense spending to supply the Royal Navy with what it needs to be a credible force. But that is a conversation no recent government has been willing to have with the electorate.

Trump's function as truthteller, perhaps reinforced by the passing of Queen Elizabeth, has exposed that the UK has long been little more than a polite fiction. On the other hand, the basic community of interest between the US and Israel has gone largely unrecognized, a point David Gelernter was making a generation ago:

Americanism, or the religious idea called “America,” seems like a secular idea. It can and has been professed by devout atheists. Its creed, a central element of Americanism, is completely secular in tone–of course there’s no canonical version, but most people would agree that it calls for liberty, equality, and democracy for all mankind–or something on those lines.

I’ll argue that despite all this, Americanism is profoundly Christian in its inspiration and worldview.

It is in fact profoundly Puritan.

It is in fact profoundly Biblical.

It in fact emerged not just from the Bible, but especially from the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible.

It’s no accident that a seventeenth century American Puritan should have written, regarding his fellow-Puritans: “We are the children of Abraham; and therefore we are under Abraham’s covenant.”

. . . The American religion has two parts–not only the Creed, but a doctrine about America’s duty and her special standing and responsibilities in the world–a doctrine I’ll call American Zionism.

. . . American Zionism is based on another widely recognized aspect of Americanism. In earlier centuries, the analogy between America and Ancient Israel, or the European settlements in colonial America and Ancient Israel, was heard constantly. It was derived from the corresponding analogy between England or Britain and Ancient Israel. There’s nothing new in this observation.

. . . In short, I’ll argue that the analogy between America and ancient Israel was no mere figure of speech. It implied a doctrine that made assertions and imposed duties. That doctrine was Zionism. Zionism, suitably adjusted, is a fundamental part of Americanism, which is another reason why the idea of Americanism as a merely secular or civil religion doesn’t hold up.

These remarks predate MAGA, but MAGA is very similar, and Trump has declared that he's the authoritative interpreter of MAGA.

President Trump cast Tucker Carlson out of his Make America Great Again movement following the conservative talking head’s loud criticism of the US and Israeli assault on Iran.

“Tucker has lost his way,” the commander-in-chief told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl on Thursday. “I knew that a long time ago, and he’s not MAGA. MAGA is saving our country. MAGA is making our country great again. MAGA is America first, and Tucker is none of those things. And Tucker is really not smart enough to understand that.”

Come to think of it, "unconditional surrender" is a uniquely American idea. Lincoln adopted the phrase, initally used by Grant, to apply to the Confederacy. Roosevelt announced the terms in 1943 following the Casablanca Conforence; Truman repeated them in regard to Japan at Potsdam. With Trump using it yet again, it strikes me as a major reassertion of confidence. But now there's no Winston Churchill to reinforce it, as he did at Casablanca.

Edward Feser's Moral Universe

I asked Chrome AI Mode, which I've been finding is a generally even-handed and informative tool with the proviso that you carefully avoid using any triggering key words, "What might a Catholic priest say to a penitent who comes to the confessional and says, 'Bleass me, Father, for I have sinned -- President Truman committed a war crime when he used nuclear weapons on Japan.'" It answered,

A priest would likely respond with pastoral care, focusing on whether you are seeking absolution for a personal burden or engaging in a theological discussion.

While the Catechism of the Catholic Church and various Popes (notably St. John Paul II and Pope Francis) have condemned the use of atomic weapons as a "crime against God and man," a priest might guide the conversation in the following ways:

. . . He may gently clarify that "sin" in the confessional usually refers to your own actions. He might ask if your distress over this event reflects a burden on your conscience or a struggle with your faith.

What I find when I read recent pieces by Edward Feser, for instance, on his blog, is this sort of non sequitur. As a Catholic convert, now for almost 15 years, I'm discovering that the day-to-day parish Catholicism I find at mass and in the confessional focuses on developing habits of virtue like examination of conscience, prayer, and humility. It has very little to do with whether presidents, either contemporary or historical, have waged just wars.

In fact, the potential list of which wars the US has fought might be characterized as "unjust" is enormous. I asked the oracle, "Can you privide a list of wars, declared or undeclared, that the US has waged that could be characterized as 'unjust'?" It replied,

Whether a war is "unjust" is a matter of significant historical and ethical debate, often analyzed through Just War Theory, which evaluates conflicts based on criteria like just cause, last resort, and proportionality. While the U.S. has formally declared war only five times in its history, it has engaged in numerous undeclared military actions that scholars, international bodies, and the public have characterized as unjust.

The following conflicts are frequently cited in historical and scholarly critiques:

Mexican-American War (1846–1848)
Spanish-American War (1898)
Vietnam War (1955–1975)
Invasion of Iraq (2003)
Interventions in Libya and Syria (2011–Present
Drone Strikes in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen

To which we might now add, certsainly with Prof Feser's agreement, the removal of President Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela and the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran. And the list above is sketchy indeed: we could add President Theodore Roosevelt militarily abetting Panama's secession from Colombia in 1903, Commodore Matthew Perry's "gunboat diplomacy" opening Japan to foreign trade in 1853-54, the 1915–1934 occupation of Haiti by the US Marines, or Andrew Jackson's invasion of Spanish Florida in 1818.

Academic careers have been, and certainly still are, made by arguing all these cases and more, of which Prof Feser's is only one recent example. The biggest problem I see is that whichever of these instances might be adjudged an "unjust war", or indeed all of them, it matters not one whit to me, even at mass, even in the confessional. As we saw just above, if I were to try to confess to President Truman's sins, a priest would more than likely gently steer me back on track.

In fact, the typical response, even by the putatively devout, to the problem of the US fighting unjust wars is performative. As the oracle suggested later in the answer I quoted above in a passage I omitted, a priest might urge a penitent to pray for peace as a positive response to the problem, but this isn't the sort of thing most objectors to unjust war actually do. Philip and Daniel Berrigan, for instance, were brothers and Catholic priests who poured a mixture of blood and red paint on Selective Service records or burned them with homemade napalm to protest the Viet Nam War.

This accomplished absolutely nothing to end the war and probably didn't even make the Berrigans feel better. Nor, it seems to me, do various declarations of "unjust war" or "stolen land" have any effect on anyone. I asked the oracle if Edward Feser has ever declared the Mexican War to be unjust, and it replied, "There is no record of Edward Feser declaring the 19th-century Mexican-American War (1846–1848) to be unjust." As far as I can see, he'd better not, since he lives and works in California, which became part of the US as a result of that unjust war of territorial expansion.

In fact, if he truly wished to live in the spirit of his convictions, his choices of residence in the US would be pretty limited -- to avoid territory that hadn't been "stolen" via wars of expansion and such, he might be limited perhaps to the easternmost reaches of the original 13 colonies, though even then, he moight be forced back across the Atlantic to seek out some obscure place that had never been invaded by anyone.

But his judgment isn't necesarily always accurate. Most recently, he's been forced into backtracking over his predictions, before they took place, that the actions in Venezuela and Iran would be unjust:

First, the Venezuela case was very limited, without widespread bombing or the attempt to destroy the entire state apparatus with nothing to put in its place. It was in fact a far more limited venture than the liberationist rhetoric used to sell it actually implied. So, it isn't…

— Edward Feser (@FeserEdward) March 2, 2026

In fact, I would say that at this point, certainly in reference to his most recent denunciations of Trump's policies, his problems have involved running off at the mouth. But from a logical standpoint, I've begun to think his arguments have two basic errors: one, which I've already discussed, is hypostatization, treating an abstract, amorphous concept with many divergent individual expressions, "just war doctrine", as a single, concrete entity that can always and everywhere demonstrate that any particular war is just or unjust.

More recently, I've begun to think he also has a philosphical problem with category error, "An example is a person learning that the game of cricket involves team spirit, and after being given a demonstration of each player's role, asking which player performs the 'team spirit'."

I asked the oracle, "Did General Sherman say, 'War is hell?'" It answered,

Yes, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman is credited with the phrase "War is hell," most notably during an address to Michigan Military Academy graduates on June 19, 1879, where he declared, "I tell you, war is Hell!". He often used this sentiment to describe the brutality of war, having previously written that "war is cruelty, and you cannot refine it".

It seems to me that Prof Feser, a professor of philosophy no less, is looking at war, and, picking out specific wars or threats of war, he's looking at each and asking, "Where is the justice in this war?" It's no different from looking at the players in a team sport and asking which covers the team spirit, or in the more famous example, looking at the invididual deparments of a university and asking where the university is. In Feser's case, he's looking at war and asking where the justice is. Category error, non sequitur.

Questions About The United Nations

Trying to bring myself up to date on the history of modern Israel yesterday, I ran into the British Mandate for Palestine:

In Palestine, the Mandate required Britain to put into effect the Balfour Declaration's "national home for the Jewish people" alongside the Palestinian Arabs, who composed the vast majority of the local population. . . . The British controlled Palestine for almost three decades, overseeing a succession of protests, riots and revolts between the Jewish and Palestinian Arab communities. . . . The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was passed on 29 November 1947; this envisaged the creation of separate Jewish and Arab states operating under economic union, and with Jerusalem transferred to UN trusteeship. . . . After the failure of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, the 1947–1949 Palestine war ended with Mandatory Palestine divided among Israel, the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank and the Egyptian All-Palestine Protectorate in the Gaza Strip.

It suddently dawned on me how much of the world's attention has been consumed with the outcome of British fecklessness in the Mandate. I asked Chrome AI Mode, "What percentage of UN business is connected with the Arab-Israeli conflict?" It answered,

The United Nations (UN) does not publish a single percentage for all "business" connected to the Arab-Israeli conflict. However, data from specific UN bodies and financial reports indicate a substantial and often disproportionate focus on the region across several metrics:

General Assembly (UNGA) Resolutions: Between 2015 and 2024, approximately 68% of all condemnatory resolutions (173 out of 253) passed by the UNGA targeted Israel. In 2024 alone, the UNGA adopted 17 resolutions singling out Israel compared to 6 for the rest of the world combined.

Human Rights Council (UNHRC): Since its inception in 2006, more than 50% of the UNHRC's country-specific resolutions have been against Israel. It is the only nation with a standing agenda item (Item 7) dedicated to it at every session.

Security Council Vetoes: The United States has used its veto power 83 times in total, with 50.6% of those vetoes (42 instances) used to block resolutions critical of Israel.

Considering all the other issues facing the UN, while acknowledging that many of these, like global warming, are bogus, it's amazing that over half of the UN's official business seems to be focused on this single issue in a relatively small area of the world. But that led me to another question -- the one my old co-worker Phil used to ask in meetings, "What problem are we trying to solve?" as it specifically applies to the UN. I asked Chrome AI Mode, "What problem was the UN Charter trying to solve?" It answered,

The UN Charter, signed on June 26, 1945, was primarily designed to solve the problem of perpetual global warfare. Created in the immediate aftermath of World War II, its authors sought to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war" by establishing a new international order based on collective security.

Specifically, the Charter was intended to address several critical failures of the previous international system:

Failure of the League of Nations: The Charter sought to succeed where the League of Nations failed by creating a more robust structure that included the world's major powers and provided a mechanism for enforcing international peace.

Unrestrained Aggression: It aimed to restrain state aggression by prohibiting the "threat or use of force" against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, except in cases of self-defense or Security Council authorization.

And so forth. All I can think is that this worked so well from the start that four years later, we had NATO. So I asked Chrome AI Mode, "What problem was NATO trying to solve?" It answered,

NATO was established to solve several critical post-World War II problems, primarily focusing on security, economic recovery, and political stability in the North Atlantic area.

Soviet Expansionism: The primary motivation was to block the expansion of the Soviet Union into Western Europe. Allied leaders feared that without a unified defense, individual European nations might be vulnerable to communist subversion or direct military incursions.

. . . Economic Stagnation: Economic recovery required a secure environment. NATO provided the "security umbrella" that allowed European nations to focus resources on rebuilding their industries and infrastructure rather than on massive individual defense spending.

Political Fragmentation: The alliance promoted democratic values and established a permanent structure for political consultation. This was intended to build trust among former adversaries and create a cohesive Western front.

But I thought the UN was going to do most of this. Why were we still worried about Soviet expansionism if the UN was going to "save us from the scourge of war" in the first place? One part of the answer was that the UN had almost immediately become preoccupied with maintaining the objectives of the British Mandate for Palestine, which the British themselves were never able to bring about. But this brought up another question. I asked Chrome AI, "Why were the British, who were quickly losing their empire and their status as a world power, given such prominence in maintaining the postwar order?" It answered,

The British were given a prominent role in the postwar order despite their declining status because they remained a central, indispensable member of the Allied "Big Three" that had won the war and shaped its immediate aftermath.

. . . Britain was a primary author of the rules and institutions that define the modern world:

The United Nations: Along with the U.S., USSR, and China, Britain was one of the "Big Four" that designed the UN at the 1944 Dumbarton Oaks Conference. This role naturally led to their permanent seat and veto power on the UN Security Council.

The Atlantic Charter: In 1941, Churchill and Roosevelt co-wrote the Atlantic Charter, establishing the common principles (like self-determination and collective security) that would govern the postwar world.

In otber words, Winston Churchill, blah blah blah. But Winston Churchill blah blah blah was out of the running by July 1945, when he left the Potsdam Conference after the Conservatives lost an election. But come to think of it, maybe you could still justify making the UK a permanent member of the UN Security Council, but why France? Chrome AI Mode explained this as follows:

The original permanent members of the UN Security Council—the USA, USSR, UK, France, and China (P5)—were selected based on their status as the principal Allied victors of World War II and their perceived importance in ensuring post-war international peace and security. They were designated by the 1945 UN Charter architects, having led the fight against the Axis powers.

Except that France was simply not a "principal victor" of World War II. It was a principal Nazi collaborator. It did not "lead the fight" against the Axis powers. The answer goes on,

During the 1944 Dumbarton Oaks Conference, the US, UK, USSR, and China (the "Big Four") drafted the Charter. France was added as the fifth member shortly after, largely due to strong support from Britain and the need for a major European power besides the USSR, despite initial hesitation from the US.

So both Britain and France were added to the UN Security Council primarily as a counterbalance to the USSR, but the idea that either could credibly serve in that role without the US was never more than a polite fiction, just like the Boulevard du Général Leclerc in Paris. But then I thought about Trump's recent remark that Keir Starmer is "no Winston Churchill. I asked Chrome AI Mode, "What would happen if Trump slipped some powerful drug into Keir Starmer's tea, and he suddenly began to channel Winston Churchill? would this change anything about Britain at all?" It answered,

That is a wild, cinematic premise. If Keir Starmer—known for his cautious, lawyerly, and "managerial" style—suddenly began channeling the rhetorical fire and unapologetic nationalism of Winston Churchill, the impact would be seismic, though perhaps not in the ways one might expect.

. . . If Trump (the catalyst) expected a subservient ally, he might be disappointed. Churchill was famously difficult and fiercely protective of British interests. A "Churchillian" Starmer might become more assertive with the U.S., demanding greater British influence on the world stage rather than following Washington's lead.

. . . In the short term, it would certainly end the "boring" label that has followed Starmer. It might inspire a temporary surge in national morale, but modern Britain is far more pluralistic and cynical than the 1940s. A leader channeling a ghost might find that charisma cannot fix structural issues like housing shortages or productivity gaps as easily as it could rally a nation against an existential threat.

But this goes to the question Jacob Rees-Mogg asks in the video embedded at the top of this post: where has the Royal Navy gone? It isn't even the Royal Navy Margaret Thatcher could summon in the Falklands War, where it maintained the unsteady tradition bordering on disaster it had established in both world wars. So far, I'm refraining from asking the oracle, "How much of modern history is based on polite fiction about the UK?" But I think Trump has already been asking this and other related questions.

The Iran Attacks, The Christian Right, And Anti-Semitism

I've been noticing that opposition to the Iran attacks from the right stem to some extent from both the Evangelical and Roman Catholic conservative wings. This certainly isn't to say that all Evangelicals or conservative Catholics oppose the Iran attacks, but certainly there's a strain of this in both movements. For instance the comments on Edward Feser's post that I discussed Monday seemm to agree heavily with Feser that "just war doctrine" can't apply to the US-Israeli attacks on Iran.

Feser says in the thumbnail on his blog that he writes "from a traditional Roman Catholic perspective", although he has recently attracted the attention of generally conservative Archbishop of Los Angeles José Gomez for being "too controversial", which ought at least to suggest an elment of caution should be involved. But this comment on Feser's post from Saturday raises intriguing questions about how "conservative" those who agree with Feser actually are:

Too many commenters criticizing Dr. Feser's orthodox and extremely well-reasoned application of Just War Doctrine are yet more examples of the very poor catechesis that has been part of the Church's ongoing problems at least since the time of Vatican II.

And what is both laughable and sad at the same time is that many people afflicted with relativism act as if Just War Doctrine is up for grabs in terms of interpretation despite the perennial and unchanging principles used by the Church since at least the time of St. Augustine (and which Dr. Feser has faithfully set forth on several occasions)[.]

I'll allow that I'm a Protestant convert, but I came into the Catholic Church via RCIA/OCIA, which is a year-long catechesis that is more exhaustive than many cradle Catholics receive. Since coming into the Church, I've been through Fr Mike Schmitz's Bible in a Year and Catechism in a Year programs, but I also attend weekly mass, pay attention to the homilies, and read Catholic writers, both ancient and modern, extensively. Fr Mike Schmitz has explicitly stated that a primary goal of The Bible in a Year is to help listeners "start seeing the world through the lens of Scripture". He frequently refers to this as developing a "biblical worldview".

One of my concens about Prof Feser's recent positions is that they don't in fact appear to be scriptural. Last summer, I commented on one of his posts about nuclear weapons that the destruction of both the cities of the plain and Jericho in scripture correspond very closely to what we would now call nuclear destruction. Women, children, and animals are indiscriminately destroyed. The soil itself is made infertile. This would certainly violate Feser's idea of "just war doctrine", certainly if God Himself had not done it -- but God Himself did it. I assume Prof Feaser would agree with Aquinas that God cannot contradict His own perfectly good nature.

So how do we deal with nuclear-level destruction in service of what must be a just cause? One answer, It occurs to me, is that epecially in the case of Jericho, the Abrahamic Covenant is a just cause. The essence of this covenant is outlined in Genesis 12:1-3:

1 The Lord said to Abram: Go forth from your land, your relatives, and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. All the families of the earth will find blessing in you.

There is a general Christian recognition that this covenant is eternal and irrevocable. The most recent Roman Catholic position affirms this:

The Vatican has given a “recognitio” to a change in the U.S. Catholic Catechism for Adults which clarifies Catholic teaching about the Jews’ covenant with God, the U.S. bishops said.

. . . “The clarification reflects the teaching of the Church that all previous covenants that God made with the Jewish people are fulfilled in Jesus Christ through the new covenant established through his sacrificial death on the cross. Catholics believe that the Jewish people continue to live within the truth of the covenant God made with Abraham, and that God continues to be faithful to them.”

The USCCB press release cited a passage from the Second Vatican Council document Lumen Gentium, which taught that the Jewish people “remain most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts he makes nor of the calls he issues.”

The history of modern Israel stems from the 1917 Balfour Declaration, in which the UK government announced its support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. This became the basis for a 1947 UN Partition Plan for Palestine proposing to divide the territory into an Arab state, a Jewish state, and an internationally administered corpus separatum for the cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

This resulted in attacks by Arab militias and mobs on Jewish areas in the partition, which in turn led to the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and the Israeli Declaration of Independence on May 14, 1948. In a major step, President Truman recognized Israel within hours of its declaration, beginning what President Kennedy called a "special relationship" between the US and Israel. Truman appears to have recognized Israel due to his reading of scripture:

Clark Clifford said that Truman “was a student and believer in the Bible since his youth” and that “from his reading of the Old Testament he felt the Jews derived a legitimate historical right to Palestine, and he sometimes cited such biblical lines as Deuteronomy 1:8: ‘Behold, I have given up the land before you; go in and take possession of the land which the Lord hath sworn unto your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob’”.

I've got to say that going against scripture is something that bothers me deeply, as it presumably did for Truman. I also have a really hard time ignoring the Siege of Jericho as a central event in scripture:

Following God's law, the Israelites killed every man and woman, the young and the old, as well as the oxen, sheep, and donkeys. Only Rahab, her parents, brothers and all "those who belonged to her" were spared. They were incorporated into Israel. Joshua then cursed anybody who rebuilt the foundations and gates, with the deaths of their firstborn and youngest child respectively. This was eventually fulfilled by Hiel the Bethelite under King Ahab's reign.

You don't mess around with Israel. Even playing mind games of one sort or another over Israel strikes me as reckless. It's hard to avoid thinking that if you've actually been well catechized, and if you have a scriptural world view, you don't mess around with Israel or the Jews.

They're Missing The Point

I was idly listening to some UK commentary on Saturday's decapitation strike on Iran, and it convinced me that just about everyone is missing the point.

The UK government has continued to tread a delicate diplomatic line by avoiding explicit support for the US and Israeli strikes on Iran while condemning Iran’s “indiscriminate” attacks on other countries.

. . . The Greens and the Liberal Democrats have both denounced the military action taken by the US and Iran as illegal.

. . . As strikes on Tehran continued, the Sunday Times reported that Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had blocked the USA from using British air bases to launch attacks on legal grounds.

Healey repeatedly batted back questions this morning on whether he believed the strikes were legal, saying that “we didn’t participate”.

But by March 1, Starmer had sorta-kinda changed his position:

But Iran is striking British interests nonetheless, and putting British people at huge risk, along with our allies across the region.

That is the situation we face today.

Our partners in the Gulf have asked us to do more to defend them, and it is my duty to protect British lives.

We have British jets in the air as part of coordinated defensive operations which have already successfully intercepted Iranian strikes.

But the only way to stop the threat is to destroy the missiles at source – in their storage depots or the launchers which used to fire the missiles.

The United States has requested permission to use British bases for that specific and limited defensive purpose.

We have taken the decision to accept this request – to prevent Iran firing missiles across the region, killing innocent civilians, putting British lives at risk, and hitting countries that have not been involved.

By Monday, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was putting the best possible face on things:

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte voiced full support for President Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran, declaring key allies stand "all for one, one for all" amid Tehran’s widening missile retaliation.

"There is no sliver of light between us," Rutte told "Fox & Friends" on Monday.

"The Europeans, Canada, Mark Carney, the United States, the American president… All for one, one for all, because everybody supports, here in Europe, the fact that [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei is gone, that the nuclear capability is gone, that the ballistic missile program has been now degraded — which was a big threat for Europe, for Israel, for the whole region," he said.

The question isn't whether Europe supports the move -- the question is that, as Prime Miniater Starmer kept repeating, that Europe had nothing to do with the move. It happened whether or not Starmer allowed the US to use British bases. The B-2s fly nonstop from Missouri, after all. Secretary General Rutte understands Trump better than most Europeans: Trump is willing to walk away from NATO. The raid, without NATO participation, went off just fine. NATO needs the US, the US doesn't need NATO. NATO had simply better get on board.

Another part of the message is that Israel is a better, and more capable, US ally than any NATO country individually or NATO together.

According to reporting by the Financial Times, nearly all of the Iranian capital’s traffic cameras had been hacked years earlier, their footage encrypted and transmitted to Israeli servers. One camera angle near Pasteur Street, close to Khamenei’s compound, allowed analysts to observe the routines of bodyguards and drivers: where they parked, when they arrived and whom they escorted.

That data was fed into complex algorithms that built what intelligence officials call a “pattern of life,” detailed profiles including addresses, work schedules and, crucially, which senior officials were being protected and transported. The surveillance stream was one of hundreds feeding Israel’s intelligence system, which combines signals interception from Unit 8200, human assets recruited by the Mossad and large-scale data analysis by military intelligence.

When US and Israeli intelligence determined that Khamenei would attend a Saturday morning meeting at his compound, the opportunity was judged unusually favorable. Two people familiar with the operation told the FT that US intelligence provided confirmation from a human source that the meeting was proceeding as planned, a level of certainty required for a target of such magnitude.

. . . According to the Israeli military, the operation began with a surprise attack after military intelligence identified two locations in Tehran where top figures in Iran’s security establishment had gathered. The strikes, carried out early Saturday morning, were described as a deliberate attempt to eliminate senior decision-makers responsible for Iran’s military operations and weapons programs.

And the decapitation strikes are continuing, whether NATO participates or not:

General Mike Flynn, former National Security Advisor to the 45th POTUS, has highlighted breaking reports from Israeli media confirming that Iran’s newly appointed acting Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Arafeh (Alireza Arafi), has been killed. Arafi had been thrust into the role following the death of Ayatollah Khamenei on February 28, representing a desperate reach for stability by the clerical establishment. However, his tenure proved to be one of the shortest in modern history, as new strikes on Tehran targeted the very heart of the interim council before it could even begin the process of constitutional transition.

As of today,

The Israeli air force struck a top Iranian meeting on Tuesday where Tehran’s senior clerics had gathered to select a replacement for slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to multiple reports.

The Assembly of Experts, made up of 88 top clerics, were together in the holy city of Qom when an airstrike hit their building overnight, the Times of Israel reported.

The strike came just as the mullahs were counting the votes to appoint the next supreme leader, according to Fox News.

Unverified video and pictures from Qom allegedly show the building that housed the Iranian leaders in complete ruins following the blast.

The message that's being sent is to a worldwide audience, not just Iran, not just NATO, not just China, and not just Russia. In part, it's that the US doesn't really need proxies, and certainly not feckless and unreliable proxies. The US is willing to walk away from any deal, and that includes both the UN and NATO. But also, if China contemplates invading Taiwan, it must contemplate measures equivalent to the Tehran attack. As far as Russia is concerned, as long as it remains bogged down in Ukraine, it doesn't matter to the US; it just keeps Russia from meddling anywhere else, including Iran, Venezuela, or Cuba.

This is the new reality that nobody has quite yet got their head around.