Trump Bombs: A Bestselling Vice President Speaks
J. D. Vance, in the aftermath of the U.S. bombing of Iran, took to the airwaves to prove to all the skeptics that his status as a bestselling author does indeed place him in the same intellectual echelon as other bestselling authors, and perhaps even, dare we say it, in the exalted intellectual echelon of the best-selling of all bestselling authors, Donald J. Trump. Appearing on Fox News, where intellectuals gather, the vice-president explained the absolute triumph represented by the bombing in glowing, almost Trumpian terms.
“First of all, the president, without, knock on wood, having a single American casualty, obliterated the Iranian nuclear program. We are now in a place where we weren’t a week ago. A week ago, Iran was very close to having a nuclear weapon. Now Iran is incapable of building a nuclear weapon with the equipment they have because we destroyed it,” he said.
Repeating Trump’s initial post-bombing social media boast, Vance insists that Iran’s nuclear program has been “obliterated,” which he emphasizes by reminding us (as we have been reminded by American governments for at least twenty years) that “A week ago, Iran was very close to having a nuclear weapon” — one would like to hear Vance’s clarification of “very close” — before adding, with ironclad logic, “Now Iran is incapable of building a nuclear weapon with the equipment they have because we destroyed it.” Hard to argue with that: one cannot use physical equipment that has been destroyed. Whether, on the other hand, this constitutes the obliteration of a program, remains to be seen. For Vance it does, and it must be remembered that he, like his boss, is a bestselling author.
The upshot of all this obliteration, Vance insists, is that “tomorrow really is a new day, the end of the 12 Day War, the end of the Iranian nuclear program. And I really do believe the beginning of something very big for peace in the Middle East.” It would be difficult to dispute the first of these grand declarations, the one about tomorrow “really” being a new day. As for the rest, it remains to be seen whether this American bombing will lead to a sudden revelation on the part of Iran’s doomsday cult theocracy, and its terrorist satellite organizations, that they ought to give peace a chance after all. For what it’s worth, I suspect Benjamin Netanyahu might regret such a revelation, since it would spell the end of a war that has been, for him, the most valuable of public distractions. I am doubtful that he has much to worry about though, since, for all Vance’s efforts to portray Trump’s bombing run as a world-historical moment that will usher in peace and prosperity throughout the Middle East after centuries of turmoil, I am tempted to think the results will be somewhat more akin to the great Nobel Peace Prize victory of Trump’s first presidential term, namely his pacification, nuclear disarmament, and economic transformation of North Korea.
