Some readers will recall that in this space last week I opposed those calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and de-escalation in the Iran-Israel war because that would only lead to renewed terrorist activity in Gaza against Israel and the deployment of nuclear weapons by Iran, whose government has pledged to destroy the Jewish people. To paraphrase Japanese Emperor Hirohito after the detonation of two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945, in the light of this week’s events, it is time for the “unthinkable.” (The Japanese emperor acknowledged that the war had not gone “entirely as we had hoped.”) As predicted here and elsewhere, the United States Air Force and Navy successfully penetrated and destroyed the underground Iranian nuclear development sites. Those who immediately predicted a drastic escalation of hostilities and were soiling themselves in lamentations of imminent world war were placated, and in many cases doubtless disappointed, at the ceasefire that followed 24 hours later. Incorrigibly anti-American and particularly Trump-hating outlets such as the BBC, the CBC, the Guardian, Al-Jazeera, CNN and MSNBC attached themselves like limpets to the instant conjuration that the damage done by the American attacks had only been superficial and would easily be repaired. In the only known honest words that the criminally diseased regime in Tehran has uttered in its 47 years, the Iranian Islamic government acknowledged that official American reports of the success of the raids were accurate. U.S. President Donald Trump’s opponents dismissed this as disinformation. The more vocal political suicide cases among the American congressional Democrats, who had been calling for Trump’s impeachment for plunging the nation into war without authority, were struck mercifully dumb.
A Canadian immigrant has died in the custody of ICE while awaiting removal from the US.