In one sense, the story has been monotonous. Sundays Trump posts something optimistic about the war. Monday after the stock market has opened and speculators have taken their profits from the effects of Trump’s Sunday announcement, he goes back to blustering and threatening. Then it’s a series of contradictory and often incomprehensible blustering and threats and promises.
None of it makes much sense. Sometimes he contradicts one sentence’s message with the immediately following one. He’s stuck in a losing situation in the war where Iran has “escalation dominance” for at least the next few months. And his diplomacy is incompetent and incoherent – although calling it “diplomacy” at all is giving it too much credit.
Larry Wilkerson just shared his thoughts on the current situation with Breaking Points. (1)
Our co-belligerent in the Iran War, which also considers Israel’s attacks on Lebanon part of the war, doesn’t seem to be leaning toward de-escalation:
The Israeli military currently controls 68 locations in southern Lebanon, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam confirmed to DPA on Monday. Before the recent war, there were only five locations occupied by Israel, Salam said.Nir Hasson comments on what he sees as the widespread obsession of the Israeli armed forces and Israeli society more generally with revenge, or at least with murderous violence that they considered revenge:
"Israel now controls 68 villages," he stated. This amounts to nearly half of the territory south of the Litani River, which is situated approximately 30 kilometres (about 18.5 miles) north of the Israeli border.
When asked for comment, the Israeli military justified its actions by citing the security of northern Israel. The objective of these operations, it stated, is to eliminate "the acute threat" to the residents of northern Israel and to prevent a renewed entrenchment of the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. (2)
If there were any doubts that revenge has become the official [sic] doctrine, along came the selection of Avraham Zarbiv – who became a culture hero due to acts of vengeance he carried out – for lighting a torch on Independence Day. As explained by journalist Yehuda Schlesinger on Channel 12: "We should have seen much more revenge there, with rivers of Gazan blood." Broadcasters on Channel 14 were obsessed with vengeance. This also cropped up in sermons by rabbis, in interviews by politicians, in statements by the prime minister, who used the Biblical term Amalek, by the defense minister who talked about "human animals" and in the new hit wedding song, "May your village burn."Hasson uses this explanation for what he sees as such an extreme phenomenon:
Revenge isn't something new in Israeli discourse. It underlaid the motivation for reprisal attacks in the 1950s, the demolition of the houses of the families of suicide bombers, the targeted and not-so-targeted assassinations. But until October 2023 and the current government, official Israel saw revenge as something to be condemned, not admitted publicly and definitely not boasted about. The beaten and humiliated Israel following the October 7 massacre felt a need to restore its self-confidence rapidly and recklessly, and the way to do this was to take revenge against the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. The result was killing, destruction, deliberate starvation and uprooting at an unprecedented scale in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. [my emphasis] (3)
To understand this, argued Prof. Sara Helman from Ben Gurion University, one needs to use the concept of "permanent security" coined by the genocide researcher Dirk Moses. This was the basis of most genocidal acts throughout history. "Permanent security" is the idea that there is a need to nullify and efface any hint of threat, real or imaginary. According to this approach, an entire population, including women and children, is perceived as a permanent threat to the security of a dominant group – "there are no innocent people in Gaza," some said. [my emphasis]Wilkerson in the video above mentions an article by arch-neocon Robert Kagan, who surprisingly writes, “Defeat for the United States [in the Iran War], therefore, is not only possible but likely.” (4)
And Kagan sketches out probable consequences for the international order. For instance:
The new status quo in the strait [of Hormuz] will also occasion a substantial shift in relative power and influence both regionally and globally. In the region, the United States will have proved itself a paper tiger, forcing the Gulf and other Arab states to accommodate Iran. As the Iran scholars Reuel Gerecht and Ray Takeyh wrote recently, “The Gulf Arab economies were built under the umbrella of American hegemony. Take that away—and the freedom of navigation that goes with it—and the Gulf states will ineluctably go begging to Tehran.Wilkerson comments, seriously and a bit cynically, that Kagan’s aim with the article is to shame Bush into making a much more intensive military campaign against Iran. But he nevertheless notes that Kagan’s analysis in the article is right in his description of the implications of Trump’s and Netanyahu’s criminal war against Iran.
Notes:
(1) Larry Wilkerson Responds: Is US Checkmated in Iran? Breaking Points YouTube channel 05/11/20226. <https://youtu.be/zQhijX4lYFY?si=Dg5HPJY4Fu62WBj1> (Accessed: 2026-11-05).
(2) IDF controls 68 locations, nearly half of southern Lebanon, PM Salam says. DPA/Haaretz 05/11/2026. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-security/2026-05-11/ty-article-live/netanyahu-says-iran-war-not-over-signals-indefinite-fighting-with-hezbollah/0000019e-14a8-d969-adff-14ed27ff0000?liveBlogItemId=1368144122#1368144122> (Accessed: 2026-11-05).
(3) Hasson, Nir (2026): It Wasn't Just Revenge That Israel Was After in Gaza. Haaretz 05/11/2026. <https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2026-05-11/ty-article-opinion/.premium/it-wasnt-just-revenge-we-were-after-in-gaza/0000019e-132e-d73c-a99e-df7f3e160000?gift=efcdd72320e54cc48377eedb31d176aa> (Accessed: 2026-11-05).
(4) Kagan, Robert (2026): Checkmate in Iran. The Atlantic 05/10/2026. Gift link: <https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/05/iran-war-trump-losing/687094/?gift=y5KN3gqTuS3mRKehlt83lpwfsOV2AQHsBA4T6-_0wuA&fb> (Accessed: 2026-11-05).
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