ArcaMax

PARIS — Let’s face it, the United States has regime changed other countries for far less than Trump is now doing. Where’s the pushback against sending troops to Iran in Operation Epic FUBAR — er, Fury? Did all the sensible Pentagon brass get fired for wearing dresses or something?

“This administration has done a great deal from day one to remove the social justice, politically correct, and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department,” War Secretary Pete Hegseth told a gathering of military brass at Quantico last year. “No more identity months, DEI Offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship, no more division, distraction, or gender delusions. … We are done with that sh*t.”

Now that apparently only tough guys who wear pants and can do the requisite number of burpees and kettlebell thrusts are left, where’s the pushback on Trump’s senseless suicide mission that risks sparking a nuclear disaster?

Trump has now dispatched thousands of Marines to the Middle East, the Wall Street Journal reports. Aboard an aircraft carrier. The kind that the Iranians have had no problem so far either disabling or deterring with firepower from drones.

What are they even doing there at this point? Protecting Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner’s customers — the Gulf States with which he’s blatantly been doing real estate and investment business to the benefit of “Trump Family Inc.” while not “negotiating on Iran”? A bit late for that. One of the first things that Iran did after it was tag-teamed by the U.S. and Israel was lob some missiles over to take out U.S. military installations in Gulf states that would be used for subsequent attacks — like the one that Trump is now planning.

U.S. troops aren’t going to be opening the Strait of Hormuz, either. Iran has seized the opportunity that Trump presented them in unilaterally bombing them to assert control of it and only allow through ships of its own choosing — subject to tolls, which help offset Trump’s sanctions on the country. An opportunity they didn’t previously have.

Trump seems intent on seizing Iran’s Kharg Island, from where Iranian oil is exported. Because now that he’s sprinted through every possible explanation for messing with Iran — from the “two weeks to nukes” Israeli talking point recycled from the fan favorite known as the Iraq War, to expressing his burning desire to save the “gays” there from being thrown off buildings — he’s finally just dropped all the window dressing in favor of the usual smash and grab for oil.

The idea behind the Kharg targeting, he has mused aloud, is to pressure Iran into doing what he wants — whatever that happens to be from one minute to the next. Much like Napoleon Bonaparte called up Austrian General Karl Mack Von Leiberich ahead of his Ulm Campaign in 1805 and was like, "Just so you know, I’m moving my Grande Armée through Germany right now. Here they come! Ready?” I’m sure that’s how he managed to get the Austrians to surrender.

When all this is over, history will study Trump’s military prowess alongside other greats like Von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu. Except with the caveat, “Whatever Trump did in warfare, one should do the exact opposite.”

Trump keeps acting like the Iranians are just sitting there like a pretty girl at a bar, waiting for Trump to start making his moves, which they’ll be powerless to resist. Like a date at his old buddy Jeffrey Epstein’s place.

In reality, Iran has been given a heads-up of about 70 years, ever since the CIA’s Operation Ajax regime changed their prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, the first time — and installed Adolf Hitler’s buddy, and brutal Western puppet: the Shah. All because they wanted to boot out the socialist leader amid the Cold War and get their hands on the oil that he’d insisted on controlling through nationalization. The only reason why the Ayatollah system took over in Iran was to boot out the Western-backed dictator.

And now, for the past several years, these same Western powers have been hyping up the grandson of their previously installed dictator as their new favorite to plop into power. How could the Iranian people possibly resist?

Even more recently, former President George W. Bush gave Iran top billing as a regime- change target as part of his “Axis of Evil” at the outset of his “Global War on Terror.” A phenomenon that just maybe had something to do with the fact that Iranians were motivated to kill American occupiers in neighboring Iraq — which is now also being rebranded as “Iranians killing Americans going back years,” as though it happened in a vacuum. Like they just woke up one day and decided to target the U.S. military for no reason.

Which brings us to the present-day military brass. Who are fully aware of all this history, even though their commander in chief either isn’t or doesn’t care. What are they actually doing about it?

Just following orders, I guess. But to what end? The escalation has now resulted in Israel, with Trump holding their hand in this Thelma and Louise-style adventure, invading two sovereign countries (Lebanon and Iran) and brazenly hitting nuclear power plants, prompting Russia to warn the world of a potential nuclear disaster.

The world was spared from disaster during the Cuban Missile Crisis by American and Soviet officers who refused or delayed aggressive executive action. During the Korean War, Gen. Matthew Ridgway told President Harry Truman, “Charging into China is a bad idea, sir,” and probably saved the world from a sequel to World War II. In 1983, Pentagon generals countered President Ronald Reagan’s instinct to bomb Libya, preventing escalation with the Soviets.

That same energy seems to be missing these days. Some old-school Pentagon courage is exactly what’s needed right now, and in no short order. A few good men to save Trump from himself and the planet from his Israeli-inspired chaos.