No Kings, but Ideally No Clowns
A quick update on the past week.
Hey everyone. So, here is the thing: I will give you two Jackals this week, just because I wanna. You’ll get this one today (Friday), and then a follow-up at some point over the next few days, after SCOTUS finishes up its term. Both will be short, but in this one I’ll cover all the Iran stuff and do a special note for the Democratic Primary in NYC. You also get a cocktail because it’s summer time.
I am writing this on Thursday evening, so after we get the final decisions of the SCOTUS term tomorrow, I’ll write something up on the birthright citizenship/nationwide injunction case.
ARE WE AT WAR WITH IRAN?
OMG. Let’s recap what has happened over the past 10 days or so, while also noting that things could change.
Israel attacked Iran because they determined that the latter was either really close or close to being really close to getting a nuclear bomb.1
Trump originally was trying to broker a peace deal, which would see Iran halt its nuclear pursuits.
Israel ultimately said, “No way,” and attacked Iran on its own.
Trump watches the success of Israel’s attack on T.V., and decides that he wants some credit too, so we join in.
I mean, that is horrific, even if the mission is deemed successful (we’ll get to that). But make no mistake: We are at war with Iran. You do not get to launch a major offensive on a country and then say it’s not really a war. I don’t even have to get really deep here; I can just cite a comedian:
There has been a lot of debate about whether or not we actually did any damage to Iran’s nuclear capabilities, with conflicting headlines and reports coming from all sides of the media.
I’ll say this as someone who reads lots of articles from reporters who cover national intelligence: We probably aren’t going to know anything (definitively) for a while. I think we can know for sure that we:
Did significant damage to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Likely destroyed the entirety of the centrifuges at Fordo2 (where they were allegedly building their bomb).
Probably made Iran more determined to secure a nuclear weapon in the future.
The last point is key for me, and largely speaks to whether or not we are at “war” with Iran indefinitely. I’ll give this caveat before we dive in: I am probably less allergic to aggressive foreign policy action than 99% of the Jackal’s readers. But I also have zero confidence in this Administration, mostly because they are amateurish, but also because a Fox News host is running the Department of Defense.
I think there has always been an argument for attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities to prevent them from getting a bomb, and it is/was possible that we would have seen a Democratic president launch an attack like Trump’s. But we are largely in this current pickle because of Trump’s first term. This picture drives me crazy:
The JCPOA is the agreement between Iran and the Obama Administration that brought an end to Iran’s nuclear program. As soon as Trump pulled out of that agreement (for no reason), Iran started their nuclear program back up.
So, he put the whole of the Middle East in more danger simply because he wanted to undo something Obama did. It is clownish, and just shows how much of a disaster Trump will be across both of his terms. He has made the U.S. weaker and the world more unsafe simply because he was triggered by Obama’s presidency. The likelihood of Iran coming back to the table now for a non-proliferation agreement is extremely small.
You are going to see a lot of reports in the coming days and weeks about how effective the strikes were. Trump is already in a fight with his own intelligence agencies who have said the strike didn’t end Iran’s nuclear program.3 Again, I would simply wait, but the goldilocks scenario here - where Iran drops their nuclear ambitions, comes back to the table, and stops funding terrorism in the Middle East - will probably remain elusive.
If you want to read a good piece on how far back we may have set the program (that argues it was only a few months), this is a good read. But again, grain of salt with everything.
Well, at least Zohran won.
I have to say a quick little something about Zohran’s big win in the Democratic Primary. I’ll be honest: I was resigned to Andrew Cuomo winning, simply because it is 2025 and we can’t have nice things. But lo and behold, Zohran’s campaign strategy worked and he will likely cruise to victory in November.
This isn’t to say I think Zohran’s policies will be good. In fact, I think he is going to be a disaster if he tries to do things like rent control or limit the ability to build more housing. But Andrew Cuomo could not become New York City’s mayor.
Lena Dunham wrote a piece in the New Yorker a couple months back explaining her break-up with NYC. It is a really great read, even if it is more about Dunham herself than anything else:
In Joan Didion’s essay “Goodbye to All That,” about her own decision to leave New York for her native California, she writes that New York is best suited to the very young. My grandmother said that it was no place for a child. All I know for sure is that it was simply no place for me—at least, not forever. And that’s O.K. Sometimes, in a relationship, you both try to show your best and truest selves, but still the other party sees only your worst. Plus, this was the most mature sort of breakup—the sort where we can still have coffee sometimes. It turns out that I felt about New York City the same way so many New Yorkers feel about whatever place they started: it’s just where I was born.
I had a whole Jackal in my head about what I would say if Cuomo won, and I literally wanted to call it, “Goodbye to All That.” That was true before I even read Dunham’s piece.
Elisabeth and I left New York City almost nine years ago (!) for what we I assumed would be a quick stint in Denver. We did the COVID thing Dunham did before COVID was even a thing! After a few years we ultimately came to the same conclusion Dunham did: City life is actually great, but not every city has to be New York. Denver really is a gem:
A Cuomo win would have depressed me not because I live in New York anymore, but because it would’ve made me kick myself for not leaving sooner. Dunham talks about the frantic pace of the City weighing on her, but I think she misses a thing that would’ve weighed on me: The endless corruption. How would you feel as a New York City resident if you had to deal with Andrew Cuomo being your mayor?
I would feel like I was stuck in an endless doom loop of typical New York corruption, where building projects can’t get done because the wrong person got the wrong (secret) payout from the government. One thing I like about living in Denver is that I can actually feel the city working for me. We are building more housing. We are creating density in neighborhoods that need it. And we have reduced homelessness by 45% over the past few years. Is there corruption here? I’m sure of it, but it feels less like a thick fog that you have to feel your way through, the way it does in New York.
New York in general feels exhausting to deal with because corruption has slowed the wheels of progress so much over the past few years. Here’s a wild statistic: Do you know who the last governor of New York was who finished his tenure? I mean like successfully served as a full, two-term governor who was not forced out by corruption or other means?
George Pataki, who was governor during 9/11. Maybe Hochul will break the streak (and it would be fitting, given she is New York’s first female governor).
Is Zohran going to be perfect? Not by a long shot. But he is one step closer to saying, “Goodbye to all that.” Go back to the Shadow, Andrew Cuomo.
Will have a SCOTUS update for all of you shortly. Here is the recipe for the Jungle Bird, pictured above:
1.5 Oz dark rum
1.5 Oz fresh pineapple juice (you can buy pineapple juice at Whole Foods!)
0.75 Oz Campari
0.5 Oz lime juice
0.5 Oz Demerara syrup (can substitute simple syrup)
If you want to make your own Demerara syrup, you can simply go buy “turbinado sugar” and make it into simple syrup.
See you all soon.
I think this is unlikely and - it’s worth noting - contrary to the Trump Administration’s initial reports about the program.
I have seen different spellings of this in media, such as “Fordow.” I am going with this one. Western media seems to have a lot of trouble with Persian, for whatever reason. A few years ago, people were calling Iran’s language “Farsi” instead of Persian, even though “Farsi” is just the Persian word for “Persian.” It’s all confusing for no reason!
This includes J.D. Vance, who pointed out that Iran had a lot of time to move stuff into more secure locations.