Iran’s most powerful weapon is not the Shahed drone or Fateh ballistic missiles but its ability to strangle the global economy by closing the Strait of Hormuz through which 20% of the world’s oil supply passes.
Who in their right mind would have thought they’d never use that weapon if their supreme leader were assassinated by its two most hated enemies as part of a massive war to destroy their regime?
Who believed US President Donald Trump when he declared “in the first hour [the war] was over” and that the Islamic Republic would be crushed and would accept his demand for “unconditional surrender” and a new leader of his choosing?
What was Trump thinking when this week he declared the Strait of Hormuz “OPEN, and will remain OPEN, with or without Iran.” It was wide open to all before the US and Israel started this war, and now it is open only to ships willing to dodge Iranian attacks.
And instead of free passage, Trump wants to charge “20% on all cargo shipped” to help pay for his fiasco. His bloviating immediately sent oil prices up and the stock indexes down.
Did he think Iran would fold overnight like Venezuela? Did he think he could then sail on to capture Cuba and set up Marco Rubio with his own country?
The strange doings in Washington were just a small component of the “what were they thinking?” march of folly in this surrealistic new world.
What was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thinking when he put Israel’s security in the hands of a not-so-stable genius? Partner, schmartner. Trump has cursed, cajoled, and demoted Netanyahu, confident he “will do whatever I want him to do.”
Israel was frozen out of negotiations with Tehran, even when they involved stopping it from pursuing Hezbollah in Lebanon, which wanted its country back from Iran's terrorist proxies.
Trump wants Netanyahu to know who’s boss. “If it weren’t for me, Israel would not exist,” he has said.
US Vice President JD Vance reminded Israel that Trump may be its one remaining friend among world leaders. Netanyahu squandered global sympathy following October 7 with the massive destruction of Gaza and the tens of thousands of civilians killed, injured, and left homeless in its wake.
Did no one think that the world would no longer see Israel as the victim but as the vindictive destroyer?
When it comes to deals, what made the Mossad think it could install former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the new head of the conquered Iran, a Holocaust denier who had demanded the “Zionist regime” must be “wiped off the map?”
What were American Jewish leaders thinking as they saw public opinion turning against Israel and were too quick to blame it on antisemitism and bad PR rather than the policies and destruction of the extremist right-wing Netanyahu government in Gaza and the West Bank and its anti-democratic turn?
And what were they thinking when they viewed campus anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protests as the same threat to American Jews as the revival of armed neo-Nazism and fascistic militias and a major political party that thinks they’re “very fine people?”
Honestly, what were they thinking?
What were they thinking when, instead of listening to the serious concerns of friends, AIPAC and others declared war on long-time supporters of Israel who asked too many questions?
New Jersey Democratic Congressman Tom Malinowski had a long history of support for Israel and even visited once on an AIPAC-sponsored trip. But in the wake of Gaza, he began to question the unconditional aid to the Jewish state.
That was enough. AIPAC wanted him out. It spent more than $2.3 million to defeat him, although its messaging rarely, if at all, mentioned Israel or the real reason for the attacks.
It blew up in their smug faces when Malinowski was defeated by Analilia Mejia, a progressive who accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Mejia will likely win the solid blue district in November and vote with her anti-AIPAC mentors, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
This wasn’t a one-off for the once-vaunted lobby. It had tilted Right for years under the influence of wealthy Republican donors, neocon staffers, and Netanyahu.
They apparently decided they could take the Democrats and Jews for granted – after all, they had nowhere else to go – and focus on the increasingly influential evangelicals and Republican Right.
As one source close to Netanyahu explained, the evangelicals give us their prayers and votes; the Jews give us advice.
What were AIPAC leaders thinking when they dropped the group’s long-standing and successful policy of neither rating nor endorsing candidates and set up political action committees (PACs) to not only rate and endorse but to finance as well?
Democratic and independent supporters felt rejected when the first tranche of endorsements was packed with 2020 election deniers and far-right extremists.
Along the way, the lobby went from unknown outside Washington to a campaign liability across the country, with many candidates swearing off “AIPAC money.” They went from pursued to pariah. You have to wonder whether they are losing more friends for Israel than they are making.
Who were the Jewish voters who voted for a mayoral candidate who openly questions Israel’s right to exist as the world’s only Jewish state? Zohran Mamdani, the Muslim mayor of the city with the world’s largest Jewish population, is an ardent supporter of the Palestinian cause and has accused Israel of waging “genocidal war” in Gaza. He won the votes of a third of New York’s Jewish voters.
Recent polls show more Americans are sympathetic to the Palestinians than to Israel, and that American Jews approve of Mamdani by a margin of 44 to 32 over Netanyahu.
His message of affordability was much more aligned with traditional Jewish positions than those of his opponents, and his views about Israel apparently just weren’t as important.
What were Maine Democrats thinking when they nominated for the Senate a candidate with a Nazi tattoo and a history of sexual abuse?
You might ask the same about Republicans who picked an elderly genital-grabbing philanderer with court judgments against him for sexual assault and accusations of such conduct by at least 18 women. Since he won his election, one might conclude Republicans are more tolerant than Democrats, who quickly dumped their abuser.
When looking at so many boneheaded decisions, you have to ask, what were they thinking? Like when Vance said the country was being run by “childless cat ladies.” And when former US president Joe Biden stayed in the 2024 race long after he and everyone else knew it was time to step down.
When Trump nominated attorney general Rep. Matt Gates, who was under ethics investigations for paying for sex with a minor, or Georgia Republicans picked Herschel Walker to run for the Senate despite his history of domestic violence, or Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who likened slavery to an apprenticeship for African Americans.
You can ask, what were they thinking? Maybe it’s just that they weren’t.