the US hits Iran—it's all over the news

And it's a definitive, bunker-busting strike on three facilities, not a love tap. The object of the game was to stop fucking around and to take away Iran's nuclear capability, much of which was buried deep underground where Israel couldn't get at it. Here are some opinions and insights from around my ambit:

Headline:

‘God Bless America’: Netanyahu Praises Trump for Iran Strike

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Donald Trump for the decision to strike Iranian nuclear sites, saying that it will “change history.”

In a video he posted to X, Netanyahu celebrated the “unshakeable alliance” between Israel and America and said Trump’s “leadership today has created a pivot of history.” Trump addressed the nation at 10 p.m. Eastern.

The prime minister enthusiastically said, “Congratulations, President Trump. Your bold decision to target Iran’s nuclear facilities with the awesome and righteous might of the United States will change history. In Operation Rising Lion, Israel has done truly amazing things, but in tonight’s action against Iran’s nuclear facilities, America has been truly unsurpassed.”

Headline:

Trump ends Iranian nuke program

And what President Donald John Trump did was end the FAFO War—and 46 years of “Death to America” BS from Iranian ayatollahs who have turned some of the most beautiful women on Earth into walking garbage bags.

How well did Trump do? Meghan McCain tweeted, “Trump really doesn't give two shits what Tucker Carlson thinks.”

Chris Houck tweeted with video, “CNN guest and retired General Mark Kimmitt on President Trump bombing Iran: ‘Well, I’m fascinated and candidly, I’m impressed. I never really could understand what the two week pause meant or what it was for, what was left to negotiate. What were we going to expect the Iranians to offer? . . .I think the use of deception and trickery in this case, first of all, was successful. But second of all, saved the potential loss of American lives.’ ”

Also on CNN, Van Jones said, “I think progressives underestimate how dangerous Iran is. Iran is not a normal country. Normal countries don’t blind women because they showed some hair. They don’t empower little gangs and proxies to surround a country and fire rockets and rape people. They cannot have a bomb because they say death to America, death to Israel and death to all the Jews. One of those should offend you if you're progressives—at least one should offend you. We cannot have a nuclear-armed Iran.”

We won’t.

The colonel, Kurt Schlichter, tweeted, “Been waiting 45+ years for this.”

I asked readers this morning, “What should we do about Iran?”

64% said whatever Trump decides. They are not sheep. They are realists. He’s earned our trust and the Lord didn’t spare his life just because he likes orange people.

Readers were right. Who will come to Iran’s aid? No one.

Putin said, “Israel today is almost a Russian-speaking country, two million people from the Soviet Union and Russia live there. We take that into account.”

That and the fact that he wasted a pretty good army trying to take eastern Ukraine. He’s the Dumbass of Donbas.

Nick Sortor was awed by the timing, tweeting, “President Trump sent MULTIPLE decoy bombers west out of the US, juking Iranian forces, while the B-2s ACTUALLY dropping the bombs went East, undetected. This threw EVERYONE’S timing off—including the media’s. Iran did not expect a bombing tonight. Slick, POTUS.”

Here's the video commentary:

My opinion: this had better not pave the way to a ground war in Iran with American troops. I'm assuming, for the moment, that this strike was meant as a surgical operation to supplement what the Israelis have been doing for several days. In doing this, America used its superior tech to remind Iran that fucking around leads to finding out. But if Trump goes from this to sending our regular troops over, well, he'll have lost me. For the moment, this strike seems to be a larger-scale version of his termination of Soleimani during his first term. With Soleimani, there was just that one strike, and that was enough. Iran screamed and squalled afterward, but it knew better than to push things any further, and nothing came of the assassination while Trump was in office.

If Iran were to respond to this American strike with cyberattacks, how would we answer that escalation? With our own cyberattacks? Or by sending in SEAL teams to kill the kids orchestrating those attacks? War is a bloody, messy thing, and I'd only get behind troop involvement if it became clear that Iran's "Death to America" attitude had some real commitment behind it. Otherwise, lobbing ordnance from a distance seems fine by me. I'm not one of those pearl-clutching fainters bloviating about how even a single innocent death is unacceptable. We should all face up to the fact that, in war, we could all be collateral damage. That's life. That's death.