Bill Tallen

W.B. Yeats, contemplating the future from the bloody quagmire of Irish civil war in 1921, wrote in one of his darker poems: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world …” Sometimes it looks like he was onto something.

Abroad, we have a necessary but destabilizing trade war with China and other opportunistic exploiters of prior American self-abnegation; mounting indications of impending war between China and Taiwan; stubbornness from both Russia and Ukraine in the U.S.-sponsored talks on ending their three-year war; and dark clouds on the Middle East horizon where Iran refuses all U.S. conditions in talks over their nuclear aspirations, genocidal threats against Israel, and support for global terrorism. 

At home, the old notion of a loyal opposition seems more and more like a utopian fancy or a fairy tale, as the Trump administration attempts to deliver on the promises that won last year’s election with a clear mandate. The left’s political party seems to be on a trajectory toward the trash heap of history, but since they don’t respect any elections they do not win, they may not care. Instead they incite and proclaim a multi-front and increasingly extra-legal “Resistance” against what is, like it or not, the United States government. While it’s still a little chilly for mass demonstrations and arson, the lawfare employed in their failed campaign to destroy Trump over the previous several years now looks like a bonfire with a can of gasoline tossed onto it. We have a power-grabbing rebellion in the judiciary branch, with politicized federal district judges asserting that they are entitled to seize all the powers — especially regarding national security and immigration policy — granted to the executive branch in our Constitution. 

This is not the first or only time that the separation of powers has been contested, in our two centuries and a bit as a nation, but it may be the most cynical. These leftists, in the shadow play of the previous administration, attempted to rule by executive orders (signed by who knows whom) on an unprecedented scale. They set out to (in Obama’s memorable words) “fundamentally transform” the nation by regulations, voter fraud, censorship, fascistic collusion with fellow-travelers in the private sector, and judicial coercion. Every political tool except free and fair elections, which as they were reminded six months ago, they cannot win. Rules for thee, not for me, as it turns out, because now they scream for resistance against the more conventional and constitutional methods employed by the Trump administration. If they ever gain power again, and maybe sooner, America may go the way of Ireland in 1921; or of Russia when the Bolsheviks seized power a few years earlier.

In a future column, I may share how I really feel about all this. Suffice it to say for now, that chaos abroad is best met by unity at home, or at least a respectful truce in our domestic disagreements. Fat chance. 

Meanwhile, here’s another bulletin from the international front, where my background tugs my attention away from domestic turmoil to the developments I mentioned at the top of this piece. Since I addressed the China-Taiwan situation last time, let’s put Iran briefly in the spotlight. 

For the better part of a month, the U.S. has been concentrating major military assets in the region — all but ground forces, thankfully. There’s a carrier strike force in the Red Sea, pummeling the Iranian proxy Houthis in Yemen, who from the depths of their prairie-dog holes continue to defiantly lob an occasional ballistic missile at Israel or Saudi Arabia. We now have a second carrier group in the Indian Ocean, and have shipped at least a battalion of Patriot anti-missile missiles to strengthen the defenses at our bases across the Middle East.

At least six B-2 Spirit stealth bombers have deployed from their home base in Missouri to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, a short B-2 hop to Iran. Those bombers are the key to any strike on the Iranian nuclear program — which is almost certainly on the cusp of assembling their first operational nuke — because only they can deliver the 30,000 pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator, the only nonnuclear weapon capable of penetrating and destroying the deeply buried Iranian nuclear installations. Collectively, this is a massive and expensive deployment of first line forces that began before the latest U.S.-Iran talks began — talks that are dragging on with no sign whatsoever of any concessions by Iran. 

Things could come apart very quickly. The consequences of war with Iran now are only eclipsed by the consequences of nuclear weapons in the hands of those mad mullahs. I’ll itemize these next time. 

I started with Yeats, and will close with a more recent “classical” reference some may recognize: Viene la tormenta. Sweet dreams.