Chaos! Disaster!

Clausewitz said it first, but it took heavyweight champion Mike Tyson to put it in terms a fifth-grader could understand: "Everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the mouth." The American/Israeli war on Iran is entering its third week, and it appears that the new ayatollah (son of the old ayatollah) has delivered that punch by closing the Strait of Hormuz. That's very bad news, if you happen to be reading the New York Times. "A disaster scenario is unfolding," the Newspaper of Record solemnly tells us. Apparently Messrs Trump and Netanyahu never noticed how easy it would be to lob artillery at ships traversing this chokepoint, or to seed its water with mines, or even to deploy a submarine if any Iran still has one afloat.

And it's not just Bibi and Orange Man who are on the back foot. "Europe Is in Great Danger," cries the headline on an op-ed by Anton Jager of Oxford University (what else?), writing from Brussels (where else?). The illustration shows a proud eagle on a plinth, surrounded by three complaisant dogs -- the leaders, one assumes, of Britain, France, and Germany. "The consequences are potentially calamitous," warns Mr Jager. But: "Alternatives to this vassalage exist," he points out. For example, there's Spain, which is competing with Canada to spend the least amount of its money on defense, the better to finance the existential battle against climate change.

But of course there's always the likelihood of a counterpunch. Pace Mr Jager, Mr Trump has already landed one, striking the military assets on Kharg Island, Iran's own vulnerable chokepoint, from which its discounted oil is shipped to China. There are limits, to be sure: shut down Kharg altogether, and the price of American gasoline will rise even more, perhaps above the four-dollar average beyond which the incumbent president seems always to lose the next election. In 2026, that would be Republican control of the House and Senate, whereupon Mr Trump would almost certainly be impeached. That would please the good people at Oxford and the New York Times Building, but (again: almost certainly) it wouldn't remove him from office.

The next punch is the ayatollah's.

A proud moment for Orange Man

What do Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Donald Trump, and General Abdourahamane Tchiani have in common? They lead the four countries voting against a United Nations resolution condemning attacks on a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant in Ukraine. What a proud moment for Donald Trump and the United States of America! We stand shoulder to shoulder with the dictators of Russia, China, and Niger! Yes: let the bombs, drones, and shells fall on Zaporizhzhia! After all, what could possibly go wrong with explosions in and around a gigantic nuclear power plant designed and built by the best minds of Soviet Russia? (What Chernobyl was to northern Ukraine, Zaporizhzhia is to the country's south.) The vote was 20-4 in favor, with all the European members on the side of the angels, along with such traditional American allies as Austalia, Argentina, Canada, and Chile.

God bless the troops

American air crews especially, but sailors and soldiers too, are putting their lives and limbs at risk today and the days to come. The same is true of Israeli troops and civilians. War never proceeds without awful costs. But this war, prosecuted now by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, was in fact launched by the Ayatollahs in Tehran 47 years ago, and has humiliated American presidents from Jimmy Carter to Joe Biden -- Barack Obama most egregiously, when he paid $1.7 billion to the Ayatollahs in actual dollar bills, euros, and other foreign banknotes, all crated up and flown to Tehran. Good for Messrs Trump and Netanyahu! I trust that Messrs Putin and Xi take the lesson. Comical though he often seems, this American President is no clown.

Europe's war enters its fifth year

Joe Stalin, with help from Roosevelt and Churchill, managed to defeat Hitler's Wehrmacht in less time than it has taken Vladimir Putin to occupy a fifth of Ukraine, a comparatively small democracy whose aid from the US was halting under Biden and nearly nonexistent under Trump. Slava Ukraini -- glory to Ukraine! And shame to Putin and the two American presidents.

Editorialized the Kyiv Independent yesterday: "Here we are in 2026, marking four years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion — and the pattern is already set. Russia escalates. Ukraine adapts. The West deliberates. Talks resume. Talks stop. The war grinds on — and Ukraine buries its dead."

I was a lad in WW2, and I remember Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and the nuclear explosions that ended the War: we were at war for 42 months. Soviet Russia fought for 35 months, June 1942 to May 1945. Of all the combatants in the worst war ever fought, only the British Commonwealth, Nationalist China, and of course the instigators -- Germany and Japan -- had a longer battle than Ukraine's.

Get off your duff, Orange Man, and deploy some of that awesome American power against the monster in the Kremlin!

Tariff Liberation Day

Congratulations to John Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett, and Neil Gorsuch for freeing us -- temporarily, at least! -- from the inflationary tariffs imposed on us by President Trump, who no doubt will now add the US Supreme Court to his enemies list. I'm a bit surprised by the three right-wingers who voted with the president, and not at all surprised that the three left-wingers voted against him.

The vote must have come especially hard to the Chief Justice, who values comity so highly, but who ended by writing the majority decision. Good on him, and good on the two Trump-appointed justices for braving the president's ire. Long may they serve!

Boris Johnson is fed up

Britain's former prime minister has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this morning that everyone should read, especially those governing Britain and other European countries.

"There is a real war on our Continent," says Mr Johnson. "It is a cruel and hideous war in which Vladimir Putin is increasingly torturing the Ukrainian population, bombing their electricity supply, so that women and children are freezing to death in temperatures of 15 below." And what is Europe doing about it? "Liberal Europeans clap their perfumed hankies to their noses and proclaim their revulsion at the boorishness of the Trump administration." (Most of my acquaintances do that, too.)

What Europe should do is unfreeze the $140 billion of Russian assets in its banks and hand it to Ukraine. It should station troops on Ukrainian soil. It should supply missiles that can hit Russia where it hurts. And above all, it should share the burden of NATO with the United States, which even now pays 70 percent of its cost. That would get Putin's attention -- and Mr Trump's attention, too.

Now they're stealing our athletes!

Eileen Gu was born in the US, reared here, learned to ski here, and became a great skier here. Now she's skiing for Xi Jinping and the CCP in the Cortina Olympics. It was bad enough when China contented itself with stealing American technology; now that it has bettered us in automobiles, it's stealing our athletes. Bad China! Bad Mr Xi! And in particular, bad Ms Gu!

Worrying about the persons

The Mounties held a press conference the other day about the school shooting in British Columbia. NBC was there -- by phone or video, I think. Anyhow, the NBC newsperson was alert to the fact that the shooter is said to be "transgender," in this case a guy who identifies as female. “Do authorities believe the first two victims found were killed by the same gunperson?” the NBC newsperson asked. “Do you know the gunperson’s relationship to the school at all?”