On the menu today: A belated Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there. Alas, death was the story of the weekend. Israel and Iran continued to bomb each other; reports emerged that President Trump had told the Israels not to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; and a horrific assassination spree in Minnesota came to an end with the suspect’s arrest Sunday night.
War Abroad, Assassinations at Home
Israel and Iran are four days into an all-out war; this is well beyond any past exchanges of missiles that were partially symbolic responses. Iran is launching as many ballistic missiles into Israeli cities as it can, and the Iron Dome and Arrow missile defense systems are shooting down a lot, but not all, of Iran’s attacks. Israel continues to strike Iranian targets at will.
Apparently, Israel knows or at least knew the location of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — but the U.S. government did not want the Israelis to pull the trigger:
President Donald Trump vetoed an Israeli plan in recent days to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Sunday.
“Have the Iranians killed an American yet? No. Until they do we’re not even talking about going after the political leadership,” said one of the sources, a senior U.S. administration official.
(Iran has killed plenty of Americans; according to the Pentagon, roughly one in every six American combat fatalities in Iraq were attributable to Iran. Back in 2003, before the war, U.S. officials met with Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s former U.N. ambassador and future foreign minister, to say that Iran was not a target of operations in Iraq and that the U.S. expected reciprocal non-aggression. Zarif assured them that Iran would not interfere in Iraq. Apparently, the senior U.S. administration official means Iran hasn’t killed any Americans lately.)
Trump may well believe that word reaching Khamenei that Trump helped spare his life will make Khamenei grateful and amenable to a deal. But if that move represented the administration offering the Iranian regime a carrot, those who monitor military flights noticed a move that may well represent the stick:
Over two dozen U.S. Air Force KC-135R and KC-46A tankers from across the United States appeared on flight-tracking software yesterday evening, taking off from their bases and heading east over the Atlantic. It isn’t clear if they were ‘dragging’ any combat aircraft with them, but there wasn’t any obvious signs of that.
While tanker movements in this direction are far from abnormal, such a large, near-simultaneous migration of the jets was very peculiar, especially at a time of extreme crisis in the Middle East. The exact reason for the mass deployment is unclear, although many of the potential answers would indicate a change, or preparations for a potential change, in the current conflict between Israel and Iran.
While there is a multinational exercise in Norway that is about to kick off, that wouldn’t require anything like this level of relocation of refueling assets. There is no other apparent exercise or commitment that would necessitate such an operation. On the other hand, these are precisely the assets that would be needed if the United States were going to change its support of Israel’s Operation Rising Lion, or if there were urgent concerns that the conflict is about to widen significantly.
This may simply represent the U.S. government keeping its options open. Israel has some air refueling capabilities — and it has apparently proved this over Syrian airspace already in this conflict — but not as much as it would like if it aims to maintain air superiority all over the vast territory of Iran, a country about one-sixth the size of the United States. As Tyler Rogoway of The War Zone military news site concludes, “Gaining more aerial refueling capacity will enhance just about every facet of Israel’s tactical jet operations, multiplying the available force to a significant degree.”
One other factor that might make Iran’s leadership — well, Iran’s remaining leadership — amenable to concessions and a longer-term peace deal is the astonishing degree to which the Israelis and Iranian double agents have penetrated the Iranian government:
The officials said Israel established a base for launching explosive drones inside Iran, and the drones were later used to target missile launchers near Tehran. Precision weapons were also smuggled in and used to target surface-to-air missile systems, clearing the way for Israel’s Air Force to carry out more than 100 strikes with upward of 200 aircraft in the early hours of Friday local time.
The plan to disable Iranian defenses seems to have been effective; Israel said all of its aircraft returned safely from the first waves of strikes, appearing to show Israeli air superiority over parts of a country hundreds of miles away.
Intelligence gathered by the Mossad in Iran also gave Israel’s air force the ability to target senior Iranian commanders and scientists.
In an incredibly rare move, the Mossad released video from some of its operations, showing drones attacking what appear to be unsuspecting missile launchers.
(Somewhere, a Ukrainian military strategist is pointing at the screen like Leonardo DeCaprio in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, saying, “Hey, that’s our move! They’re doing our thing!”)
The Iranians must feel like the Mossad is everywhere:
An Israeli security source said the latest operation required commando forces operating deep within Tehran and across the country while avoiding detection from Iran’s security and intelligence agencies. The source said Mossad teams targeted air defense missiles, ballistic missiles, and missile launchers as the attack from the Israeli Air Force began.
A second Israeli security source said the Mossad operations were years in the making, involving both intelligence-gathering efforts and the deployment of Mossad commandos deep behind enemy lines.
Some of the Mossad commando forces operated in the Iranian capital itself, according to the security source.
In addition to the drone base established by the Mossad long before Wednesday’s attack, Mossad commandos deployed “precision-guided weapons systems” near Iranian missile air defense systems, which were activated at the same time as the Israeli air force began striking its targets. A second operation deployed sophisticated vehicle-mounted weaponry to target other Iranian defense systems.
Between the genuine capabilities of hostile regimes and their propaganda — and occasional enthusiastic Western cheerleaders — it’s easy to start thinking our enemies are eight feet tall, impregnable, and unstoppable. But autocratic regimes are hated, justifiably, by both the people they oppress and sometimes those in the ranks of the oppressors. Any national oppressive regime must employ a lot of people in the machinery of subjugation, surveillance, and punishment. Human beings hate being thought of as replaceable cogs in a wheel. We want to be significant, special, appreciated. As one U.S. intelligence professional involved in counterintelligence once told me, “People want their hugs and kisses.” Any intelligence, military, or police employee in a government who feels overlooked, ignored, or unacknowledged knows that the enemy would see them as a hero for betraying the regime. Hopefully, more and more Iranians are wondering why they’re still serving an Ayatollah and mullahs who have brought nothing but ruin to their country.
Our Kayla Bartsch is in Jerusalem, sending updates about her experiences in the bomb shelter here and here.
An Assassin Caught in Minnesota
Late Sunday night brought some much-needed good news, as police announced the arrest of Vance Luther Boelter, the man who authorities believe shot two Minnesota Democratic lawmakers and their spouses in politically motivated shootings early Saturday morning. Boelter allegedly shot and killed Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark in their home, then moved on to the home of Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette. The fact that the Hoffmans appear likely to survive after being shot so many times is near-miraculous:
“Our family is so humbled by the love and outpouring from everyone,” Yvette Hoffman said in the message.
The Hoffmans’ nephew says she jumped on her and John Hoffman’s adult daughter, Hope Hoffman, to shield her from the shots. Hope Hoffman was unharmed.
Yvette Hoffman says her husband was shot nine times and she was shot eight times.
“John is enduring many surgeries right now and is closer every hour to being out of the woods,” she said. “. . . . We are incredibly lucky to be alive. We are gutted and devastated by the loss of Melissa and Mark. We have no words. There is never a place for this kind of political hate.”
On Sunday morning, President Trump sat down for an interview with ABC News and weighed in on the shootings:
President Donald Trump told ABC News on Sunday that he “may” call Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz after a political assassination sent shockwaves through the state.
The president, who condemned the violence, called the Democratic governor a “terrible governor” and “grossly incompetent” in an interview with ABC News’ Rachel Scott.
“Well, it’s a terrible thing. I think he’s a terrible governor. I think he’s a grossly incompetent person. But I may, I may call him, I may call other people too,” the president told Scott.
When political violence occurs, it’s not hard to find people eager to prove that the shooter was “one of theirs” and not “one of ours,” as if the most important distinction is between the right or the left, and not between those who believe murderous violence is a justifiable tool in political disagreements and those who do not.
I can recall the Boston Marathon bombing, when many folks online on the left were utterly convinced that because the attack was near the anniversary of Waco compound burning and the Oklahoma City bombing, it had to be the work of right-wing militias. (One of the most outspoken proponents of that theory back in 2013 was also the guy who relied on AI and claimed President George H. W. Bush pardoned his son Neil.)
There are still people who are convinced that the Pulse nightclub shooting was driven by homophobia or anti-gay animus, even though the perpetrator said on the phone to police that he was doing it out of loyalty to ISIS. During the trial of the perpetrator’s widow, prosecutors admitted that there was no evidence to suggest that the shooter knew that Pulse was a gay club.
In an infamous 2017 New York Times editorial that spurred an unsuccessful libel case, the editorial board of the Times declared, “In 2011, when Jared Lee Loughner opened fire in a supermarket parking lot, grievously wounding Representative Gabby Giffords and killing six people, including a 9-year-old girl, the link to political incitement was clear. Before the shooting, Sarah Palin’s political action committee circulated a map of targeted electoral districts that put Ms. Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized cross hairs.” Loughner was a paranoid schizophrenic who believed that the government was using mind control on the public through grammar.
The Minnesota assassin offers up some strangely contradictory evidence.
Boelter shot two Democrats and their spouses, and media reports indicated his “hit list” also featured Minnesota Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, as well as Democratic Representatives Kelly Morrison and Ilhan Omar and abortion providers. The shooter’s roommate claimed that the shooter had “voted for Trump and that he was a strong supporter, but he hasn’t really talked about politics lately and from what his friend knew, he had he had no idea that Bolter was interested at all in local or state lawmakers as well.”
(And yet, he knew the home addresses of the state lawmakers. The era of knowing the home address of your senator, congressman, or state legislator is likely coming to an end.)
And yet, police found fliers connected to Saturday’s “No Kings” protests inside Boelter’s car. As our Dan McLaughlin laid out, last week the Minnesota legislature removed “illegal immigrant adults from the state’s taxpayer-funded health-care system (Minnesotacare), while keeping children on the program regardless of legal status,” a deal that was the result of a closely divided state house. Hortman voted for the deal to uphold the compromise with Republicans. (Chillingly, earlier in the week, Democratic state Senator Bonnie Westlin said, “My majority leader had a gun put to her head,” when denouncing the bill.)
And if Boelter is a right-wing maniac, it’s just rather odd for a right-wing maniac to get appointed to the Minnesota Governor’s Workforce Development Board, first by former governor Mike Dayton, a Democrat, and then by Tim Walz, also a Democrat. The now cringe-inducing boilerplate in the December 9, 2019, notice of appointment declares that the shooter was appointed to the board “because of the special trust and confidence I have in your integrity, judgment, and ability.”
ADDENDUM: A lot of readers detest the recent magazine piece on the disappointments of Elon Musk and DOGE and argue it is far too negative. Apparently, the article focuses too much on what DOGE actually did and the actual numbers, and not enough on how hard Musk and his team tried, and how good their intentions were. I am informed it is “smug” to expect Musk and DOGE to find $2 trillion in savings, just because Musk stood on stage at a rally for Donald Trump in New York’s Madison Square Garden and said, when asked, “How much do you think we can rip out of this wasted $6.5 trillion Harris Biden budget?” responded, “I think we could do at least 2 trillion.” I regret the error of daring to remember things that happened seven months ago.