F**king Mondays: Is Israel vs Iran World War III? Terrifying Political Assassinations, and The Resistance Wakes Up!

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Welcome to another edition of F**king Mondays! In the roundup today:

World War III?

Israel’s attack on Iran has been years, if not decades in the making. The countries have been fighting a protracted proxy war that has suddenly — and violently spilled out into the open. With such a complex conflict, it is difficult to make much sense out of it — particularly in the short term. So instead of trying to craft a grand narrative out of it, I thought it might be useful to lay out some general thoughts:

1. Regardless of what you think about the war, it is hard not to be astonished by Israel’s military capability. Just as they did with Hezbollah, the Israelis wiped out Iran’s top military commanders, killed multiple nuclear scientists, and took out their air defenses — and all on the first day of the conflict. Iran is not Hezbollah however, and it will recover to some degree. No military on earth is could have done this. Mossad intelligence appears to have penetrated so deeply into Tehran that they know the exact whereabouts of all of their top government officials at all times. The audaciousness and precision of the attacks sends a devastating psychological blow to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and at least for now, Israel has a huge first strike advantage.

2. It is in many ways understandable that Israel has taken matters into its own hands. Not only has Iran vowed to “wipe Israel off the map”, they have backed anti-Israeli groups like Hezbollah with weapons, funding, and training, have deployed IRGC forces and Shiite militias to support the Assad regime in Syria, and they have supplied funds, weapons, and technology to Hamas. Iran’s government is a theocratic, deeply dangerous regime that is widely despised by the Iranian people, and the region at large. Does this make Israel “the good guy”? No, but the world would be a better place without the despotic Iranian regime.

3. There is significantly more support internationally for Israel’s assault on Iran than there is for its war on Gaza. While the U.S. and much of Europe warned the Israelis not to attack Iran, they have not explicitly criticized Netanyahu for the attacks and have instead urged both sides to negotiate. This isn’t likely to happen any time soon, so for now we can only expect more fighting.

4. This is a huge risk for Netanyahu, but one with a lot of upside if it is successful and huge downside if it isn’t. Netanyahu is prosecuting an immensely unpopular war in Gaza, his popularity is flagging, and he will almost certainly face jail time for corruption if his fragile governing coalition collapses. If he can bag a resounding victory over Iran (ie. prevent them from creating a nuclear weapon and massively destabilize the regime), he lives to fight another day.

5. This new outbreak of violence can be directly pinned on President Trump. The Obama administration negotiated a hugely successful deal with Tehran in 2015 that led verifiably led to the reduction of its uranium stockpile by 98%, and removed two-thirds of its centrifuges. Trump scuppered the deal in 2018, reimposed sanctions, and launched a “maximum pressure” campaign that resulted in Iran resuming its uranium enrichment program. Trump apparently now wants to negotiate and make a deal, but there is little incentives for the Iranians to do so now.

6. Is this the beginning of World War III? It’s not good, and it could certainly spiral out of control — particularly if civilian casualties get out of hand — but for now it is still a regional conflict. So no need to panic too much.

The Banter’s Julie Roginsky is in Tel Aviv right now and you can read about her experience of the Iranian response here.

Political assassinations

In the early hours of June 14, Minnesota was shaken by a string of horrific, politically motivated shootings that left two state lawmakers dead and two others critically injured. 57-year-old Vance Luther Boelter, carried out the attacks while dressed as a police officer and driving a vehicle designed to look like a squad car. He first targeted State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette, who were both shot at their home in Champlin. They thankfully survived but sustained serious injuries. Later, Boelter shot Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, killing them both.

We now know that Boelter a hit list containing up to 70 names, many of them elected officials and public figures associated with pro-choice and pro-LGBTQ positions. Boelter, who has now been arrested, has a history of far-right views and is a supporter of Donald Trump. The police have described the gruesome killings as a clear act of political violence.

Targeted assassinations now seems to be an intrinsic part of American political life now, with far left extremists murdering health care executives and Jews, and far right extremists murdering, threatening and kidnapping left wing politicians. As I have long argued, this is not a good place to be. When Luigi Mangione murdered United Health care CEO Brian Thompson, I implored the left not to get behind this kind of violence. You absolutely do not want to live in a country where political assassinations are a thing, because it can spiral out of control faster than most people think possible.

I don’t want to “both sides” this issue, but rhetoric on either side of the aisle is reaching truly dangerous proportions. The right is, and always has been (at least in America) far, far worse — particularly in the era of Donald Trump. But it is going to take a concerted effort from Americans across the spectrum to lower the heat — otherwise this terrible sickness will continue.

‘No Kings’ March

If you believe, as I do, that Donald Trump is in the process of turning the U.S. into a dictatorship, it’s important to understand that the political class, the legal system, and the media won’t stop him. The man has been impeached twice—once for trying to overthrow the government—and has evaded four criminal indictments that would likely have sent anyone else to prison for life. The GOP has lined up behind him, rubber-stamping almost every extreme policy he proposes. The courts are stacked with far-right ideologues, and the Democratic Party controls no branch of government.

So who is going to stop him? I’ve argued for some time that only an organized, mass resistance movement has the power to hold Trump to account. And over the weekend, I think we saw the first real signs of one.

More than 2,000 protests took place across all 50 states on Saturday under the banner of the No Kings movement, which organizers describe as a rejection of “authoritarianism, billionaire-first politics, and the militarization of our democracy.”

The protests were timed to counter a military parade in Washington, D.C., commemorating the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army—an event that also “just happened” to fall on Trump’s 79th birthday.

I was there at the parade (more on that later this week), and I can tell you: the resistance is real. And for the first time in a while, it feels like people are finally waking up to what is happening.

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