It’s a little early, I know. But Donald Trump has just given his two main adversaries the biggest, bestest Christmas gift that U.S. taxpayer dollars could buy, in the form of 14 GBU-57 bunker-busting bombs dropped on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The propaganda value alone is incalculable. Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul summed up the effect Trump’s action would likely have on the Russian and Chinese leadership:

“I think we’ve really got to understand our other interests in the world that might be affected by this attack today. This is a preemptive war. The world does not support preemptive wars. We learned that in 2003” (referring to the U.S. invasion of Iraq).

McFaul continued: “Putin will be celebrating this because he did his own preemptive war in Ukraine and now it’s like, well, this is just what great powers do. Maybe Xi Jinping is going to think the same. He’s going to say, ‘Well, if they can do it here, we can do it in Taiwan.’” [Sarah Fortinsky, The Hill, June 22, 2025.]

And from a purely practical point of view, what has Trump actually accomplished? Even assuming, as he apparently does, that the sites were totally destroyed, does that necessarily put the Iran nuclear program out of business?

Not according to Dmitry Medvedev, the ultra-hawkish Deputy Chairman of Putin’s Security Council, who said on Sunday:

“What have the Americans accomplished with their nighttime strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran? The enrichment of nuclear material — and, now we can say it outright, the future production of nuclear weapons — will continue. A number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads.” [Adam Schrader, UPI, June 22, 2025.]

Medvedev added that Israel’s pursuit of a regime change in Iran has not succeeded, and in fact may have “come out even stronger.” [Id.]

Russia’s Foreign Ministry similarly condemned the strikes as a violation of international law and the United Nations charter, and “a substantial blow to the global non-proliferation regime built around the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. They have significantly undermined both the credibility of the NPT and the integrity of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) monitoring and verification mechanisms that underpin it.” [Id.]

It’s impossible to overlook the irony of those words being spoken by officials of a country in the fourth year of its own illegal war of attrition against the sovereign nation of Ukraine. But it does make a point.

And then there’s the reaction from China’s Foreign Ministry, which also issued a statement charging that the U.S. had violated the U.N. charter and international law, and added:

“China stands ready to work with the international community to pool efforts together and uphold justice, and work for restoring peace and stability in the Middle East.” [Id.]

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, bringing peace to the world. Surely I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole.

*. *. *

In short, if Donald Trump had actually been trying to push Iran into the waiting arms of Putin and Xi, while simultaneously turning the United States into an international pariah, he couldn’t have done a better job of it.

I can hardly wait to see what he does for an encore.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/23/25