The Last Boomer Drops the Bombs

A short Iran Explainer by a longtime Trump watcher

This is going to be a quick geopolitical post before I finish my main post this week (on a subject I am actually qualified to discuss: the movie Pretty Woman).

But I just wanted to broach something I’ve been thinking about since the Iran campaign started.

So far, I have heard about a thousand justifications and reasons for why Trump decided to finally pull the trigger on Iran. Political reasons, military reasons, Israel reasons, etc.

But I have my own private theory as to why Donald Trump was the guy who finally said “F it” and went medieval on the mullahs.

I have been a Trump watcher my whole life. I first learned about him as an L.A. middle school kid when my issue of SPY Magazine arrived in the mail and he was on the cover. SPY editor Graydon Carter referred to him as a “short-fingered vulgarian.” Who was this guy? He seemed like a character out of a Tom Wolfe novel, an old New York character from the Gilded Age. Was he real?

A heck of a guy!

A quick anecdote: In the early 2000s, in post-9/11 New York, my then fiancé took me to the U.S. Open. It was the semi finals and Pete Sampras was playing. Right across from us was Donald and Melania. He appeared on the Jumbotron and the loudspeaker announced that famous New Yorker Donald Trump was in attendance. The reaction of the crowd was hilarious: everyone’s first instinct was to boo, since the elite opinion of him was that he was still a short-fingered vulgarian. Trump, affable and relaxed, laughed and waved at everyone. Then, as the boos faded, the entire Arthur Ashe stadium audibly reconsidered their initial reaction and their voices rose from boos to enthusiastic “whoos!” It was as if the entire crowd thought, “you know, I don’t know why I booed, but he’s not actually a bad guy, and in fact he’s kind of awesome, and he’s here with us and we should let him know we don’t hate him, maybe we sort of love him!” The crowd began to roar and clap their appreciation for him, and he laughed and waved.

I also have parents around his age, New York boomers. As part of my deep family lore, I am actually related to the Trumps, on their, and my, Scottish side. My Scottish great-grandmother was born in the same town, Stornoway, as Trump’s mother, and—interestingly, has the same name: Mary Macleod.

My father and uncle both went to Trump’s alma mater, U Penn, and both of them bear more than a ballpark resemblance to him. My uncle even has his exact shade of blond hair.

All of this is to say I have always felt like I know Donald Trump. He’s literally (very distant) family.

Before you get mad: I am not trying to make The Neocon Case for War with Iran in this post. I am not being paid by Israel, or anyone else—this newsletter is supported by a few generous readers who choose to send me $6 a month to keep it going.

I am simply trying to articulate why I think Donald Trump, out of all past and future presidents, was the one who decided to finally press the Fix Iran Now button.

That’s the Spirit!

To Settle an Old Boomer Score Before He Retired

For Boomers, Iran has been menacing the United States their entire adult lives. It still pisses Boomers off when they think about the Iranians holding American diplomats hostage for all those days, and Jimmy Carter’s failure to free them from captivity. The kidnapping of various Americans over the years. The hijacking of TWA flight 847 airplane and the murder of an American passenger, 23 year-old Navy diver Robert Stethem, who they beat, shot to death, and threw from the airplane.

RIP Robert Stethem

There was the bombing of the Marine barracks. The humiliating 2016 capture of a U.S. Navy boat under Obama and forcing those sailors onto their knees—just six months AFTER Obama signed the Iran nuclear deal, the centerpiece of his presidency.

Boomers never forgot the way Obama capitulated to Iran, cozied up to them, repeatedly caved to their demands, and sent them planeloads of their cash without asking. The Iranian made and paid for IEDs that killed and maimed thousands of soldiers in Iraq. Boomers have been reading stories for decades about the brutal suppression of the Iranians, the mass murder, the constant raping of women, the political prisoners in Evin prison for crimes like not wearing a hijab.

Boomers never forget.

All of this is to say: Iran has been the oldest bully in the playground for a long time, and the Boomers have the most scars.

To End Another War

But no one wants to start World War 3, least of all Donald Trump. After all, he prides himself on being a War Ender. The greatest war-ender of all time. He likes to list out the wars and conflicts he takes credit for ending. He greatly desire to be credited with ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict, but that one is elusive.

Then fate presented him with an unexpected opening for another conflict he could end: Iran vs the Great Satan and Little Satan.

The rapidly shifting dynamics brought about in the wake of October 7th, the bombing of the Iranian nuke hideout, and the fruitless talks with Iran opened up a crack in the veneer. According to Marco Rubio, if there was ever to be a military attack on the Regime that would finally end their nuclear ambitions, it was now or never—their missile production would soon be too much to deal with quickly and relatively easily. Another long-simmering conflict that only Trump could end.

Did Israel Make Him Do It?

The big question. I’m sure they were a major influence on this timing, and there is no doubt without them and their intelligence gathering and military strength, the United States would not have made the move.

As with many Americans, October 7th was radicalizing to Donald Trump. But I completely reject the premise that Israel dog-walked Trump. Thinking this reveals a common misunderstanding of the Boomer mindset.

To Trump, as with all the Boomers I know who love him, Israel is simply a close ally and shares many of America’s own objectives. To American Boomers, Israel is not the radioactive symbol of nefarious, America-undermining subterfuge a lot of the very online perceive it to be. They don’t think Israel did 9/11, for example. To Boomers, Israel is simply one of the few good guys in a long battle between the west and Islam.

Hating Israel is indeed a real thing among young Americans on the left and the right, since they think Israel controls our government, used Epstein to blackmail our leaders, indiscriminately bombed Gaza, and has been forcing us to go to war in the Middle East on their behalf for decades. This Iran campaign will only feed into that! But personally, I don’t think we are not doing this “for Israel.”

Trump is doing this for one simple reason: because he believes he can.

No One Ever Had the Balls

Say what you will about the decision to attack, but we can all agree it takes gargantuan stockpiles of pure, uncut bravado to make this call.

Not just bravado to pull off a massive military campaign and win. But the courage to face the heat from all his usual enemies: the media and the European “allies.” Trump knew that attacking Iran is something no president before him would ever have done, not even Reagan, because the media and the Europeans would scream, it would get messy, the New York Times would print unflattering things about it. Trump is—uniquely among all world leaders—almost totally immune to those pressures.

He doesn’t care what Keir Starmer or David French or Robert DeNiro or Ben Stiller or Jane Fonda think about him. This is a quality no president until Trump has had, and is one of his most undervalued traits.

Because It’s Trump, or Never

Donald Trump also knows that since no one before him dared to do something so outrageously audacious, he also knew that no president after him would dare to do it, either. This man turns 80 in June. After the midterms he will largely be a lame duck. After that comes either J.D. Vance or Gavin Newsom, or, sometime soon, an actual communist who will make their presidency about ending America.

He knows that the Iran nuclear threat will never, ever go away via diplomacy or sanctions. They will never, ever stop being a threat to Israel, and because of that, Israel will never stop using whatever leverage and pressure it can use on American governments to help protect it. No one has ever been able to provide an answer to the Iranian revolution, and stop the mullahs. They just shot dead in the streets 35,000 young protestors. Trump understood that the lesson is: they won’t stop until they are stopped, and that the only force, ever, that could have a chance at finally stopping them would be brute American muscle.

He knows that uniquely among all American presidents past and future, he is the only one who had the chutzpah to do it.

To Jump on the Grenade for the Next Guy

This Iran move is not popular with Gen Z, with the anti-Israel wing of the right, or with his skeptical anti-war, America-first online base. Trump knew that leaving this problem in place for J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio to deal with could hurt them politically, irreparably perhaps, and they are not as bulletproof as he is. A Democrat would never, ever do it.

But Trump is the old lion, about to retire. He has no more elections ahead of him. He is unsinkable. He is beloved by his base. He might bleed support, it might hurt the elections, but if any politician could take a hit this big and survive, it is him and him alone.

To Win Big: One Last Chance at the Big Prize

Trump has gotten a taste of easy wins and they’re addictive. His entire brand is #WINNING. Winning so much you’ll get tired of winning. If the Iran gamble pays off, if the Iranian people are on his side, and they eventually after some period of disarray, emerge as a relatively stable, and freer, happier country, Trump will in fact go down in history as a towering historic figure. The ultimate feather in a cap already full of feathers. But this is the solid-gold feather: an irresistible bauble!

Again, I am not making the case for war with Iran! I am simply trying to tease out Trump’s thinking.

All of these reasons, plus opportunity, means that this decision was probably not that hard for him to make.

My War Take?

Come on—my feelings don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. But if you are still reading and curious about how I feel about all this as a longtime anti-forever war isolationist, here you go:

Since I have not condemned the Iran campaign, I already got called an “Israeli shill,” a betrayer of the anti-war-right, and a Neocon on X. Oy veh.

The real answer is that I personally would never have had the chutzpah to say yes to this move. But now that we’re in it, I want to win it, i.e., eliminate the threat. I am rooting for America. I am trusting the plan. Yes, I am still vehemently anti-forever war. We all got burned bad in 2003 by the Bushes. I don’t want any more occupations. Absolutely no “troops on the ground.” And no draft.

But with this president, thank goodness, I don’t think any of those things will happen.

If this ends relatively soon, with minimal casualties, and in five years Iran has a non-fanatic leader who normalizes relations with the United States and the rest of the world and is not funding terrorism or building nukes, I will feel very good about it. What if it turns out that getting rid of this nasty thorn in the world’s side was relatively easy to do—all we had to do was yank it out?

Let’s pray it works out like that!

Still, to those who ask: did we have to do this? Was Iran actually a threat to us, right now? These are valid questions. I have them, too.

They are now moot.

Voting for Trump was always presented as a high-risk, low-reward act by the media.

But what if I it turns out that having Trump as president is actually the lowest possible risk of all the options we had? What if Trump as president means Americans are actually living in the lowest risk world we’ve had in decades?

What if—and hear me out—Trump is the lowest-risk, highest-reward president we’ve ever had or will have in modern history?

I am keeping hope alive.

Pray for the families of the six KIA soldiers. Pray for all the other military in harm’s way doing insanely difficult jobs on our behalf. Pray for them all to go home soon in one piece. Pray for peace (through overwhelming force)!

God bless America.

Thanks for reading!

—Peachy

What do you think? Post your comments below!