Yea, that’s conspiratorial thinking but it’s also perfectly rational, given what we know about Trump and Putin, Putin and Iran. I questioned a few days back something to the effect of “when does Putin have to get involved?” vis-a-vis russias reliance on Iranian munitions. Your scenario answers that question, ie he’s always been a director of the kabuki.
Do I think that’s what’s going on? 40/60. I won’t firmly ascribe Putin puppeteering to Trump et al. when their astounding history of incompetence remains plausible - but I’m fully willing to see Putin behind damn near any Trump foreign policy position, as I truly do believe he’s a Russian asset.
I don't buy some of the conspiracies floating around right now, including a direct Ukraine connection and certainly the idea that Israel intentionally ignored intelligence to allow 10/7 to happen. I do think, though, that in the days after 10/7, Israel created a plan not just to respond to Hamas but also to topple the Iranian regime. The plan was to knock out Iran's proxies first and then go directly after a weakened IRGC. In short:
1. Indiscriminately destroy Gaza to do as much damage as possible to Hamas, regardless of the civilian cost.
2. Take out the Hezbollah leadership en masse, thus rendering it ineffective.
3. Take steps to knock out the remnants of the Assad regime in Syria.
Then, once Trump was re-elected:
4. Get the US to take strong action against the Houthis.
5. Get the US to commit its bunker busters to an attack on Iranian nuclear sites.
If I'm right, it was a damn good plan and Israel has done a great job pulling it off (I'm commenting here on effectiveness, not on morality or wisdom).
The problem, of course, is that (unless I'm forgetting something) we have no prior examples of a Western-provoked regime change in the Middle East going well. Regime change can work (occasionally) when it's organic and internal, but every time we (including Israel here) try to make it happen, we end up with a disaster. So now, with all of this disruption well underway and the US fully engaged not just diplomatically but militarily as well, we have a ton of open questions.
1. What will happen in Gaza?
2. Will Hezbollah be able to reconstitute and reorganize in Lebanon?
3. Will the new guys in Syria be better or worse than the old guys?
4. What happens when the remnants of the Houthi militias get lucky and sink a US warship?
And most importantly --
5. What in the world is next for Iran?
Iran has been a problem for a LOOOONG time, so I'm perfectly fine holding out hope that once this all shakes out, the new world will be better than the old world. I just don't think that's at all inevitable, and we're now at a point where there will be a new world, whether we want it or not.
