Watching the War with Iran Unfold

 

The Middle East is a region where empires go to die, as we should know by now. Map of Iran during World War II from Wikimedia Commons, attribution notes: Uploaded a work by NEA Telephoto from Iowa City Press Citizen Newspaper Archives August 26, 1941 Page 1 with UploadWizard

I’ve not made a survey of all, or even a diverse range, of news media sources on the war between the U.S. and Iran—I am too busy living life, I suppose. But I have tuned into the war, consuming news media content and watching, with a great deal of anxiety, as the world again descends into violence and madness.

It is said that truth is the first casualty of war, and as is the case in almost any war, nothing is simple about this current conflict nor will we fully understand it for some time. Take, for instance, the ABC newscast of June 22, 2025, which I consumed in full on Sunday:

What impresses me, partly, was the weird war tone of the newscast, which included the anchor’s best wishes for returning American Air Force planes. They could have played martial music in the background. I don’t resent that sentiment—I’m glad they (the air personnel) returned safely—but I would recognize that this weekend was the final one for some people in Iran who likely were atomized by American bunker-busting bombs. I’d like some best wishes for them, too.

And, while I trust neither President Trump nor the yahoos he appointed (I don’t swell with pride when I see the U.S. Secretary of State nor the Secretary of Defense, for example), I want to recognize, too, that the roots of this conflict are deep and convoluted, even if it feels that the war was launched by a petulant orange toddler whose finger was placed on the nuclear trigger by a base of my fellow American voters whose motives and reasoning I don’t get.

Well. That sentence flew from my fingers almost too quickly. I think there are some emotions at boil in my mind. Wars do that, inflame passion before rational thought kicks in.

Anyway, I’m not a fan of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, nor of the current Iranian regime, but neither am I liking the path that we are on. Just recently, President Trump was facing massive No King protests that overshadowed his bizarre birthday party tank fest. And suddenly, bam, we’re in a fight—in war, the first reaction usually is to rally around the flag, and American presidents in the past have used wars as a pretext to exceed their usual powers to quash dissent.

Does that play into Trump’s decision to launch U.S. bombers during an air war between Israel and Iran? Hard to say. I don’t know how deeply Trump thinks about anything, and that’s part of my anxiety over this conflict—we don’t have an FDR or even a Richard Nixon or President Bush at the helm. We’re in a time where the captain of our ship of state is old, ignorant, petulant, and spontaneous. There is a horse in the hospital.

Well, American “wars” since World War II have generally been shooting conflicts where Congress was never asked to declare war—although at least some past Presidents (think Johnson with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution) have at least worked with Congress. And I hope this “war” does not expand, but anything can happen.

One definite change for me is how much I tune into news. My media consumption has shifted because of this little (I hope) war. I usually check the New York Times daily, but now I would say four or five times a day is the new norm. I’m not as regular a checker of other news apps on my phone—I have CNN and Reuters, for instance—but those buttons are being clicked now more often than usual. I read the “Green Gazette,” the electronic version of The Cedar Rapids Gazette, each day and these days pay more attention to the world-national news pages.

I am no expert, but when did that stop any human from commenting online? Here are some of my other takes on this war:

It’s not over. Sure, Iran attacked a U.S. air base today, and President Trump posted that it is time for peace now that Iran got the need to retaliate out of its system—but I am not buying it. The animosities that fueled this conflict are long simmering, and I think the deep thuds of the bunker busting bombs are going to echo for a while. How do most countries react when they are bombed? Did the U.S. say: “It’s OK, Japan, we don’t really need those antique battleships in the era of aircraft carriers, anyway” when Pearl Harbor was attacked? Did the U.K. give up when London burned? In American mythology, it took atomic bombs to convince the Japanese that their war effort was not sustainable, although many historians note that the end of the IJN plus the entry of the Soviet Union into the war may have had more to do with Japan giving up. In any case, conventional bombs that horrifically burned Tokyo (the deadliest air attacks of the war were not the atomic bomb blasts but incendiary bombing of the Japanese capital city) in March of 1945 didn’t motivate Japan to give up.

From Wikimedia Common: Bomb damage in Iran. This is from Israeli bombing on June 13, 2025. Still, given what we, the U.S., has done, we're going to share the blame. Original description: At dawn today, several explosions were heard in different parts of Tehran and other cities of Iran.The Zionist regime officially confirmed the aggression of this regime against targets on Iranian soil. The US Secretary of State claimed that Israel has taken unilateral military action against Iran. This is an image from the Tasnim News Agency website, which states in its footer, "All Content by Tasnim News Agency is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License." Per this discussion, all images without explicitly watermarked attribution to agency photographers are presumed to be outside this license.

Bombs may have complicated the Iranian drive for atomic power. It’s difficult to believe that they ended the drive—instead, they probably strengthened the Iranian resolve. They were attacked. They may not react well. Who could blame them?

I struggle to maintain good spirits and hope. People are dying in a war that we did not start and seemed all too eager to join. May it all work out for the best, but these are perilous times.

As a political strategy, I do think the Iran war did what Trump probably wanted it to do, a least for a brief time. Anybody been fussing over tariffs lately? The “no kings” movement seems of the distant past, for now. But the patriotic boost Americans feel when our armed forces join in a conflict can often be short-lived, and there is also the danger of a backlash. Even parts of Trump’s base can’t figure out what this “peace president” is thinking. Probably, the answer is not very much, and that’s part of the problem.

For now, Trump is having a moment. Moments are fleeting in politics, however, and even this moment is more chaotic than triumphant for this would-be authoritarian.

Today seems like uncharted times. Iran is a large country, more than 90 million people. It’s also a weak country, due to all kinds of economic, social and political problems. Frankly, the U.S., the world’s strongest superpower, faces ongoing economic, social and political problems. Media, government, everything seems to be in flux these days.

Of course, as Billy Joel sang, we didn’t start the fire. Everything is always in flux, it’s just that the pace and severity of flux these days is breathtaking.

From Wikimedia Commons, ethnic makeup of Iran. Attribution notes: By Iretn 847362 - Own workA source (reference) has not been provided for the data in this self-made work., CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=112682697

This war, as every war does, shows how important history is. Iran has a nuclear program in the first place because it was, historically, a U.S. ally, and the Eisenhower administration in the 1950s had an “atoms for peace” program that Iran participated in. When the Shah was overthrown in 1979, the Iranian nuclear program was put briefly on hold, but revived in the 1980s as tensions with the U.S. ratcheted up. 

We bombed Fordo (or Fordow, transliteration is messy), Natanz and Isfahan to, maybe, celebrate the summer solstice (makes as much sense as anything else I have read), and now we are in one of those historical pivot moments.

From Wikimedia Commons, the physical setting--a large country in Asia. As noted in "The Princess Bride," a rule of history is "never get involved in a land war in Asia." There is just so much land. Of course, this is an air war. For now. Attribution information: By Ikonact - Own workSources of data:Topography: ETOPO1 (public domain);Other data: © OpenStreetMap contributors;Tool:The map is created with Octave scripts developed by Ikonact, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=89573656

What is good about this situation? A bit. Iran’s drive to be a nuclear power may be stalled (although Iran may have the bomb sooner than we think, they did move nuclear materials before the American bombs fell). The bombings didn’t target cities nor cause mass casualties, even if Trump did tell Iran to “evacuate Tehran.” The retaliation against an airbase in Qatar was not a big deal.

What is bad? A whole bunch of stuff. There is plenty of destroyed Iranian real estate from Israeli bombing, and it is easy to see that we are linked with Isreal in this conflict now, especially from an Iranian point of view. Then, there is what war does to people, to truth, to the fabric of our world. Iran and Isreal are well beyond rhetorical conflict and are trading actual blows. Iran has been driven into the chilling embrace of Vladimir Putin and China. Our U.S. president lied to us during his election campaign when he said he would avoid foreign entanglements—but of all of the huge bucket of bad stuff this unfortunate series of events has unleashed, that somehow seems like the least surprising. We know he lied because his lips are moving. Well, honestly, it is usually his hand toes that are moving on his cell phone when he lies, but you know what I mean.

Supposedly, a Chinese curse is “may you live in interesting times.” I’m not tired of all the winning. I’m exhausted from the interesting.

Reshaping the Weirdness of Oz to Something New

I have not yet read the novel “Wicked,” but I do plan to, having recently seen the musical movie of the same title.

“The Wizard of Oz” was always a bit of a strange tale to me. I read the book when I was young, and it was OK but not one of my favorites. That also sums up my feelings about the 1939 movie, too—it’s OK, it was on TV in my childhood and I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t something that I was all that gaga over.

Never mind, the world of “Wicked” is a radical re-imagining of L Frank Baum’s and Hollywood’s imaginings, and Oz isn’t exactly the same. Yes, in the 1939 movie, the wizard was willing to hoodwink the crowd with his tricks—but in Wicked, we see a much darker Wizard of Oz.

And I like it. It’s relevant to today. I feel that we follow too many wizards in our lives now—fakers whose only talent is to play to the crowd, and who feel that you unite folks by giving them someone to hate.

My wife saw the stage musical “Wicked” in London, but I have not experienced the stage show, so the movie was my first introduction to this alternative alternate reality. I am a fan, and I find myself really enjoying the songs, too.

When they do work, musicals can be magical. I think part of what they do is what the songs in the musical episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” did—the singing is a convention that allows the characters to think aloud, to reveal themselves. It also helps like a musical when there is a great ensemble song.

“Wicked” is wickedly good partly due to the quality of its songs. It’s also good because of they way in which both the songs and the plot beyond the songs subverts expectations of what or who is truly wicked.

I liked that Glinda (or Guh-Linda), while good at heart, is also vain and shallow. That the most intelligent and empathetic characters, Elphaba, is the one who will be falsely branded as “wicked.” That much of the social life of Shiz concerns ephemeral fads and shallow criteria of what or who will be popular—sort of like school actually was, although more high school than university.

Wikipedia image of book cover.

Popularity as a goal is a strong cultural force in this era of orange ogre Presidents and social media and success measured by clicks—and “Wicked” is partly a rumination on how far some people may go in order to achieve popularity.

Plus, it has all those scary parallels with the world we inhabit: “What you need to bring people together is to give them a real good enemy.” Yikes, Mr. Wizard, that’s so sadly true and sad that it seems so true.

I don’t have an opinion of the way Wicked was “Hobbit”-fied—that is, a shorter story was somehow expanded, for “The Hobbit” was a short children’s book somehow morphed into a trilogy of movies. For “Wicked” a Broadway play was somehow doubled in length and made into two movies.

Poster from www.Wickedmovie.com web site.

I do think that the pace of the first movie was a bit slow at times—I liked the climatic song, but it just went on for a bit too long.

Yet, I can only judge the movie, not it in comparison to the stage show. And I give the movie two thumbs way up. I am excited for part two to come out later this year so this wicked saga can continue. I predict that it’s going to popular, even without a makeover from Gah-Linda.

A Gripping Tale of Mutiny and Murder

My spring break 2025 book.

Life in the British Navy in the early 1700s was quite rough—hard work, authoritarian power structure, harsh penalties—and then there are the diseases. Humans packed together in poorly ventilated, unclean conditions lends itself to raging infectious diseases.

And then, months into a slow voyage dependent on the winds blowing your ship, scurvy. An account I read recently vividly describes what scurvy was like, and it was hell.

I’ve long been a fan of Erik Larson and his books based on historic events. He’s a storyteller who uses literary tools to tell truths.

And recently, on the recommendation of my daughter Nina, I’ve read a book by an author who is new to me, who pulls the same magic that Larson does. It’s David Grann, and I just read his 2023 book “The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder.”

The ship The Wager was a merchant vessel converted to naval use. British sea power would come to rule the world in the next century, but that lay in the future when The Wager left England as part of a squadron that was tasked with attacking Spanish shipping during a war between the U.K. and Spain.

A newly promoted Captain, David Cheap, obtained his first command due to some command shuffles. The ill-fated Wager had trouble staying with its group as the little wooden vessels were pounded by merciless storms as they attempted to pass from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean by sailing around South America.

And the Wager found itself alone, when it also, unfortunately, found rocks off of a desolate island. The ship was pounded by the rocks and damaged beyond sailing, although the wreck, in poor shape, was there on the rocks for some time.

The depleted, demoralized crew were facing winter weather with few provisions and no shelter. On their long journey from England, they had lost many crew members to disease, and most were debilitated by scurvy at the time of the shipwreck. (Desperate, the crew ate wild celery, one of the few foods they found on what they named Wager Island—and, ironically, the fresh vegetable cured their scurvy).

While stranded, the crew broke into factions, some loyal to the captain, others forming their own encampment. They were visited by indigenous people who aided them with food, but they plotted against their helpers, who abandoned them.

1744 painting depicts The Wager. From Wikimedia Commons via Wikipedia.

So much goes wrong There is so much suffering. As starvation and tensions rise, a misunderstanding leads to the captain shooting and killing a sailor.

Eventually, the crew manages to enlarge and repair some small boats. An attempt to head north and continue the Wager’s original mission doesn’t go well, and after that much of the crew abandons the captain on Wager Island and attempts to head to Brazil, where they could potentially find transport back to England.

When survivors start to show up in England, more troubles await them. The Navy doesn’t treat mutiny lightly, and the long arm of the law has to be contended with. And, months after some survivors reach England, the captain, very much alive, unexpectedly shows up.

The Navy sets a court-martial trial to ascertain the facts. Should the captain be tried for murder? The crew tried for mutiny?

After all the suffering and the time spent trying to get home, it’s almost heartbreaking that home turns out to be filled with different kinds of dangers.

Anyway, I found the book gripping. The needs and ambitions and desires of men lead them to contradictions and difficulties that make one glad to be born in these troubled times rather than those.

The books didn’t have any jump scares, but it did have, like life, lots of unexpected twists and turns. It’s a story that is well told, well worth the read.

Is Cedar Rapids Fading into a News Desert?

Front page of Jan. 31 edition.

On Jan. 14, the Gazette, the daily newspaper of Cedar Rapids, announced that it’s following the trend of many other newspapers in the U.S.: Daily will soon not mean every day.

Starting Feb. 17, the Gazette will print only three editions per week, on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. Otherwise, news of the community will be available via the Gazette’s web site.

Meanwhile, the cost of a print subscription remains the same. The Gazette is making an iffy gamble that people are willing to pay, in effect, much more per printed paper. Their argument, made in a follow-up column by editor Zack Kucharski, is that their cost of reporting the news justifies the continued price.

We’ll see. My wife and I are still discussing what we might do—I am sure we’ll still want the Sunday paper, but if the others papers are available online, is paying for the very occasional print product worth it? Reading the Gazette is a daily habit, it gets passed around the breakfast table, and I don’t think my relationship with the digital product will be the same. But it cannot be a daily habit if the paper no longer is delivered daily.

Well, the Gazette isn’t the only paper that I have an online relationship with. I subscribe to The New York Times, and enjoy skimming its list of stories and picking what I want to read, so the idea of treating a “paper” as an online source is not alien to me.

I hope The Gazette can make its digital presence a bit easier. With the NYT, for example, it was “one and done.” I subscribed, signed on, and their app just keeps me signed on. On both my PC and my phone, the Times seems to know who I am, instantly.

As a print subscriber to The Gazette, I’m supposed to have full digital access to their site, too—but it’s not as smooth. It seems very frequently the Gazette demands that I sign in. In my digital life, I have multiple usernames and passwords, and remembering which applies to The Gazette is not easy for me, and there have been days that I just give up and prefer not to read a Gazette story on their web site rather than find and dig through my password file.

So please, Gazette, if I’m going to depend on your app, keep at it making the app more user friendly. Aim for NYT-level ease.

Gazette web site.

Another issue is that the print Gazette gets passed between my wife and I, and our grandson when he is staying with us. When we’re accessing digital content, only one username or password works, I assume. Is there a way that 2 or 3 “readers” can be associated with a digital subscription so my wife could just as easily install the app and access content as a “household” subscriber who lives with me?

Those are technical issue, adjustments I’m sure The Gazette will consider. The larger issue, to me, is what this change means to The Gazette and to my local news environment.

I know the situation is different, but the same forces that the Gazette contends with have changed the nature of the university newspaper, the Mount Mercy Times, that I advise. We made the decision to cease print operations altogether, as it was be coming too expensive and our readers were out of the print habit anyway.

Unfortunately, at the moment, the status of the Times is not great. Our staff has slowly shrunk, our frequency of updating our news has declined and our online readership has not grown as it should. I hope to encourage students to try some new strategies to boost the Times, but first I must recruit more students, and somehow that was easier when there was a print artifact that reminded everyone that student journalism exists at Mount Mercy University.

I hope that The Gazette can maintain a sense of status and strength when it become more ephemeral, when it’s just dancing digits rather than ink on a page. I’ll miss the morning tug of war over who gets section A first, and the experience of skimming the headlines in my hands rather than on the tiny screen of my phone.

Too many communities in the U.S. have become news deserts. That’s not happening here yet, but it does sort of feel like we’re going from a lush news jungle to a drier, dicey news savanna, where the desert no longer seems so far away.

As a customer, paying the same for less product doesn’t make me happy. But as an old news person, a former newspaper editor, I hope the Gazette finds a way where so many papers have stumbled. Society as a whole is no longer as willing to pay for news, and that has left too many of our citizens subsisting on the junk food of social media disinformation, rather than the richer, healthier diet that a quality daily newspaper provides.

The daily Gazette isn’t perfect. But it will leave a hole, for me, when it is no longer there.

So, from a disgruntled customer, to the Gazette: Good luck. I hope you find a way to make it work but I’m worried.