By Carol Lucas
It would seem the word of the day, indeed of the week, was “obliterated.” I imagine if you were to randomly stop people on the street and ask them to define this word, you would get varying degrees of response, but that, ultimately, all would come fairly close to an acceptable definition.
Why then, is it so difficult for the president of this country to choose an appropriate word to describe anything in which he has a hand without resorting to the superlative? Is he so insecure that he must stress, repeatedly I might add, that his is the best, the most outstanding, better than anything ever seen before; the examples are endless.
You see, 47’s life is one of superlatives. To fully get the drift of that last comment, I must subject you to a brief English lesson. I know, I know … painful.
There are three degrees of adjective descriptors: positive, comparative, and superlative. They are used to show intensity or degree of quality. Big, bigger, biggest. I chose that word as an example, given the person about whom we are talking.
But it serves to underscore my point. There are so many choices that 47 could use when he speaks. But in his small world where he is the focus, “the King” if you will, all that Midas touches turns to the gold standard.
Just a little bit of Greek mythology that supports my contention.
King Midas is a figure from Greek mythology known for his ability to turn everything he touched into gold. This “golden touch” ultimately became a curse, as he couldn’t eat or drink, and even his daughter turned to gold when he embraced her. This is a cautionary tale of greed and the perils of interfering with the gods.
And so to the topic at hand: the declared “obliteration” of Iran’s nuclear program. As closely as I can determine, this is how it happened.
Saturday evening we received the news of our bombing of Iran. I remember going to bed thinking, “Dear God, he has gotten us into another war. Isn’t it enough that he is choking the country’s economy with tariffs or illegal hostage taking of legal immigrants? It was another restless night, to be sure.
After that came the leaked preliminary intelligence report that the strike had merely delayed Iran’s efforts for a few months.
It was noted that analysts were making determinations strictly through satellite imagery, a picture that simply showed large, discolored holes in the earth. Knowing that their operations are located deep underground, logic tells you it is difficult to ascertain the full extent of the damage. Ah, yes, logic.
On Sunday morning, the White House came out with the admonition that there had better be no retaliation on Iran’s part. Really? Iran then retaliated by bombing U.S. facilities in the region.
Let me interrupt here to ask you, dear reader, to remember the oversight of this nuclear program that had been put into place in 2015 during the Obama administration. This was known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and permitted monitoring and inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (in return for sanctions relief.)
Trump got rid of that in 2018. Might it be because it was implemented under Obama? Inquiring minds want to know but will never get a definitive answer.
“Operation Midnight Hammer,” and what it accomplished, fully occupied the news following week. The gap between 47’s description of “total obliteration” and the more nuanced language of the military and intelligence was glaring.
Of course Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had to get into the act, if no more than to rant at the press and declare the site had been decimated. I guess we should be grateful he opted for a synonym, albeit a superlative one. He also quipped, “If you are going to visit the site, take a big shovel.”
Ironically that may be closer to the truth than all the other drivel put forth.
As for the success of the mission, that still has to be determined. Two things need to happen for Trump’s claims about “Operation Midnight Hammer” to withstand scrutiny over time.
The first is that no enriched uranium canisters previously stored at Fordow or elsewhere were removed and are later discovered in a revamped Iranian program. It is worth noting that satellite images show more than a dozen trucks leaving the area before the bombing. What those trucks contained is mere conjecture.
The second is that the broader U.S. intelligence community, from Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence to the CIA’s John Ratcliffe, need to be firm in their conclusions that the strikes were every bit as devastating as Trump and Hegseth have declared. Of course, Gabbard seems to be persona non grata at this juncture. Until that time, words like obliterate are inappropriate guesswork until proven.
Just remember, George W Bush learned the hard way, with his premature “mission accomplished” banner in the Iraq war, that a president’s credibility and authority is diminished if unfounded assertions are made about the success of military operations.
Carol Lucas is a retired high school teacher and a Lady’s Island resident. She is the author of the recently published “A Breath Away: One Woman’s Journey Through Widowhood.”
