Iran War About to Get Worse, Trump Suggests - The Thursday AM Quickie 4/2/26
I have a new article in The Baffler about the dystopian state of the video games industry, beginning with Saudi Arabia's pending takeover of EA, which publishes some of the world's most popular games. Jared Kushner is mixed up in the deal, of course. I hope it's of interest even if you don't game. Cheers! - Corey
ON THE SHOW TODAY
4/2: Emma will be hosting solo; the guest will be Rana Dasgupta, author and essayist, whose most recent book is After Nations: The Making and Unmaking of a World Order.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Thanks again paid subscribers!
Today you'll read about who could replace Pam Bondi as Attorney General, the corrupt Republican deal-making that preceded Donald Trump's attack on Venezuela, and the launch of NASA's first crewed moon mission in 50 years.
Tell your friends to sign up for this M-F newsletter at AMQuickie.com!
THE BIG NEWS
Trust Me: Trump Says Iran War Will End 'Shortly, Very Shortly' – But First It Will Escalate
It may be hard to remember, 10 years in to the political era dominated by Donald Trump, but it was once customary for presidents to have a point in mind when they delivered a prime-time televised address to the American people. Trump gave just such an address last night about his war on Iran, but it's not at all clear what he was trying to say.
He started off rambling about "those four unbelievable astronauts" headed to the moon (see below) and the US military's "quick, lethal, violent" victory in Venezuela, which was "respected by everyone all over the world" (not). Then he turned to the war on Iran, one month on, with no clear objective or strategy. "We don't need their oil. We don't need anything they have, but we're there to help our allies," Trump said.
He proceeded to ramble about Iran's nuclear program, his first-term assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, President Barack Obama's attempts to broker peace, and Israel. Then he got to something like the point of his speech:
"I can say tonight that we are on track to complete all of America's military objectives shortly, very shortly. We're going to hit them extremely hard over the next 2 to 3 weeks. We're going to bring them back to the Stone Ages where they belong. In the meantime, discussions are ongoing. Regime change was not our goal. We never said regime change, but regime change has occurred because of all of their original leader's death. They're all dead. The new group is less radical and much more reasonable. Yet, if during this period of time no deal is made, we have our eyes on key targets. If there is no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously."
Got that? In short, Trump says the war is about to escalate in unspecified ways, and while he gives lip service to negotiations, he's also planning to commit war crimes by targeting civilian energy infrastructure.
It's far from the victory speech Trump's allies claimed he was planning. At least it was short. But I wouldn't bet that this profoundly unpopular war will be over soon.