I Hope The Iranian People Will Be Given The Space to Reject Mojtaba Khamenei

(ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect)

The Islamic Republic of Iran's so-called Assembly Experts has chosen Mojtaba Khamenei to be the country's Supreme Leader following his father's assassination just over a week ago.

I hope the United States and Israel will pause their military offensive just long enough to give the Iranian people the space necessary to publicly reject the younger Khamenei as well as the Islamic Republic at large.

After all, the Iranian people had no say in Khamenei's ascension.

While President Trump has previously publicly stated that he found Mojtaba Khamenei to be "unacceptable" he also wants to choose Iran's next leader. I think Trump making that choice would be every bit as wrong as the Assembly of Experts making that choice.

Now that the world's attention is centered upon Iran, the world needs to see that the Iranian people do not want Khamenei nor for Iran to continue as an Islamic Republic. This is especially true when one considers the spectacle of public demonstrations in New York City's Washington Square Park proclaiming the elder Khamenei as a "man of social justice."

It is essential that the Iranian people disabuse Americans and the West of our collective ignorance whatever legitimate reservations might be had concerning the present military conflict.

If nothing else, we owe the Iranian people the courtesy of our attention.

U.S. Intelligence Report Says Military Action in Iran Unlikely to Oust Regime

A classified U.S. intelligence report prepared one week before the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes in Iran concluded that such a military operation was unlikely to topple its regime, according to the Washington Post:

The report, completed about a week before the United States and Israel initiated the war on Feb. 28, outlined succession scenarios stemming from either a narrowly tailored campaign against Iran’s leaders or a broader assault against its leadership and government institutions, the people familiar with its findings said. In both cases, the intelligence concluded that Iran’s clerical and military establishment would respond to the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by following protocols designed to preserve continuity of power, these people said.

The prospect of Iran’s fragmented opposition taking control of the country was described as “unlikely,” said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a classified report.

It is not clear if President Trump saw this report. If he did then it clearly did not influence his thinking on the subject, such as it is.

Of course, it is possible this assessment could be wrong. After all, the Post notes the report did not make any assessment to the Iranian regime's future if either U.S. ground troops or if Kurdish rebels were armed. The former is unlikely, but the latter scenario is not beyond the realm of possibility. However, such action carries the risk of fomenting civil war within Iran thus giving the regime yet another lifeline.

As I have previously written, my main fear regarding military action in Iran is that the regime would be kept intact and Trump would permit the installation of a new Ayatollah. Even if Trump isn't inclined in this manner, this report would indicate that the regime will be far more difficult to topple than he anticipated.

Despite Trump's rhetoric of "unconditional surrender", I suspect that he will want an easy way out even if it means keeping the existing regime in Tehran and undermining Israel in the process. He'll declare victory, find someone within the regime who he thinks is palatable, permit their ascension into power, and invite the new Iranian leader to sit on his Board of Peace. If Trump was prepared to prop up the Taliban and Hamas, then why wouldn't be prepared to do so the same for the Iranian mullahs?

Meanwhile, Israel will have gained nothing from this military action. There will still be the threat of a nuclear Iran even if the new regime softens its rhetoric. Their actions behind the scenes will invariably tell a different story. If the Iranian regime cannot be dislodged and remains an existential threat to Israel, then I think Israeli voters will oust Benjamin Netanyahu from power come October. 

Needless to say, the Iranian people will also have gained nothing from this military action.

Trump Wants to Choose Iran's Next Leader

President Trump proclaimed that his desire to choose Iran's next leader.

He told Reuters:

We're going to have to choose that person along with Iran. We're going to have to choose that person.

We want to be involved in the process of ​choosing the person who is going to lead Iran into the future, so we don't have to go back every five years and do this again and again. We want somebody that's going to be great for the people, great for the country.

So much for Trump telling the Iranian people to take over your government. 

To drive the point home, Trump also told Axios, "I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy [Rodriguez] in Venezuela."

This is exactly what I was afraid of a week ago today only 48 hours before military action in Iran commenced:

Yet let us suppose there is military action in Iran. Who can say it would be any different than what occurred in Venezuela earlier this year where they extracted Nicolas Maduro only to install his vice-president as his replacement? Meet the new Ayatollah. Same as the old Ayatollah. 

If Trump was capable of bestowing legitimacy upon the Taliban during his first term, then it certainly isn't conceivable the Iranian regime will remain in place during his second term.

Whoever becomes Iran's new leader, even if they are up to the task and move the country from theocracy to democracy, will be perceived as Trump's puppet in view of his overt desire to choose a leader of his pleasing rather than giving the space necessary for the Iranian people to choose.

Trump Makes Noem Roam Somewhere in the Western Hemisphere

I wouldn't say President Trump fired Kristi Noem as Department of Homeland Security Chief so much as he demoted her. 

I mean Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas - Western Hemisphere sounds like a groovy gig, but she will soon answer to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense, er, War Pete Hegseth. Imagine being a member of Trump's Cabinet one day and becoming a lackey for Hegseth the next. 

To be sure, Noem will still live high off the hog and have horizontal jogging sessions with Corey Lewandowski at taxpayer expense as Lewandowski is leaving DHS with her. But Trump wants Noem out of the spotlight and is banishing her to Central America as punishment. Noem and Lewandowski became an albatross around Trump's neck. 

It didn't help matters that Noem had a disastrous set of hearings on Capitol Hill. At the Senate hearing on Tuesday, Republicans were every bit as vigorous in their questions as Democrats with Louisiana's John Kennedy and Thom Tillis of North Carolina both taking her to the woodshed. Trump was unhappy with Noem claiming under oath that he had authorized an ad campaign worth nearly a quarter of a billion dollars which prominently featured her, but she further infuriated him when she would deny her affair with Lewandowski at a House hearing yesterday. 

Of course, Trump knew full well about the affair and was surely aware of the ad campaign which was ubiquitous on radio and TV. So, he softened the blow with a cushy new job.

Naturally, Trump has appointed someone who might be every bit as bad if not worse than Noem as her successor - Oklahoma GOP Senator Markwayne Mullin. While Noem accused Alex Pretti of "domestic terrorism" claiming he was there to "perpetuate violence", Mullin was little better and characterized Pretti as "a deranged individual who came in to cause massive damage with a loaded pistol was shot and killed.” 

Mullin has as much contempt for immigrants and those who disagree with Trump's immigration policies as Noem. The question is if he will be smart enough not to spend so lavishly on himself and furnish a government jet with a luxury bedroom for briefing sessions with female subordinates.

While Noem deserves her comeuppance, we must remember that it is Trump who set everything into motion concerning ICE's actions on kidnapping people off the streets, deportations and the murder of American citizens.

Marjorie Taylor Greene Doesn't Want to Have a Serious Conversation About Iran or Anything Else

While I certainly have plenty of misgivings about the Trump Administration's aims and objectives about taking military action in Iran, there is a danger of those who have similar reservations in elevating conspiracy theorists and their conspiracies because their views appear to align with their own. 

To be specific, I refer to an editorial in The Bulwark co-written by Andrew Egger and Benjamin Parker titled "Who's in Charge Around Here?" focusing on Secretary of State Marco Rubio's gaffe that the U.S entered the war because Israel decided to attack Iran first. Egger and Parker straddle into Pat Buchanan territory:

One of the only true consistencies of Trump’s foreign policy—besides tariffs—has been his Putin-like insistence on being treated with what he considers the appropriate deference and respect internationally. He’s made it very clear to our allies, like Canada and Denmark, as well as smaller countries like Venezuela, that America is a major country that can do whatever it wants to minor countries. (He treats China and Russia as members of the same great-powers club.) The one exception appears to be Israel, which, despite not being a treaty ally of the United States and being one of the smallest countries on the planet, can nonetheless—at least in the telling of the administration—drag our globe-striding superpower into war.

Their Buchananite tone continued:

Of course, the administration’s telling is wrong. The United States isn’t bound by Israel’s foreign policy any more than it is by France’s or Australia’s. And while suggesting it was all Israel’s idea may make it a bit easier to argue that America was facing an imminent threat under any circumstances, the White House may be opening themselves up by saying so to a barrage of attacks from the anti-Israel parts of its own base.

“We need to have a serious conversation about what the fuck is happening to this country,” former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said yesterday, “and who in the hell are these decisions being made for, and who is making these decisions.”

Since when has Marjorie Taylor Greene ever wanted to have a serious conversation?

Greene simply wishes to vilify Israel and Jews at large. After all, Greene claimed the U.S. and Israel had bombed a school killing over 100 girls. The problem with Greene's claims is that it was made by Iranian state media which she evidently accepts as the gospel truth. 

It isn't to say that school children weren't killed but it cannot be independently verified by whom and there remains a question of how far the school may have been situated from an Iranian military base. But if Greene is telling us to accept Tehran talking points at face value, then she has zero interest in a serious conversation.

Let us remember that Greene has palled around with white supremacists like Nick Fuentes, employed his colleagues, suggested Israel was responsible for JFK's assassination and Charlie Kirk's as well, voted present on resolutions condemning anti-Semitic violence against Jews in D.C. and in Boulder, Colorado later complaining that condemning anti-Semitism is something "forced on Congress."

If Egger, Parker and other Bulwark staff honestly believe Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to have a serious conversation then that tells me that they too are embracing conspiracy theorists and their theories. Alas, anti-Semitism is the world's oldest conspiracy theory. 

In their sincere effort to discredit President Trump and Trumpism, The Bulwark is prepared to amplify anyone who now sees fit to criticize him even if the aims and objectives they espouse are every bit as irrational and nonsensical as those offered by Trump and MAGA.

Simply put, it is impossible to have a serious conversation if you simply exchange one set of stupid and foolish ideas for another set of stupid and foolish ideas.

Why I Now See Bruce Froemming in a Different Light

Last Wednesday, former MLB umpire Bruce Froemming passed away following injuries sustained in a fall. He was 86.

Froemming was a big-league umpire from 1971 through 2007 predominantly in the National League. He would first gain notoriety for a confrontation he would have with Chicago Cubs Milt Pappas when he called ball four on San Diego Padres pinch hitter Larry Stahl denying him a perfect game. While Pappas would get his no-hitter it would begin a public feud between the two men which lasted decades.

Perfect game or not, Froemming would be involved in a MLB record 11 no-hitters including four behind home plate. He would finish his career with 5,163 games umpired - the third most in MLB history behind only Bill Klem (5,373) and Joe West (5,460).

While brushing up on Froemming's achievements following his passing, I came across something of which I was not previously aware.

At the beginning of the 2003 season, Froemming was suspended for 10 games without pay for calling an MLB employee "a stupid Jew bitch." Froemming had argued with the official over travel expenses to Japan where he was to umpire the inaugural series of the 2003 season between the Seattle Mariners and the Oakland A's.

As someone who was following baseball observantly at the time, I am astonished that I was not previously aware of the event.

It would appear that most people who were aware of the incident quickly forgot about it. Consider the words of Phil Mushnick of the New York Post in July 2007 following that year's MLB All-Star Game in San Francisco:

The day before the All-Star Game, Froemming was saluted as both a noble fellow and for a job well done by Fay Vincent, the former commissioner of baseball, in a guest column that appeared in the New York Times. During the game, FOX’s Joe Buck and Tim McCarver lauded Froemming as, “good for baseball.”

But neither the former commissioner, in his Times piece, nor FOX’s broadcasters, while addressing a national audience, saw fit to note – perhaps they were too polite or they just plain forgot – a certain episode. In 2003, Froemming didn’t disengage his cell phone until after he could be heard, at the end of a voice mail, calling MLB administrator Cathy Davis a “stupid Jew bitch.”

The episode made short and quick news. Froemming apologized. Sort of. He explained that his comment about Davis wasn’t meant to be heard by anyone other than his wife. “There was no anti-Semitism on my part, whatsoever,” he further explained. Gee, how could anyone regard “stupid Jew bitch” as anti-Semitic?

Froemming nonetheless served a 10-day suspension. Then, before Froemming could even be forgiven, it was forgotten. Poof! It disappeared. Then his career carried on as if nothing had happened, right up until – and now beyond – this year’s All-Star Game, when he was saluted as a great guy and a credit to the game.

Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it isn’t.

But it’s certainly a lucky thing for Froemming that he only slurred a Jewish woman. In a world that has lost its balance, imagine had he slurred a black person. Imagine.

Ya think the FOX broadcasters, Tuesday, would have told a national audience that Froemming has been good for the game? Ya think a former commissioner of baseball would have lauded him in a guest column in the New York Times? Ya think the Times would have run such a column? Ya think Froemming would have worked Tuesday’s All-Star Game?

Froemming would have, in 2003, been fired, condemned to the Land of Al Campanis and to reside in the Jimmy The Greek Go Away Forever Village. Though neither of those men actually spoke a racial slur, their indelicate words were all it took.

I’m not sure what kind of price public figures should pay for their hateful, bigoted words. But whatever it is, and if equality is the prize, it should be the same price.

Double standards aside, there is another consideration. When someone utters a phrase like "stupid Jew bitch", it comes from a deep-seated hatred. One does not utter such words unless one means them in the moment regardless of whatever they might say down the road. 

I strongly suspect that Bruce Froemming harbored anti-Semitic attitudes (as well as negative attitudes towards women) long before he uttered them. His apology isn't so much conveying regret for his attitudes but rather that he was caught in the act of revealing them. How many other times had Froemming uttered anti-Semitic statements in private whether he was alone or with his umpire colleagues? If he did do so, then how many of his fellow umpires agreed with him?

This isn't to say that Bruce Froemming wasn't capable of goodness or kindness. There is, of course, goodness and badness in all of us. 

Yet I now view Froemming in a different light just like I do with Johnny Bench. I acknowledge their achievements and contributions to baseball. But these are the sort of people that I would have no desire to meet much less get to know. R.I.P.

The Last Picture Show Has Long Left a Lasting Impression

This afternoon I went to the Brattle Theatre for a screening of The Last Picture Show. 

Released in 1971 and nominated for 8 Academy Awards, The Last Picture Show features an all-star ensemble cast consisting of Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cloris Leachman, Ellen Burstyn, Eileen Brennan, Ben Johnson. Clu Gulager, Randy Quaid, John Hillerman along with the film debut of Cybill Shepherd. At the time, Shepherd was the muse of the film's director Peter Bogdanovich who adapted the screenplay for the silver screen along with Larry McMurtry who would later become famous for the Lonesome Dove books.

I first remember watching The Last Picture Show on late night TV in the early 1980s. As I recall, it would have been on WDIO/WIRT, the Duluth-Hibbing ABC affiliate which would show late night movies on Saturday night. The Last Picture Show was among several early 1970s films I was first introduced to during this period along with M*A*S*H and Serpico. 

The Last Picture Show left a lasting impression on me. First and foremost, there is the bleakness of smalltown life. Shot in black and white on location in McMurtry's hometown of Archer City, Texas near the Oklahoma border (named Anarene in the film), the landscape was mostly desolate with small pockets of beauty. While Northwestern Ontario is about as far removed from Northern Texas as you could imagine, the desperation of people in isolation is the same everywhere. One wishes to be anywhere other than where one is right now.

Then there are the performances. When I first watched The Last Picture Show more than 40 years ago, I was most struck by Bottoms' performance and have often wondered why he didn't have a bigger Hollywood career along the lines of Bridges. Bottoms would star in The Paper Chase two years later but would later settle for smaller roles in a variety of movies and TV shows and would later develop a niche for playing former President George W. Bush.

Four of the eight Oscar nominations received by The Last Picture Show were in the Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress categories. Bridges and Johnson each earned Best Supporting Actor nominations with Johnson prevailing while Burstyn and Leachman each earned Best Supporting Actress nominations with Leachman prevailing. 

As I get older, Johnson's performance as Sam the Lion resonates more. Sam the Lion owned the diner, the pool hall and the picture show house. While stern, Sam the Lion was also sentimental. In a scene by the water, Sam the Lion tells Sonny Crawford (played by Bottoms) how he would take a younger married woman to that same place and swim naked:

If she were here now, I'd be just about crazy as I was then in about five minutes. Isn't that ridiculous? 

No, it ain't really. Being crazy about a woman like her is always the right thing to do. Bein' a decrepit bag of bones, that's what's ridiculous. Gettin' old. 

I have no doubt this is what earned Johnson, a bonafide rodeo star and stuntman, the golden statue. At the time Johnson won the statue he was 53 years old - the same age I am now. Yet he appeared to have lived several lifetimes longer. I can scarcely imagine what he endured and yet possessed a masculinity which was dignified and generous.

The muse of Sam the Lion's monologue was Lois Farrow (portrayed by Burstyn). She was the unhappily married mother of Jayce Farrow (portrayed by Shepherd). While there was no denying Shepherd's captivating beauty, it is Burstyn to whom I am drawn. She looked really good with longer hair. Towards the end of the movie, after stopping Sonny Crawford from marrying her daughter, she tells Sonny that she loved Sam the Lion like no one else before or since. I found Burstyn's performance far more compelling than the one for which she earned a Best Actress Oscar several years later for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.

I must confess that I never saw the film's 1990 sequel Texasville. Perhaps one day I will. Yet I see The Last Picture Show as a film which stands on its own. There is a certain ambience about early 1970s films which could not be recaptured in the 1990s let alone in the 2020s. 

Nevertheless, here in the 2020s, some 55 years after the film's release many of its stars are still with us. Bottoms is now 74, Quaid is 75 (even if he has gone off the deep end), Bridges and Shepherd are both 76 while Burstyn is 93. Aside from taking a stroll down Amnesia Lane, I wanted to appreciate the work of these actors while they are still walking among us before the final credits roll on their last picture show.