An Israeli security analyst on the supposed virtues of Israeli military strategy:

When you are the one initiating–not the one caught off guard–you can fight a war on two fronts more effectively,” said Sarit Zehavi, an Israeli analyst who studied Hezbollah for over 20 years, first as an Israeli intelligence officer, then as the head of Alma, an Israeli defense think tank focusing on Syria and Lebanon (“Israel’s plans in Lebanon, prepared well in advance, include the option of a deeper incursion, officials say,” The New York Times, March 3, 2026).

Something equally obvious: when “you are the one initiating,” you’re the one engaged in aggression, and you’re the one who thereby forfeits any right of self-defense. So the advantage you gain in strategy is one you lose in morality, which translates to a loss of sympathy in a lot of people, including the ones you call “allies.”

Americans now sympathize more with the Palestinians than the Israelis, and feel much the same way about the war that Israel has dragged us into. It’s an open question whether a country that depends so heavily on American arms, money, and sympathy can crap so unapologetically on its benefactors while depending so desperately on their benefits. Without us, the Israelis are lost; with them, we are. Most marriage counselors would call that cause for divorce. Too bad neither country has one.

Marco Rubio on American strategy against Iran:

The last point I would make is – and I said this yesterday and I repeat – what’s about to – you’re about to see – we’re going to unleash Chiang on these people in the next few hours and days.

“Unleash Chiang” is a reference to Chiang Kai-shek, the Chinese nationalist leader defeated by Mao, and forced to retreat to Taiwan. In the 1950s, American conservatives imagined that “unleashing” Chiang against Mao would lead to a re-match and victory. It was a fantasy. It never happened. The closest they came was unleashing Brigade 2506 on Castro at the Bay of Pigs. No one speaks of “Unleashing Brigade 2506” on anyone, and you get no points for guessing why.

So if someone says that they intend to “unleash Chiang,” what they’re doing is indulging in a fantasy of victory following a humiliating defeat. It’s unclear why Rubio thinks the Iranians would be impressed by this, and I highly doubt they are. I don’t know what’s worse, that Rubio hasn’t grasped that Chiang Kai-shek was defeated by Mao, or that he grasps it but wants to emulate Chiang anyway. In the first case, we have amnesia, in the second case quixoticism, but in neither case the prospect of victory.