The left seems intent on casting Israel’s war on Iran as a humiliation for President Trump. The idea is that Trump asked Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off on attacks to give diplomacy a chance, and Netanyahu disobeyed him. This makes Trump look weak and a bit ridiculous, especially because he doesn’t have the balls to make Netanyahu pay for his effrontery.

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Michael Gordon has a different take, which is that the Trump administration’s nuclear negotiations with Iran were designed to lull Iran into complacency and makes Israel’s planned attack more effective.

Surely, regardless of the truth, the fascist regime would prefer it if Gordon’s take becomes the official historical record. Who wouldn’t rather be considered clever than impotent?

The best historical parallel here for me is President John F. Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs. In that instance, the CIA knew the operation as designed was doomed, but they launched it anyway under the assumption that once things started to go wrong, Kennedy would be compelled to escalate and bring in American troops to effectuate regime change in Cuba. Kennedy was misled about this and when he realized what had happened, he refused to escalate and fired the CIA director. The resulting anger from betrayed Cubans and angry CIA officers quite possibly cost Kennedy his life.

In this case, Israel’s operation is not an immediate flop like the Bay of Pigs, but experts say it won’t slow down Iran’s ability to create a nuclear weapon by more than a month or two. These experts also say, it will incentive the Iranian regime to make a weapon as soon as possible as a simple matter of survival. Israel knows this, so for their plan to work, they need an American president to finish the job they started.

In the immediate term, I don’t think Trump understands what has just happened any better than Kennedy initially did. He has people telling him that the best way to protect American personnel in the Middle East is to disclaim any responsibility for the attacks, even if it makes him look weak and ineffectual. He and his administration’s spokespeople are trying to go along with this, but he’s really not capable of the nuanced messaging required to make this credible.

For example, this statement from his social media site is badly off-message.

“Certain Iranian hardliner’s spoke bravely, but they didn’t know what was about to happen. They are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse!”

The implication is that the Iranian negotiators didn’t know they were about to be attacked but Trump did. He’s also condoning further attacks.

“Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire. JUST DO IT, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.”

Set aside that it was known as the Persian (or Parthian) Empire and that it ceased to exist 1,800 years ago. If we’re being generous, we can include the Safavid Empire (1501 to 1736). History isn’t Trump’s strong suit. What’s important here is that he’s threatening to annihilate Iran which makes it rather irrelevant whether he’s complicit in the current bombing.

The alternatives to entering a war with Iran were always to negotiate to prevent them creating a nuclear weapon or to allow them to have a nuclear weapon. The first option is less likely to happen now, especially since Israel says they won’t stop attacking until the nuclear threat is gone, and they need our help to eliminate the threat. The second option was risky to begin with, but much more so now that Iran has been bludgeoned and many of their leaders assassinated.

Whether with his connivance or not, Trump has been pushed into a situation where he will feel compelled to finish what Israel started. If he refuses, as Kennedy did, he will be responsible for allowing an aggrieved Iran to get a nuclear weapon, which is something he has always said can never happen. The backlash will be furious and the threat will be very real.

What’s worse is that the experts say even America isn’t capable of setting Iran’s nuclear program back by more than a year or so. So, we’ll either have to keep hitting them over and over again, or we’ll have to create regime change.

And, to be honest, I can envision an Iran that is liberated from the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guard that is friendlier to the West, but I can’t envision any Iranian government, no matter how democratic or how friendly, that won’t want a nuclear deterrent after seeing their country get bullied around like this. Perhaps we’d be willing to live with that kind of risk, but I don’t know that Israel would.

So, where’s the offramp here?