Mark Twain’s famous quote, “History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme,” is a concise and insightful observation about the nature of historical events. It suggests that while specific situations, people, and outcomes in history are unique and never precisely replicated, there are recurring patterns, themes, and consequences that echo across different eras.
Centuries before, Maimonides anticipated this wisdom in Chapter 2 of his seminal work on repentance. He posited a profound criterion for true teshuvah: complete repentance is achieved when an individual, faced with identical circumstances and internal impulses that led to a past transgression, consciously refrains from repeating the sin. This act of self-mastery demonstrates that repentance is not merely fleeting regret, but a deep-seated transformation of character and values. One might say that God designed the world to offer us opportunities to redeem the errors and foibles of our past.
After the Holocaust, many of us, as second-generation children of survivors, grappled with the terrifying question: Could the Holocaust happen again? A primary, agonizing lesson from that catastrophe was the tragic failure to take Hitler’s threats seriously enough. His blueprints for destruction, laid out in Mein Kampf (1925) and codified in the Nuremberg Laws (1935), were initially dismissed by too many as mere rhetoric. This dangerous complacency enabled the horrors of the “Final Solution” by 1941–1942.
Many German and European Jews, particularly assimilated ones, harbored the hope that Hitler’s fiery pronouncements were symbolic or temporary, believing that economic integration or political moderation would eventually temper Nazi policies. Emigration, often costly and restricted, saw only 37,000 of Germany’s 523,000 Jews leave by 1933.
Internationally, the initial perception was often similarly misguided. Some Western outlets, like The Times (London), initially framed Hitler as a nationalist whose views, while exaggerated, were containable. American isolationists, meanwhile, argued that Germany’s internal policies held no relevance to U.S. interests. This dismissal, fueled by wishful thinking, a failure to grasp radical ideologies, or competing national priorities, allowed Hitler to consolidate power unchecked. By 1933, the Nazis had already banned Jewish businesses, purged Jews from civil service, and enacted boycotts, escalating anti-Semitic policies without significant international protest.
This lack of a decisive global response emboldened Hitler, proving that his threats could be implemented with impunity. Ultimately, from 1941-1942, the Nazis meticulously planned and implemented their “Final Solution” at the Wannsee Conference (January 20, 1942), detailing the deportation and extermination of Europe’s 11 million Jews. Death camps like Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Sobibor became operational, employing gas chambers to murder millions. By 1945, six million Jews—two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population—had been systematically murdered, alongside Romani, disabled individuals, and political dissidents.
If the Holocaust taught us anything, it is this: when someone explicitly threatens to exterminate you, those threats must be taken with the utmost seriousness. As George Santayana wisely observed in 1905, “He who forgets the past is condemned to repeat it.”
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s description of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the “new Hitler of the Middle East” is a highly charged analogy aimed at highlighting Iran as an existential and expansionist threat to regional stability. This comparison serves to warn against appeasement, justify Saudi Arabia’s confrontational stance, and rally international support for a tougher approach to Iran, framing Khamenei’s leadership as a grave danger that must be decisively stopped to prevent catastrophic regional conflict.
Today, the Jewish people once again find themselves facing an existential test, presenting a chilling echo of the past. How will we respond this time around?
Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran has consistently labeled Israel the “Little Satan” and the U.S. the “Great Satan,” repeatedly vowing Israel’s destruction. A Tehran billboard, unveiled in 2017, starkly counts down to Israel’s predicted demise by 2040, a timeline set forth by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. While some analyses might suggest that such rhetoric serves primarily domestic political purposes or is a tool for regional posturing, the consistent and fervent nature of these declarations demands our serious attention.
Iran’s burgeoning nuclear program, with 408kg of 60% enriched uranium by June 2025 (a quantity potentially sufficient for nine nuclear bombs, according to Israeli intelligence estimates), poses an undeniable threat to Israel’s very existence. Beyond deeply rooted antisemitism, Iran’s ambitions also encompass regional hegemony, aiming to counterbalance U.S.-Israel influence and bolster Shia dominance against Sunni rivals like Saudi Arabia. A nuclear-armed Iran would fundamentally destabilize the Middle East, potentially emboldening other rogue regimes and triggering a catastrophic nuclear arms race in the world’s most volatile region. Imagine the cascade: if Iran develops the bomb, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, and others would undoubtedly follow suit. Is this a possibility that even isolationists, concerned primarily with their own national interests, are willing to gamble on? It seems highly unlikely.
Many politicians and pundits appear alarmingly unfamiliar with the profound and persistent threat Iran has posed since 1979. Here is a stark summary of the Ayatollah’s legacy of aggressive actions and proxy warfare:
· Hezbollah in Lebanon: Iran has provided continuous financial, military, and logistical support to Hezbollah since the early 1980s, equipping them with thousands of rockets and missiles. Hezbollah has launched attacks against Israel, including the 2006 Lebanon War, and has actively supported the Assad regime in Syria. The U.S. and EU designate Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist organization, with Iran’s support estimated to be over $700 million annually between 2012 and 2020.
· Hamas and Palestinian Groups: Iran has consistently funded and armed Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other Palestinian militant groups in Gaza, particularly since the 1990s. These groups have conducted numerous attacks against Israel, including relentless rocket barrages. Iran’s support is a critical component of its anti-Israel strategy, widely criticized for fueling violence and undermining peace efforts.
· Houthi Rebels in Yemen: Since the Yemeni Civil War escalated in 2014, Iran has supplied weapons, training, and drones to the Houthi movement, enabling devastating attacks on Saudi Arabia and vital international shipping lanes. The U.S. Navy has repeatedly intercepted Iranian arms shipments to the Houthis, including sophisticated missiles and drones.
·Attacks on Western Targets: Iran is definitively linked to devastating attacks such as the 1983 U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks bombings in Beirut (via Hezbollah), which killed over 300 people, and the 1994 AMIA Jewish community center bombing in Argentina, attributed to Iran-backed operatives.
This list represents only a fraction of Iran’s documented hostile actions. This escalating conflict will most likely draw in the United States, and Iran would be profoundly unwise to harm any American soldiers. The future stability of the world simply cannot endure a nuclear arms race in the most dangerous part of the globe. The lessons of history demand that we take current threats, explicitly articulated and demonstrably acted upon, with the seriousness they deserve.
Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel is spiritual leader of Temple Beth Shalom in Chula Vista. This article is republished from San Diego Jewish World
which, along with The Moderate Voice, is a member of the San Diego Online News Association.
The latest escalation in the Middle East
is in many ways the inevitable culmination of a long-simmering rivalry. Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons capability and Israel’s determination to stop that from happening meant that such an outcome was always in the cards.
But it also provides an example of what scholars of international relations
like me refer to as the “commitment trap
.” Put simply, the concept is that states and governments feel compelled to continue with a promised course of action, even if doing so might be to their own disadvantage. Think, “if country X doesn’t do Y, we will do Z in response.”
The idea was popularized by political scientist Scott Sagan in a much-referenced 2000 academic paper
looking at the U.S.’s apparent threat to use nuclear weapons should an adversary use biological or chemical weapons.
But the concept applies to a range of situations, from unilateral acts of aggression or preemptive strikes to promises of support to an ally.
Commitment traps are a feature of conflicts that go back, at least, to Ancient Greece. The Peloponnesian War
was, in part, the story of how commitments made by Athens and Sparta to their respective allies turned local disputes into continentwide cataclysms; World War I began much the same way
– an assassination in Sarajevo triggered a cascade of alliance reactions that no one could stop.
But unlike those past examples, in the Middle East of 2025, the commitment trap dynamic is playing out under the shadow of nuclear proliferation – the costs of miscalculation are apocalyptic.
An existential commitment
Each of the parties involved – Israel, Iran and the United States, too – are bound by their own commitments.
Israel has committed itself to the proposition that Iran must never acquire nuclear weapons
. Having built its regional security doctrine around preemptive action, nuclear monopoly and deterrence through escalation dominance, it cannot now accept even the possibility of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Once you’ve declared something an existential threat
, there’s no halfway response. And so Israel escalates now because it must; in other words, it is committed to do so.
The fact that Israel has now launched successive rounds of air assaults on Iran and in turn incurred losses of its own – as of June 17, at least 24 Israels have been killed in Iranian retaliatory strikes, which also undermined confidence
in the country’s Iron Dome defense system – brings in a related concept: the “sunk cost fallacy
.” As it refers to international relations, this concept stipulates that nations are prone to continue down a given path – a war or a diplomatic initiative, for example – once they have invested considerable resources in that effort, even if doing so is not in that country’s interests.
Decades of ideological anti-Zionism
and the enshrinement of nuclear development as a matter of national pride have made backing down that much harder.
The regime in Tehran long ago crossed its own Rubicon – perhaps not to build a bomb immediately but to preserve the option of one.
Faced with a direct military challenge from Israel, it too is bound by its commitments – to its regional proxies
, to its domestic hard-liners and to the idea of the Islamic Republic as a revolutionary power that cannot be seen to fold under Western or Zionist pressure.
And it has spent the past two decades attempting to deter Iran
without triggering all-out war, a delicate balancing act that now seems to be collapsing under its own contradictions.
American troops across the region – in Doha, Jordan, Syria and Iraq – form part of Washington’s commitment trap, and its sunk costs, too.
They may now become targets
. That’s what commitment entrapment looks like: You get dragged in not because you started the fire but because your allies are already burning.
No off-ramp
Once caught up in a commitment trap, it can be hard to escape.
International relations realists
would argue that foreign policymakers need to disentangle themselves from the idea that every commitment is sacred, every ally is indispensable and every red line is inviolable.
For the U.S. that would mean not feeling committed to supporting Israel in actions that could put American national interests at risk.
Israel, too, must ask hard questions about its policies. It has the responsibility to distinguish between genuine existential threats and self-reinforcing cycles of escalation.
As for Iran, its nuclear ambitions have now triggered the very outcome it hoped to deter: open Israeli strikes on its most sensitive military sites.
For the moment, none of the players involved seem to be looking for a viable off-ramp
, because their entire identity – national, ideological, political – is staked on seeing things through.
That’s the commitment trap. It’s how great powers, and aspiring ones, have made their gravest mistakes. Not because they don’t know better. But because, having already done so much, lost so much and promised so much, they no longer know how to stop.
Iran is now claiming the Fordow site survived the bombing and Israel acknowledges there’s a slim chance that the site has not been obliterated.
The bombing
came after a slew of reports and social media speculation and reporting that suggested a)Trump was all in and would trigger the bombings, b)Officials in his government and intelligence agencies were against bombing c) Trump was going to live up to the TACO nickname his critics gave him: Trump Always Chickens Out. Memes and videos of him saying he would decide in two weeks and then nix an action were all over social media and CNN.
It now appears that the “two weeks” was a ploy to catch Iran off guard.
Here is Trump’s statement announcing the bombings:
Israel launched a surprise attack on dozens of Iranian nuclear and military targets on 13 June. It said its ambition was to dismantle its nuclear programme, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said would soon be able to produce a nuclear bomb.
Iran insists its nuclear ambitions are peaceful. In retaliation, Tehran launched hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel. The two countries have continued exchanging strikes since, in an air war which has now lasted more than a week.
Trump has long said that he is opposed to Iran possessing a nuclear weapon. Israel is widely believed to have them, although it neither confirms nor denies this.
In March, US national intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard said that while Iran had increased its uranium stockpile to unprecedented levels, it was not building a nuclear weapon – an assessment that Trump recently said was “wrong”.
On the campaign trail, Trump had criticized past US administrations for engaging in “stupid endless wars” in the Middle East, and he vowed to keep America out of foreign conflicts.
The US and Iran were in nuclear talks at the time of Israel’s surprise attack. Only two days ago, Trump said he would give Iran two weeks to enter into substantial negotiations before striking – but that timeline turned out to be much shorter.
American warplanes and submarines attacked three key nuclear sites in Iran early Sunday, bringing the U.S. military directly into Israel’s war and prompting fears that the strikes could lead to more dangerous escalations across the Middle East.
President Trump said the objective of the strikes “was the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s No. 1 state sponsor of terror.” He claimed success, saying in a televised address from the White House that the nuclear facilities had been “completely and totally obliterated.” That claim could not be independently verified.
Trump has referred to this as very successful and – if I’m understanding his statement – essentially done. I don’t think that’s how it works. My understanding is that there’s real uncertainty about how many strikes it would take to destroy especially the Fordow facility, which is buried deep in a mountainside. So I think we should be skeptical about how we know how successful this was. You need after action reports to have any sense of what actually happened. The geography here, the composition of the mountainside, how it interacts with these particular munitions. These are incredibly complicated and make outcomes uncertain. (I’m going from memory since we’re reacting to breaking news. So keep that in mind.) The US has conducted extensive testing on these “bunker buster” bombs. And there has been extensive planning going back a number of years on how this attack specifically would be carried out. The Pentagon produces and maintains war plans on almost everything. But this specifically has been planned out in great detail and over many years.
Has Fordow been destroyed as Trump seems to be saying? I very much doubt the military planners would be stating that so confidently at this point.
Let me add a political judgment where, unlike with munitions, I feel like I have understanding of the situation. Trump’s statement on Truth Social was very much: ‘We did it. It worked. It’s done.’ I think Trump felt like he’d gotten himself far out on a limb with his threats and was now in a position where if he didn’t act he’d again be mocked as someone who always caves in response to fear or pressure – TACO, as they’re now saying. So he was stuck there and it was weighing on him. Now he feels like he’s addressed it. He acted.
GOOGLE AI offers these reactions from Jewish groups:
World Jewish Congress (WJC): The World Jewish Congress views these strikes as a “meaningful step toward securing peace” and sees a nuclear-armed Iran as a “grave threat” to Western civilization and global security.
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations: This organization described the strikes as “defensive” and necessary to prevent Iran from reaching a nuclear threshold.
Jewish Federation of Greater Washington: They are closely following developments and emphasize their support for Israel’s right to self-defense in the face of a nuclear-armed Iran.
AIPAC: AIPAC has publicly thanked political figures who support the strikes, viewing them as an act of self-defense against Iran’s nuclear proliferation efforts.
Anti-Defamation League (ADL): The ADL views the attack as an act of self-defense, citing Iran’s history of violating nonproliferation commitments. They see a nuclear-armed Iran as a serious threat to Israel and the global community.
International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ): The IFCJ has launched an emergency campaign to provide support to Israel, including installing bomb shelters and offering aid to victims of Iranian missile attacks.
GOOGLE AI also offers these perspectives:
Iranian Jewish Community: The Iranian Jewish community has condemned the strikes, calling them “savage Zionist aggression” and expressing support for the Iranian response. However, it’s important to note that these statements likely reflect the limited freedom of expression for minorities in Iran.
Jewish Organizations with Differing Views: Some Jewish organizations may not have signed the joint statement supporting the strikes due to various reasons, such as being apolitical or having different perspectives on the effectiveness of military action.
Focus on Diplomacy: Some individuals within the Jewish community believe that diplomacy, rather than military action, is a more effective way to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
CNN: Top Democrats on the intelligence committees were kept in the dark. Their Republican counterparts were briefed, even though they all are members of the gang of eight, who are usually almost always notified before major U.S. Military engagements. pic.twitter.com/pUtY2H6ZG3
Donald Trump, a weak and dangerously reckless president, has put the United States on a path to a war in the Middle East that the country does not want, the law does not allow, and our security does not demand.
Our president knows nothing about history. And history tells us…
This is why Trump immediately saying it was “completely destroyed” while offering zero proof of this may end up being a massively embarrassing blunder even for him & just his usual pathological lying and bluster. I’ll never understand why *anyone* ever believes anything he says. https://t.co/Ql0Z6wh3XZ
Iran posed no imminent threat of attack to the United States. Iran was not close to building a deliverable nuclear weapon. The negotiations Israel scuttled with their strikes held the potential for success.
The US attack on the nuclear facilities is, in my opinion, the right call. We will see what the results are, but now the key is suppressing surface to surface missile fire, and then negotiate to end the fight with Iran.
Good call by the President
— Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) ???? (@AdamKinzinger) June 21, 2025
Five things to remember about war:
1. Many things reported with confidence in the first hours and days will turn out not to be true
2. Whatever they say, the people who start wars are often thinking chiefly about domestic politics
CNN guest and retired General Mark Kimmitt on President Trump bombing Iran: “Well, I’m fascinated and candidly, I’m impressed. I never really could understand what the two week pause meant or what it was for, what was left to negotiate. What were we going to expect the Iranians… pic.twitter.com/Zb8UURYix9
President Trump made a difficult but necessary decision to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear-armed state. The world cannot afford another regime with nuclear weapons. This action reinforces a clear message, “diplomacy backed by strength keeps peace.”
Iran’s immediate response – the firing of about 100 drones
into Israel, many of which were shot down – appears an opening gambit; meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his country’s airstrikes would continue
“for as many days as it takes.”
The Conversation turned to Javed Ali, an expert on Middle East affairs
at the University of Michigan and a former senior official at the National Security Council during the first Trump administration, to talk through why Israel chose now to strike and what the implications are for U.S. policy on Iran.
Why did Israel strike now?
There was a combination of factors that led up to this moment.
One of the more immediate reasons was that an International Atomic Energy Agency report found that Iran was making progress toward enriching uranium
to a degree that, in theory at least, would allow Tehran to very quickly upgrade to a weapons-grade level. That is the thrust of what Netanyahu has said by way of reason for the attack now – that intelligence shows that Iran was getting closer to a possible breakout status
for a nuclear weapon.
But there is a confluence of other factors that have built up over the last year and a half, ever since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack
by Hamas in Israel.
Iran’s proxy Axis of Resistance
– that is, regional groups aligned with Iran and supported militarily by Tehran, including Hamas and Hezbollah – doesn’t present the same level of threat to Israel as it did in the pre-Oct. 7 landscape.
In the past, an Israeli attack of the sort we are seeing now would have invited a multidirectional response
from all corners of the resistance – and we saw this in the early days after the Oct. 7 attack.
As of now, none of Iran’s resistance partners have done anything in response to the latest strike – and that is, in large part, due to the fact that Israel has successfully degraded these group’s capabilities through a series of campaigns and operations. The United States has also contributed to this effort to a degree with sustained operations against the Houthis in Yemen from March to May this year, including hundreds of airstrikes
.
Further, Israel’s previous attacks on Iran
in April and October 2024 managed to degrade Iran’s ballistic and surface-to-air missiles and air defense radar systems. This likely played into Israel’s calculations, too.
Lastly, Israel knows that it has a strong supporter in the White House with President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress. Washington may not be 100% aligned with Tel Aviv on every issue, but at the moment there is no criticism from the the White House or Republican members of Congress on Israel’s attacks.
There may have been some dialogue between Netanyahu and the Trump administration over the timing of the Israeli strike preceding yesterday’s attacks, during which Israel would have made the case that the time is right now to launch a very different type of campaign to really set back Iran’s nuclear program. In recorded remarks
about Israel’s operations, Netanyahu stated he directed his national security team to begin planning for a large-scale campaign against Iran’s nuclear program last November.
Perhaps the White House did push back, saying that it wanted to see if any progress could be made in the talks. Certainly, it has been reported
that Trump told Netanyahu in a phone call on June 10 that he believed a deal with Tehran could be negotiated.
Regardless, Netanyahu still went ahead with the strike.
Indeed some observers have posited that collapsing the negotiations
between the U.S. and Iran may have been one of the intentions of Netanyahu, who has long opposed any deal with Tehran and has reportedly been irked
by Trump’s reversal on the issue. During his first administration, Trump unilaterally pulled the U.S. out
of a previous nuclear deal.
A newspaper shows the portraits of Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and White House special envoy Steve Witkoff, who were due to meet in Oman. Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images
What should we make of the US response to the strike?
The White House hasn’t criticized Israel in its response to the strike, merely stating that it wasn’t involved
.
In my assessment, the White House appears to be sincere in the substance of what it is saying: that there was no overt and direct U.S. involvement with Israel during the actual strike. As for U.S. involvement in any planning or intelligence sharing ahead of the strike, we may never know.
But this is largely messaging for Iran: “We didn’t attack you. Israel attacked you.”
The U.S. is clearly worried that any response in Tehran may involve U.S. assets in the region. In the past, parts of Iran’s proxy network have hit American bases in Jordan
and Iraq
. Backing up this being a real concern in Washington is the fact that in advance of Israel’s strike, it already made moves to protect some of its assets in the region
and remove personnel.
Has Iran said whether US targets will be included in its response?
On June 11, Iranian Defense Minister Aziz Nasrizadeh warned that if Israel
were to attack, Tehran would respond against U.S. personnel and bases in the region – but that hasn’t happened yet.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and military officials must know that attacking U.S. targets would be very risky and would lead to a significant response that would likely be even more damaging than Israel’s latest attacks – including putting a potential deal over its nuclear program at risk. And the U.S. has the capability to hit Iran even harder than Israel, both militarily and through the extension of sanctions
that have already been very punishing to the Iranian economy.
Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, points to a red line he drew on a graphic of a bomb while addressing the United Nations on Sept. 27, 2012. Mario Tama/Getty Images
Ultimately, it will be Khamenei
who decides Iran’s response – and he remains firmly in control of Iran’s national security apparatus despite his advanced age. He knows he will have to walk a fine line to avoid drawing the U.S. into a military campaign.
So how might Iran respond in coming weeks?
Despite the challenges facing Iran at the moment, Iran will, I believe, have to respond in a way that goes beyond its previous attacks on Israel.
Reports of drone attacks against Israel on June 13 fit within the framework of the attack Iran launched
against Israel in April 2024 that included a combined salvo of almost 300 ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones over several hours. Despite the damage Israel has inflicted against Iran through its series of operations, Iran probably still possesses
thousands or tens of thousands of these types of weapons that it can use against various targets in the region.
Iran could look at targets outside Israel, without necessarily hitting the U.S. directly – for example, by attacking maritime targets in the Persian Gulf and in effect closing the Strait of Hormuz
. U.S. military planners have long been concerned about Iranian naval attacks using small boats
for ramming or small arms attacks against shipping in the Persian Gulf.
Another option would be for Iran to increase its involvement in terrorism activities in the region. Tehran’s proxy groups may be diminished, but Iran still has its Quds Force
, through which the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps conducts nonstate and unconventional warfare. Will the Quds Force
look toward targeted assassinations, bombings, or kidnappings as part of Iran’s retaliatory options? It has employed such tactics in the past.
And beyond conventional weapons, Iran also has pretty significant cyber capabilities
that it has used against Israel, the United States and Saudi Arabia, among others.
Where does this leave US-Iran talks?
It would appear Trump is still holding open the possibility of some kind of deal with Iran. In his statement following the Israel attack, he warned Tehran that if it didn’t come back to the table and cut a deal, the next Israeli attack would be
“even more brutal.”
The attack could push Iran into reengaging in talks that were seemingly stalling in recent weeks. Certainly that seems to be the thrust of Trump’s messaging.
But the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists in the attack, and the apparent wounding of one of the negotiators, may convince Tehran to double down on a path toward a nuclear weapon as the only means of a deterrence against Israel, especially if it suspects U.S. involvement.
How big a bomb was Donald Trump’s military parade that celebrated the Army’s 250th anniversary and — coincidental or not — his birthday?
It was so bad even some tanks called in sick.
It was so bad North Korea sent a sympathy card.
It was so bad the bulk of the audience was made up of tumbleweeds.
It was so bad even the Proud Boys said, “Nah, we’ve got brunch.”
it was so empty Trump’s ego finally had room to breathe.
It made the atomic bomb in Hiroshima look like a gentle fireworks show at a retirement home.
How many attended? The White House says 250,000. Other estimates say 75,000. The police suggested it might be closer to 15,000 to 20,000.
Trump had long wanted to have a big parade after seeing one in France. Plus, there have been all those photos and films over the years of ‘strongmen” (i.e. dictators) holding big parades with The Leader beaming, making a speech, and big cheering crowds. So if big crowds attended Trump could have emitted an image of a strong leader in front of big military with cheering throngs.
On Saturday, President Donald Trump held a hideously expensive military parade in Washington, D.C., on his birthday. Trump and his top officials stood on a stage at the National Mall behind two tanks, before two large digital American flags. Military bands and troops, some on horses, some in vehicles, some in tanks, others in Howitzers, marched in the streets. So did a few robot dogs. An army parachute team jumped down. Helicopters flew over. Drones flew by. There were many, many tanks.
The spectacle was billed as honoring the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday — and planners put in admirable effort to sell this fiction, with processions designed to honor key times in American military history. In reality, the event was just one part of the Trump administration’s vast, billion-dollar government effort to make the leader feel good about himself.
The weekend’s pageantry, which some administration officials referred to as “Donald Trump’s birthday parade” behind closed doors, fulfilled the president’s longtime desire for a grand military parade. Starting at the Pentagon in Virginia, the troops in the parade — who honored the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Global War on Terror — had to walk for about two-and-a-half miles.
And:
For an event that shut down much of central Washington D.C., closed key roads, and reportedly cost up to $45 million, the promise of a display of America’s military might — that just coincidentally happened to fall on Trump’s birthday — didn’t exactly draw out legions of his fans. Instead, the crowd of supporters, servicemembers, curious locals, and military-adjacent spectators who braved the oppressive heat and humidity of a post-thunderstorm D.C. managed to just fill out their allotted side of the street over several blocks in front of the White House, with plenty of room to spare.
In front of the central stage, a crowd befitting a midsize concert gathered in view of Jumbotrons. The lawns surrounding the Washington monument — which have hosted countless inaugurations, protests, concerts, and gatherings — were largely unused overflow space.
When the TV broadcast showed the crowd risers along the parade route, they were sparsely filled. The National Park Service issued permits for 250,000 people for the National Mall festival and the military parade. An aerial parade of historic military aircraft flew above the National Mall, traversing a course from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Memorial that — despite clear anticipation of crowds by event organizers — was more empty field and food truck line than crowd.
Though rock music blared on TV, the parade itself was eerily quiet. One video posted on X shows tanks squeaking past nearly silent crowds, sounding like a grocery cart in need of grease.
In the weeks leading up to his birthday and the parade, Trump told close associates that protesters were going to try to overshadow the military parade, including in media coverage, in D.C. and elsewhere, and that he was determined not to let that happen, a source with knowledge of the matter and another person briefed on it tell another person briefed on it tell Rolling Stone.
Trump failed in that goal as well. The No King Day protests drew millions. G. Elliot Morris:
The “No Kings Day” nationwide rallies against Donald Trump/for democracy on Saturday turned out millions of people.
That’s per a collective crowdsourcing effort led by Strength In Numbers, and involving many members of the independent data journalism community. We systematized reports from official sources, accounts from the media, and self-reported attendance from thousands of social media posts into a single spreadsheet. (Researchers, please take our data!)
As of midnight on Sunday, June 15, we have data from about 40% of No Kings Day events held yesterday, accounting for over 2.6m attendees. According to our back-of-the-envelope math, that puts total attendance somewhere in the 4-6 million people range. That means roughly 1.2-1.8% of the U.S. population attended a No Kings Day event somewhere in the country yesterday. Organizers say 5m turned out, but don’t release public event-by-event numbers.
I’ve seen happier birthday boys at Chuck E. Cheese when the mouse’s head accidentally fell off. pic.twitter.com/LLKxAdrc8R
Trump looking absolutely inconsolable at his fascist-themed 79th birthday party which no one turned up to other than those who had to because he’s their boss. pic.twitter.com/3BqYLrn8f0
“As of midnight on Sunday, June 15, we have data from about 40% of No Kings Day events held yesterday, accounting for over 2.6m attendees. According to our back-of-the-envelope math, that puts total attendance somewhere in the 4-6 million people range.”https://t.co/XIOGTBdg78
BREAKING: New reporting reveals how panicked Donald Trump and his inner circle are that yesterday’s protest against Trump was the largest protest in American history. The dam is breaking. Trump is weaker than ever.
— Democratic Wins Media (@DemocraticWins) June 15, 2025
#TrumpParade
. Straight up. PISSED OFF SOLDIER SABOTAGE WAS IN FULL EFFECT
The soldiers in this parade DELIBERATELY fucked it up or their commanders just did not care about until marching or disciple or appearance to send a message: We hate this duty.
What’s unfortunate for the Army, who today was supposed to celebrate, is that Trump had to make today a partisan event, and steal their thunder to make it about his birthday, so half the country refused to show up. Though in all fairness, his people didn’t show up either.
i’m surprised by how low energy and farcical that whole military parade situation was. I was expecting Moscow 1945 and we got Spirit Halloween instead.
I found myself humming Elton John’s “Your Song” as I watched the first videos of Israeli jets bombing the homes of the Islamic Republic’s top generals.
Honestly, like many Iranians in exile, I felt a flicker of joy. We have a saying: when a wicked person dies, a flower blooms. So naturally, we dream of a world blooming into one vast garden — one flower for every petty tyrant sent to hell.
Then came the rockets — Iran’s response, pounding Tel Aviv. Suddenly, another Elton anthem took over in my mind: “Rocket Man.”
“I’m not the man they think I am at home… Oh no, no, no…”
Watching missiles rain down on Tel Aviv shook me. I’ve always admired that city — a vibrant mosaic of diversity, energy, and life. I have friends there. One dear friend is visiting the area right now, and I can’t help but worry for their safety.
But then come my own contradictions.
I’m from Tehran. Born and raised. Went to college there. Married there. I spent most of my life in Iran’s capital before I was forced into exile.
Tehran was where I was arrested over a cartoon. Where I was interrogated. Threatened with death.
And yet, even after 22 years abroad, Tehran still lives in me. I miss it — its chaos, its warmth, its scars.
As I scanned footage of the Israeli airstrikes, something hit harder: some of the commanders taken out were men who had lived in my old neighborhood. I recognized the street corners. I recognized the fear. The stunned silence of people gathered around bombed buildings — unsure of who had died, unsure of what would come next.
And just like that, I was back inside my own childhood.
I wasn’t even 11 in September 1980 when Saddam’s MiGs first attacked Tehran. I remember standing on the rooftop, watching smoke rise from Mehrabad Airport — just four miles from our home. Two weeks later, we fled to Shiraz, hoping it would be safer.
It wasn’t.
An Iraqi MiG-21 bombed a spot not far from my grandfather’s house. He was a retired general, unfazed by the chaos. But I remember the sirens. The blasts of anti-aircraft guns so loud they shook our bones. And the darkness. Night after night, the lights went out so Iraqi pilots couldn’t find their targets. We lived in fear, lit only by silence and flashes in the sky.
In high school, there was an apprenticeship program. One day a week, we’d shadow professionals. In 11th grade, I was assigned to an orthopedic surgeon who worked in an operating room sometimes filled with wounded soldiers. The scent of dried blood, shattered bones, and trench infections still haunts me. Watching the latest videos from Tel Aviv and Tehran brought it all back — not just the memories, but the smells, the noise, the dread.
Back then, we teenagers turned war into ritual. We’d bet on the types of jets flying overhead — MiG-23, MiG-21, or the rare, thunderous MiG-25. We could distinguish the shrieks of F-4 Phantoms, F-5s, and Tomcats by ear. We were adrenaline junkies by default. But we also knew loss. Our classrooms felt like morgues on some days — boys waiting to hear whether their father, or brother, or cousin had returned from the front lines… or not.
Here we are again. This time, it’s not Saddam Hussein dragging us into war. It’s our own government.
The Islamic Republic has suspended Iran in a permanent state of crisis. A country with breathtaking landscapes, deep culture, and immense human potential, wasted by a regime that chooses death over dignity. Ayatollah Khamenei’s obsession with nuclear power has scorched every opportunity for diplomacy. He has traded the nation’s future for uranium and ideology.
This isn’t strategy. It’s madness, wrapped in religious garments and fueled by oil money.
To build nukes and spread fear across the Middle East, Khamenei stripped Iranians of freedom, life, and love — unleashing his ruthless thugs on the nation, much like Scar seizing the Pride Lands with his hyenas after murdering Mufasa in “The Lion King.”
Khamenei and his hyenas have built fortunes on fear. And the cost has been borne by tens of millions of Iranians — people who could have thrived in peace, but instead have suffered for decades under a system designed to exploit, not serve.
Now, many of us are feeling the same dread that people in both Tel Aviv and Tehran are experiencing: fear, uncertainty, and a flood of unanswered questions.
What is Netanyahu’s endgame? How does this conflict actually end?
He’s already severed the heads of many of Khamenei’s serpents — Hamas, Hezbollah, and others. But when the dust finally settles, the real question may not be who takes the throne — but whether there’s still a throne worth taking.
Maybe the real battle isn’t about power at all. Maybe it’s about walking away from the whole illusion.
“Oh, I’ve finally decided my future lies… beyond the yellow brick road.”
Copyright 2025 Nik Kowsar, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Nik Kowsar is an award-winning Iranian-American journalist, cartoonist, and water issues analyst based in Washington, D.C. He was exiled to Canada and the U.S. after his arrest for a cartoon satirizing a powerful cleric.
Feedspot has listed The Moderate Voice as one of the top 15 centrist blogs on the web. GO HERE to read the details.
A word about The Moderate Voice. I started it in 2003 with a version on BlogSpot. AFter a few months moved it from Blogspot to the first in a series of other blog friendly platforms. I tended to be a moderate Republican (20th century style, not a la Susan Collins). I added a blogger to my right and a blogger to the left who could post whatever they wanted with no interference from me.
As time went on The Moderate Voice added many more bloggers and in blogging’s heyday won awards for best centrist blog, best independent blog. When Barack Obama ran for election in 2007 The Moderate Voice was among a handful of blogs from varying points of view that were selected to post on the Newsweek news site until election day. Some TMV’s bloggers appeared on BBC, CBC and I did a string of appearances on MSNBC during it’s early years and a large batch of appearances on CNN as a talking head independent blogger during Don Lemon’s earlier days.
The goal is still to provide a good mix of posts and cartoons including some particularly thoughtful posts.
Christopher Pelkey was shot and killed in a road range incident in 2021. On May 8, 2025, at the sentencing hearing for his killer, an AI video reconstruction of Pelkey delivered a victim impact statement
. The trial judge reported being deeply moved
by this performance and issued the maximum sentence for manslaughter.
As part of the ceremonies to mark Israel’s 77th year of independence on April 30, 2025, officials had planned to host a concert featuring four iconic Israeli singers
. All four had died years earlier. The plan was to conjure them using AI-generated sound and video. The dead performers were supposed to sing alongside Yardena Arazi, a famous and still very much alive artist. In the end Arazi pulled out, citing the political atmosphere, and the event didn’t happen.
The use of artificial intelligence to “reanimate” the dead for a variety of purposes is quickly gaining traction. Over the past few years, we’ve been studying the moral implications of AI at the Center for Applied Ethics
at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and we find these AI reanimations to be morally problematic.
Before we address the moral challenges the technology raises, it’s important to distinguish AI reanimations, or deepfakes, from so-called griefbots
. Griefbots are chatbots trained on large swaths of data the dead leave behind – social media posts, texts, emails, videos. These chatbots mimic how the departed used to communicate and are meant to make life easier for surviving relations. The deepfakes we are discussing here have other aims; they are meant to promote legal, political and educational causes.
Chris Pelkey was shot and killed in 2021. This AI ‘reanimation’ of him was presented in court as a victim impact statement.
Moral quandaries
The first moral quandary the technology raises has to do with consent: Would the deceased have agreed to do what their likeness is doing? Would the dead Israeli singers have wanted to sing at an Independence ceremony organized by the nation’s current government? Would Pelkey, the road-rage victim, be comfortable with the script his family wrote for his avatar to recite? What would Christie think about her AI double teaching that class?
The answers to these questions can only be deduced circumstantially – from examining the kinds of things the dead did and the views they expressed when alive. And one could ask if the answers even matter. If those in charge of the estates agree to the reanimations, isn’t the question settled? After all, such trustees are the legal representatives of the departed.
But putting aside the question of consent, a more fundamental question remains.
What do these reanimations do to the legacy and reputation of the dead? Doesn’t their reputation depend, to some extent, on the scarcity of appearance, on the fact that the dead can’t show up anymore? Dying can have a salutary effect on the reputation of prominent people; it was good for John F. Kennedy
, and it was good for Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
.
The fifth-century B.C. Athenian leader Pericles understood this well. In his famous Funeral Oration
, delivered at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War, he asserts that a noble death can elevate one’s reputation and wash away their petty misdeeds. That is because the dead are beyond reach and their mystique grows postmortem. “Even extreme virtue will scarcely win you a reputation equal to” that of the dead, he insists.
Do AI reanimations devalue the currency of the dead by forcing them to keep popping up? Do they cheapen and destabilize their reputation by having them comment on events that happened long after their demise?
In addition, these AI representations can be a powerful tool to influence audiences for political or legal purposes. Bringing back a popular dead singer to legitimize a political event and reanimating a dead victim to offer testimony are acts intended to sway an audience’s judgment.
It’s one thing to channel a Churchill or a Roosevelt during a political speech by quoting them or even trying to sound like them. It’s another thing to have “them” speak alongside you. The potential of harnessing nostalgia is supercharged by this technology. Imagine, for example, what the Soviets, who literally worshipped Lenin’s dead body
, would have done with a deep fake of their old icon.
Good intentions
You could argue that because these reanimations are uniquely engaging, they can be used for virtuous purposes. Consider a reanimated Martin Luther King Jr., speaking to our currently polarized and divided nation, urging moderation and unity. Wouldn’t that be grand? Or what about a reanimated Mordechai Anielewicz
, the commander of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, speaking at the trial of a Holocaust denier like David Irving
?
But do we know what MLK would have thought about our current political divisions? Do we know what Anielewicz would have thought about restrictions on pernicious speech? Does bravely campaigning for civil rights mean we should call upon the digital ghost of King to comment on the impact of populism? Does fearlessly fighting the Nazis mean we should dredge up the AI shadow of an old hero to comment on free speech in the digital age?
No one can know with certainty what Martin Luther King Jr. would say about today’s society. AP Photo/Chick Harrity
Even if the political projects these AI avatars served were consistent with the deceased’s views, the problem of manipulation – of using the psychological power of deepfakes to appeal to emotions – remains.
But what about enlisting AI Agatha Christie to teach a writing class? Deep fakes may indeed have salutary uses in educational settings. The likeness of Christie could make students more enthusiastic about writing. Fake Aristotle
could improve the chances that students engage with his austere Nicomachean Ethics. AI Einstein
could help those who want to study physics get their heads around general relativity.
But producing these fakes comes with a great deal of responsibility. After all, given how engaging they can be, it’s possible that the interactions with these representations will be all that students pay attention to, rather than serving as a gateway to exploring the subject further.
Living on in the living
In a poem written in memory of W.B. Yeats
, W.H. Auden tells us that, after the poet’s death, Yeats “became his admirers.” His memory was now “scattered among a hundred cities,” and his work subject to endless interpretation: “the words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living.”
The dead live on in the many ways we reinterpret their words and works. Auden did that to Yeats, and we’re doing it to Auden right here. That’s how people stay in touch with those who are gone. In the end, we believe that using technological prowess to concretely bring them back disrespects them and, perhaps more importantly, is an act of disrespect to ourselves – to our capacity to abstract, think and imagine.
