President Trump is leading us through a crazy, violent year.
The God of War is ascendant and began spectacularly with the snatch-and-grab of Venezuelan strongman Maduro in January. It was a flawless operation, almost cinematic in its boldness and execution. Maduro’s all-Cuban Palace guard was essentially wiped out. No American Special Forces were killed, although several were injured.
Coming as it did just six months after another fabulous military operation, the June 2025 stealth bombing of Iran’s nuclear storage facilities, President Trump was flying high.
The Maduro snatch-and-grab was the kind of military success they make movies about. Venezuela was finally freed from the grasp of a tin-pot South American dictator cut in the mold of countless others over the decades. Somoza, Batista, Noriega, Pinochet, Castro.
Speaking of the late dictator, Fidel Castro’s Cuba seemed to sit squarely in the president’s sights in the months following the Maduro takedown. Its government was weaker than ever. With Venezuela’s endless supply of cheap oil cut off, Cuba literally ran out of gas.
The regime established by Castro almost 70 years ago seemed on the brink of failure. We had more than enough naval assets in the Caribbean Sea to easily blockade Cuba and choke it into submission to the United States.
Inexplicably, instead of doing the obvious and following up on the successful decapitation of Venezuela’s corrupt and rotten leadership with a campaign against Cuba’s communist dictatorship, President Trump seemed to lose focus. He shifted his gaze from Cuba, which is 90 miles across the Florida Straits, and focused instead on our old nemesis, the traditional Mideast punching bag, Iran.
The war over there is now three weeks old. The level of violence is extraordinary.
Swarms of guided missiles, drones and smart bombs have flown from both sides. Israeli cities are being hit and so are our Sunni Arab Persian Gulf allies — Kuwait, Oman, the UAE and Bahrain.
Iranian missiles have been fired as far away as Cyprus and Turkey. As of this writing, the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical oil choke point, has been strangled. Iranian missiles have ignited fires on vessels and oil supply depots. The worldwide price of a barrel of oil, and more directly, the painful price of a gallon of gasoline have spiked dramatically since the beginning of hostilities.
Aside from the tragic loss of life throughout the conflict zone, most alarming is that President Trump does not seem to have a clear idea of what goal this war with Iran is supposed to accomplish or how the spreading conflict is supposed to end.
To the spreading Mideast violence, there is also the menace of metastasizing antisemitism in the United States and abroad.
Last Tuesday, hate raised its ugly head. A Lebanese Muslim whose family was tragically killed in an Israeli attack on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon went hunting for revenge and Jewish blood. He attacked Temple Israel outside Detroit, the nation’s largest reform synagogue.
It was packed with babies and daycare kids when he drove a truck with explosives into the school corridors. A tragedy was averted when temple security neutralized the failed mass murderer before he could detonate his bomb filled vehicle.
Meanwhile, last week in New York City, two young Muslim men from Pennsylvania, radicalized by ISIS websites, attempted to bomb crowds of protestors outside the mayor’s mansion. The fact that the mayor is Muslim was apparently lost on the attempted killers. Mass casualties were only averted when the devices did not explode, and the attackers were subdued by heroic NYPD officers.
There have been numerous other attacks on Jewish institutions in America and abroad. We needed the war in Iran like a hole in the head.
Even more than the period immediately following the Oct. 7, 2023, Gaza invasion of Israel, many are fearful that the spreading Iran war will make living openly as a Jewish American more perilous.
The temple that Erica and I belong to has sent a message to worried congregants. “Now, more than ever, we need to stand together. We have a responsibility to protect our community and ensure that every one of our institutions remains open and vibrant in the face of those who hate us.”
This time of year, it is a Jewish tradition to read in the Book of Exodus: “Be strong, be strong, and let us strengthen one another.”
