Greets and saluts from the NYC metro area.

Good news first: Trump somehow was convinced to sign a disaster declaration to speed aid to Puerto Rico following the series of quakes that have rocked the island. Millions of Americans are still without power this morning as power is slowly getting restored to the island. NY has sent teams of experts to help get the grid restored.

Now the bad:
Trump’s gambit that Iran wouldn’t respond clearly failed. Iran did respond with missile strikes against a pair of bases in Iraq that house US forces. What’s curious is that reports indicate the Iranians apparently tipped off Iraq that the missiles were going to be coming, which means that Iran has no quarrel with Iraq - this was a message to Trump. The targeting also is interesting since it is proof that the Iranian missiles are accurate enough to not hit the forces there. Unlike the first 2 gulf wars where Iraq was firing scuds without having much luck or skill to hit targets, the Iranians have better sensors on those weapons to be able to provide targeting data that avoided collateral damage inside Iraq or to hit US forces directly at those bases.

It was a warning, and I doubt any in Trumpworld will recognize the peril here - this isn’t going to be a cakewalk. Iran has more sophisticated weapons than Iraq, they have a much larger military, a much larger country, and the US has Iranian blood on its hands, just as surely as Suleimani had American blood on his. Trump’s escalations wont bring Iran to heel.

Just the opposite - and this is where we get the ugly:

Iran will go nuclear. This is no longer a question of if, but when. Iran sees how North Korea has played Trump and gotten both time and space to build nukes and missiles so that they can deter US action and blackmail their neighbors. Iran will do the same, and there’s nothing Trump can offer that would bring them back into a JCPOA structure or other denuclearization deal. We are less safe because of it - and that should be worrying to everyone, because if Iran gets nukes, Saudi Arabia and other Sunni led countries will seek nukes as well. Israel’s ambiguous nuclear stance is well known, but everyone concedes Israel has nukes. Iran’s first use would likely be to deter the Saudis and other Sunni-dominated countries in the region, not Israel.

But the sum total here is that nuclear proliferation will be a huge thing going forward and Trump is directly to blame for that. Ever since taking office, he’s undermined nonproliferation efforts, including abrogating the JCPOA, talking about using nukes against our enemies, and even talked of rolling back treaties with Russia.