President Trump announced this week that the June 24th bicentennial celebration he is organizing, dubbed Freedom 250, will be a rally to end all rallies featuring Lee Greenwood and armed forces choirs, after the roster of artists originally scheduled for the broader nonpartisan America 250 celebration backed out amid confusion between the two overlapping events.
Liel Leibovitz, editor at large for Tablet and host of the Rootless podcast, joined Dan Proft on Chicago’s Morning Answer having contributed to a new book from County Highway called 250 Great American Things, a collection of essays celebrating America through the people, places, and principles worth honoring at the 250th anniversary, featuring contributions from Chris Novoselic of Nirvana and essays by Leibovitz himself on Elvis Presley, Star Wars, and Scooby-Doo.
On Iran, Leibovitz said he wants to be careful and respectful but does not understand what is happening. He said Trump in the early phase of the campaign showed genuine vision and courage, taking seriously the threat posed by the Iranian regime in ways no predecessor had, moving against their nuclear capabilities, striking their terror infrastructure and leadership, and appearing poised to actually resolve what has been a forty-seven-year problem for American foreign policy. Then he stopped. Leibovitz said he does not know what was achieved that justified the halt, and that if the result of Operation Epic Fury is leaving the same regime in power with the ability to continue terrorizing Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel, continue controlling a third of the world’s energy traffic through the strait, and continue bolstering China and Russia, then the outcome is a kind of disaster. He said he would like nothing more than to be proven wrong and to return in a few weeks saying Trump had a brilliant plan all along, but right now it looks like another Trump gut instinct that is falling apart rather than a carefully constructed strategy with measurable goals.
He said the confusion over the America 250 versus Freedom 250 celebrations is actually somewhat telling and analogous. Anyone could have seen from a distance that the bicentennial event was going to become a communications catastrophe. The Trump administration did not build alliances, set clear goals, or prepare seriously, and when it fell apart they said they did not want it anyway. The Iran campaign shows signs of the same pattern: bold initial action, no clear endgame, and a pivot to declaring success when the situation became complicated.
On what could still be done, Leibovitz agreed with the framing Proft offered from his conversation the previous day with Rich Goldberg of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, that the most important remaining objective is stripping Iran of the strait card permanently, which experienced military voices say the US Navy could accomplish if directed. He raised the possibility of a formal coalition operation modeled on the first Gulf War, assembling international partners with a shared interest in preventing one regime from controlling so much of the world’s energy supply and conducting a limited operation to open the strait definitively. None of that, he said, is particularly complicated compared to what has already been accomplished, which makes the decision not to do it more rather than less puzzling.
On Qatar’s influence in the United States, prompted by a Foundation for Defense of Democracies report mapping a $400 billion Qatari footprint across American institutions, Leibovitz said the full scope is more alarming than most people realize. The portfolio runs from $84 billion in American defense-related investment down through $25 billion in energy, all the way to $8.5 million in K-12 education and $3.6 million in youth programs, with money reaching local governments including a $5 million contribution to the Los Angeles mayor’s fund to expand prepaid debit card programs for residents impacted by COVID-19. He said the item that terrifies him most is not the large defense and energy investments but the K-12 curriculum money, because it means millions of American children are receiving lesson plans on the Middle East and history whose ultimate financial sponsor is the same state that hosted, sheltered, and funded Hamas. He said Al Jazeera needs to be recognized as what it is, a state-run propaganda network equivalent to Russia Today, and that America’s broader failure to take seriously the sophistication of its enemies’ influence operations is a genuine strategic vulnerability, pointing to Candace Owens currently attending a Vladimir Putin conference in Russia and amplifying Kremlin talking points to her millions of followers as a concrete example of how far that problem extends.