The Israel/Iran Situation, But With Jokes

Giggle barrage incoming!

Image courtesy of NurPhoto via Getty.

Israel is the worst country in the world according to your niece. Iran is a country whose government has a bold vision for the seventh century. Their simmering conflict has the terrifying potential to pre-empt NBA playoff games. Leaders around the world are concerned that a war could hurt their favorable/unfavorable rating by as much as a point, and also cause a bunch of people to die or whatever. The situation is volatile, and right now, only one thing seems certain: The outcome will be bad for children in Gaza, because everything somehow always is.

Iran attacked Israel with missiles and drones on Sunday. The attack was retaliation for an Israeli strike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus that killed a top Iranian general. That attack was retaliation for Iran’s support for anti-Israel terrorist groups, which was retaliation for Israeli control of land beyond the 1967 borders, which was retaliation for the Seven Days War, which was retaliation for…you know what, we can’t do this. Let’s leave it here: In 550 BC Cyrus the Great founded the Achaemenid Dynasty, and long story short, here we are.

The Iranian attack involved more than 300 missiles and drones. Many were low-tech models that took hours to get to Israel, especially the ones that had to layover in Atlanta, and fucking everything lays over in Atlanta. The drones solved the “takes too long to get to Israel” problem by being shot down in other countries or failing in crashes that Boeing executives called “Not our fault for once.” Iran did manage to land one righteous blow against the mortal enemy of Muslims everywhere: Seven year-old Bedouin girls. One was injured by shrapnel. Despite that mighty blow to the Infidel, the Iranian regime may be embarrassed that they failed to inflict casualties that exceed your average Philadelphia Eagles watch party.

The attack marks a major escalation in the conflict between Israel and Iran. For decades, Iran — much like an Alpha Mean Girl at a high school — has used others to fight its battles. Iranian proxies include Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, the Syrian government, Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a really angry guy named Ahmad, Ahmad’s cousin, Jiffy Lube, a robot from Battlebots that’s been reprogrammed to hate Jews, and, of course, Maroon 5. Israel has vowed to respond to Iran’s attack even though it’s really busy right now with work and Passover and the kitchen reno and one-and-a-half other wars.

The big question is: What will Israel’s response be? Possible responses range from a shock-and-awe airstrike that reduces Iranian military sites to rubble and a really mean Facebook post in which they call Ayatollah Khamenei “Ayatollah So-Lame-Y”. President Biden has urged Netanyahu to “take the win”, citing Israel’s vital interest in not upsetting the politics of upper midwest swing states. More hawkish elements in the West are encouraging a robust response, noting that mid-2000s reboots are big right now, and getting dragged into a disastrous Middle East quagmire could be the next Gossip Girl. Netanyahu is probably favoring a response that squanders good will towards Israel and weakens his country’s strategic position, because every action he’s taken in the past 15 years has had that effect.

An Israeli attack on Iran might spur another Iranian response. But doing nothing might send the signal that launching hundreds of missiles will be laughed off as impish hijinks. A strike against Iranian proxies might be a “Goldilocks” solution, but remember: Those bears ate Goldilocks and sent her bones to her family (in the original German version of the tale). Israel’s other options seem similarly fraught. They could put a flaming bag of dog shit on Khamenei’s doorstep, ring the bell, and then run, but what if someone else answers the door? They could create a fake Tinder profile, catfish the leader of the Revolutionary Guard, take a picture of him waiting in a coffee shop holding a red rose, and then tweet it with “LOL what a DOUCHE!!! 😂😂😂”, but that could generate sympathy for Iran. Of course, whatever course of action Israel takes will be fairly and objectively assessed by an international community that has consistent and well-defined standards for haha just kidding they’ll call it “genocide” and pass 17 angry UN resolutions no matter what Israel does.

Israel will probably consider its allies’ preferences even though Biden and Netanyahu are like an old married couple who are finally admitting that they hate each other. The US and UK shot down missiles and drones on Sunday, plus the US was key to Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile defense: We devoted $2.6 billion to the project and secured the name “Iron Dome” from an ‘80s hair metal band. Jordan and Saudi Arabia also appear to have aided Israel’s defense, though Jordan claimed that it was merely defending its own airspace and Saudi Arabia said they thought the drone was a bat and whacked it with a broom. Of course, the October 7 attack was perpetrated partly to prevent the normalization of Saudi-Israeli relations (and partly to make it easy to identify the most obnoxious people on any American college campus). Iran’s strike helped realign Israeli and Saudi interests, but those interests could diverge again if Israel over-reacts, or if they accidentally bomb another charity run by a celebrity chef.

As of press time, Jamie Oliver’s Food Foundation reported no damage.

Iran’s choices are similarly complex. The government is increasingly under the influence of the Paydari Front, a hard-line religious group, and consider: They are a hard-line religious group compared to the people who were already running Iran! The government was outraged by the Damascus embassy attack and argued that embassies are sacrosanct, though they implored people not to google “Iranian embassy attack”. For the first time in their 45-year rule, the Iranian regime has directly attacked the country they call the “Little Satan”, a nickname meant to make Israel sound evil that actually just makes them sound cute. The regime is also struggling to maintain power at home, as religious hardliners have implemented policies including chastity laws, mandatory hijabs for women, and other measures that makes John Lithgow’s character in Footloose seem like Hugh Hefner.

The situation in the Middle East is volatile. Of course, the sentence “the situation in the Middle East is volatile” has been true every day for the past 10,000 years, so in a way: Everything’s normal. We’ll soon learn what Israel’s response will be, and also whether that response will ignite a cycle of violence to add to the other 600-odd cycles of violence currently active in the region. Americans will be hoping for peace, if for no other reason than it reduces the odds of the news breaking into the Lakers-Nuggets series, which is shaping up to be a star-studded matchup with real upset potential.

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