IT'S NOT CASEY AT THE BAT

It is very difficult to think coherently about the current war the United States and Israel are fighting against Iran.

But America's chief executive never let incoherence stop him.

So why should it stop the rest of us?

There are, actually, many reasons it should. 

One is that incoherence is often the hallmark of disaster.  

It was, for example, in 1914, when Europe's elder statesmen allowed a Serbian shooting of an Austrian prince to trigger a world war.  Also in 1964, when either non-existent or invited attacks on American warships in the Gulf of Tonkin resulted in Congress giving LBJ the green light to "take all necessary measures" in Vietnam. And then in 2003, when non-existent weapons of mass destruction became the reason for invading Iraq.

In all of these cases, the conclusion in the form of actual policy did not really follow from the assumed cause. Either the response did not fit (or was ridiculously disproportionate to) the actual cause, as was the case with World War I, or the cause itself was false, as was true with Iraq in 2003, or both the fit and (probably) the cause were suspect, as was (likely) the case in the Tonkin Gulf.

Another is that incoherence can signal irrationality.

People who speak incoherently are often unintelligible.  They appear to be confused, illogical, scattered. 

This can be dangerous in a leader.

But not always.

Sometimes apparent unintelligence or confusion is just a mask.  

That was the case with Casey Stengel.

Stengel was the manager of the New York Yankees  from 1949-1960.  During that tenure, he was difficult (but not impossible)  to understand.  His convoluted syntax, neologisms, non-sequiturs and sheer length baffled as many as it entertained.  But beneath it all, he was actually quite brilliant. And he led the Yankees to ten pennants and seven World Series victories. 

To understand Stengel, you first had to master his special vocabulary. 

A "Ned in the third reader" were five words that meant one was naive. If he thought someone was experienced or shrewd, it came out as "he's no Ned in the third reader."  Rookie ballplayers were all "the Youth of America"; individually they were each a "green pea".  A "plumber" was a good fielder but a "road apple" was a bum. A player who chased women was "whiskey slick". "Worm killers" were low balls.  "Hold the gun" meant he wanted to change pitchers; it was usually said to the on-deck hitter. "Amazin'" generally meant good (but was comically applied to the expansion New York Mets he managed from 1962-1965, a team that was very bad).  And since he could not remember names, everyone was a "fella". As in my "fella in left". Even an unforgettable great like Mickey Mantle was "that fella of mine."

Nothing ever began with Casey Stengel. 

It "commenced".

And anytime he was fired or released from a club, which was often, he claimed to have been "discharged".   As he explained  in 1958, "we call it discharged because there was no question I had to leave."

The second thing you had to do to understand Casey was more difficult to master.

You had to hear the commas or periods so you knew when one thought ended and the next, as it were, commenced. 

He was the James Joyce of baseball.  The words poured out along with the thoughts, and where those thoughts stopped and started was obvious only to the experienced listener. In biographies of him, there are page long annotated accounts of a half hour interview he did with Ken Meyer of WBZ (Boston) in 1973. At one point, he was praising Roberto Clemente for beating him during the 1960 World Series, one of the three the Yankees lost in their ten trips to the fall classic under Stengel. 

Here's Casey's stream of consciousness, as punctuated by Meyer:

"Clemente commenced being alive again. I mean he was a right fielder--he's like Kaline. He has to throw to second base. You run a ball out and you run hard, and he's facin' throwin' to second, he's facin' throwin' to first, and there, facin' there, but when you get to first base and you go to third just thinkin' a man that hits that hits the ball down the right field line the right fielder has to turn around to throw to third. He's out of position, where a left handed man on the foul line is in position to throw to second, to throw to third on the hit and run plays from first to third. And in his hitting. In turning around, a left-handed man, you'd think he'd be better out in right field, but he displayed, he and Kaline, that it's an amazing thing how a right handed thrower could be that great as they were in the outfield. So then--Clemente got better. Now when it comes to hitting, you'd--he's so quick with the wrists  and, you know with the bat. Every time we went to pitch different to him, we were supposed to throw at him, back of him, you know, or move him back from home plate, and then we'd pitch the ball over the plate, why he could hit down on the ball and he rubbed the balls out, which they said the effort he put into his work is like Gowdy said. The effort he puts into his work all through the Series showed up, and it showed up there that he beat out three of those balls on me in the infield and if he hadn't I woulda finally won the last Series."

Translation:

Clemente cost the Yankees in game 5 because his arm made it impossible for them to move runners from first to third on a single to right field in the seventh inning and bring home a run, which at that point would have narrowed the Pirates lead to one run.

And Clemente beat them again in game 7, which they lost by a single run (and with it the World Series), when a run scored in the eighth as he (i) "hit down on the ball and . . . rubbed the ball[] out", i.e., swung so hard that he hit a high chopper rather than a grounder, and (ii) beat it out with his speed.

One of Stengel's more infamous orations occurred before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Anti-Trust and Monopoly in 1958.  

Stengel was among a group of players called to testify on a bill exempting baseball from the anti-trust laws.  The owners wanted the bill, which would have strengthened the anti-trust exemption the Supreme Court gave baseball in 1922,  because it legalized both the reserve clause that bound players to teams for life  and the franchise restrictions which limited the number of teams in any one market.

Stengel was asked his "views on the legislation" and spoke for forty-five minutes.  

From time to time, in the words of author Robert Creamer, he "went off on . . .  wild stream-of consciousness diversions." 

But . . .

In seven thousand words . . .

Stengel recounted his career as a player, minor league manager and major league manager. He praised the recently created player pension system. He suggested the absence of more minor league teams was based on insufficient local demand but understood the number of major league franchises had not expanded in the decades past. He more than once mentioned how night ball and the advent of radio and television had significantly increased revenues. 

When one Senator asked if he intended to "keep on monopolizing the world's championship in New York City", he defended his own team, explaining that even though competitors filled their parks when  New York came to town, his "hated" Yankees got a mere twenty-seven cents per ticket sold on the windfalls their presence created. For the clubs that didn't enjoy the Yankees' success, he blamed their  owners for putting inferior products on the field.

At one point the subcommittee's chairman apologized by saying "Mr. Stengel, I am not sure I made my question clear". Casey's rejoinder -- "Well, that's all right, I'm not sure I'm going to answer yours perfectly  either" --  brought the house down.  It was the biggest laugh of the day until the last one.  That occurred after Stengel was finished and Mickey Mantle was called to  testify.  Asked his view on the legislation, Mantle replied ""My views are about the same as Casey's."

Stengel's testimony, in Creamer's opinion, "was greeted as a great comic performance." 

"But despite the laughs," Creamer continued, "he was serious." 

In his testimony, and way before his time, he agreed baseball could grow internationally. He even suggested a true "World" series might someday come to pass with national champions fighting each other for the title.  And with today's World Baseball Classic international tournament , perhaps it has. 

"He was prodding Congress,"  Creamer explained. "He was obviously for the status quo but he avoided any direct comment . . . pro or con . . . [and] seemed to be encouraging the subcommittee's inquiry into aspects of the game."

Thirteen days ago, the United States and Israel started a war with Iran.  In violation of applicable law, the war was not declared or otherwise authorized by Congress and Iran posed no imminent threat.

In the days leading up to the war, including in his almost two-hour State of the Union address mere days before, President Trump made no claim of imminent danger nor did he suggest any full-scale war was only days away. Instead, in the days after the attack, either he or others in his administration claimed a threat was imminent because Israel was about to attack Iran and Iran would respond by attacking us.

This is imminence invented.

If Israel was about to attack and we knew Iran would respond by attacking us, none of that was so unforeseeable that Congress and the American public could not have been consulted.  Israel has wanted and planned to attack Iran for years.  In all that time, any President, including Trump, could have gone to Congress and the American people and asked whether America should strike preemptively in the event we learned of a precise Israeli timetable.  

None ever have.

This is not surprising.

Had any American President done so, he would have been derided.

For two reasons.

First, any claim that Iran will attack us once Israel has attacked them is itself a claim to take with an enormous grain of salt.  Iran's responses to past Israeli attacks have been to attack Israel, not us. If that is no longer the case, what has changed ? Have the distinctions between Israel and the United States ceased to exist? Are their acts ours? Is Iran that stupid?

Second, even if the assumed Iranian response were accurate, why would that be a reason to simply follow an Israeli timetable? Israel is our ally. In the highly unlikely circumstance where we know an attack by them will immediately result in an attack on us, why is the correct response not to ask Israel to hold off briefly while the President at the very least seeks Congressional authorization. And if Israel itself is not under imminent threat -- and here it was not -- why should we not insist Israel do so? 

Along with its invented imminence claim, the administration has offered three or four (the number regularly changes) other reasons for going to war now.  One is that Iran intends to develop a nuclear weapon.  The second is that Iran is developing ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States.  The third is that Iran has been killing or taking Americans hostage since 1979 and enough is enough. A fourth appears to be replacing the Iranian government, a/k/a regime change.

None of these, however, justified Trump's unilateral and unsanctioned action.

Iran is nowhere near obtaining ballistic missiles that can hit the US. For years, defense intelligence has estimated that it is at least a decade away from having that capability, and perhaps longer when the difficulties of arming it are considered.  In any case, the threat is not remotely imminent.  And what has happened since 1979 is not imminence at all.  It is ongoing and well known. If patience with Iran's authoritarian theocracy has worn thin, we have had forty-seven years to think about it or more than enough time to fashion a Constitutional response.

The nuclear weapons and regime change claims are particularly troublesome.  

Last summer, when the United States granted Israel's wishes and dropped bunker busters on Iran's nuclear facilities, Trump told us Iran's nuclear program had been obliterated.  Now we are being told Iran still intends to develop a nuke. Who cares? If their program was obliterated months ago, their intentions are meaningless (and certainly present no imminent threat). And if the program wasn't obliterated last summer, the guy who told us it was is either dishonest . . .

Or stupid . . . 

Or incompetent . . .

Or dangerous . . . 

Or all of the above . . .

And in any case . . .

Hardly someone you should trust to start a second (undeclared or unauthorized) war.

The reality here is that Trump is playing an elaborate shell game. His real estate investor/special envoy Steve Witcoff argues repeatedly these days that Iran’s stockpile of 60% enriched uranium is absolute evidence of an existing nuclear program. No one, he says, needs 60% enriched uranium for peaceful purposes. This stockpile, however, is not new. It existed last July, was buried by a bunker buster dropped on Iran’s Isfahan facility, and back then was dismissed as a threat in the aftermath of obliteration. Now, however, there is ostensibly classified intel that Iran somehow has access to it. So, mirabile dictu, Iran is once again a nuclear threat. If so, the only way to seize the stockpile is with ground troops.

In the two weeks that have followed this Trump war of choice, seven American servicemen or women have been killed, ten middle eastern nations are being regularly attacked by Iran, the Strait of Hormuz through which 20% of the world's oil supply passes has been closed and mined, oil prices have sky-rocketed (as has the price of gas at America’s pumps), and the stock market has lost 7% of its value. Meanwhile, one killed Ayatollah/Supreme Leader of Iran has been replaced by another, as have the killed commanders of the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and notwithstanding Trump's invitations (but nothing else) to the contrary, the regime does not appear to be in danger of falling. 

In fact, the regime is not changing precisely because Trump's invitations are hollow.  

As with seizing Iran’s now-magically accessible uranium stockpile, for regime change to happen, ground troops would have to invade. Though the administration argues otherwise, history refutes their optimism. While internal opposition in the Warsaw Pact nations and the old Soviet Union overturned communism without bloodshed in 1989 and thereafter, the regimes themselves allowed their dissidents to organize and refused to use force, as they had on 1956 and 1968, to silence them. This will not be the case in Iran. Throughout its forty-seven year history, Iran’s theocrats have been more than willing to kill dissidents en masse and will no doubt do so now unless either the dissidents stay quiet or the US and Israel invade and eliminate the regime.

Although Trump says he will not send ground troops, he has not completely ruled that out and some are suggesting what looks like at least the beginnings of such a commitment. Bret Stephens, an opinion columnist for The New York Times, has said the US should take over Kharg Island, Iran's oil transport hub twenty miles off shore in the Persian Gulf. That would presumably end Iran's ability to export its oil.  But that is pretty much the case now, so it is unclear what additional leverage occupying the island would provide. In any case, if a full- scale invasion occurs, the US will suffer thousands of casualties for who knows how long a period of time. If the Iranian government falls as a result, there is no obvious organized opposition to replace it. 

Does anyone in this administrative gang that cannot shoot straight remember what happened in Iraq after Saddam was brought down?

Trump’s reaction to all of this wanders from bravado to insouciance and back. 

The war, he says, has either already been won or is “very complete”. In one rally he said it was “won in the first hour.” At another point he said it won’t be over until he says so. At yet another, he said he would settle for nothing less than "unconditional surrender". All these boasts share anything from little to absolutely no basis in reality, the last particularly.  The only American wars that ended in unconditional surrender were the Civil War and World War II and each cost hundreds of thousands in fallen soldiers.

Meanwhile . . .

Trump wore a campaign hat to one dignified transfer, missed the second, referred to service deaths as just “the way it is” in war, and -- to make his Congressional enablers who voted against a war powers resolution happy -- even called the whole mess "a short term excursion". The tomahawk strike that killed over a hundred Iranian school girls was, he falsely claimed, launched by Iran. And, says President Bone Spurs, the oil tanker captains should get some “guts” and plow through Hormuz. The promised naval escorts have not been deployed and some tankers have already been attacked. 

But he's not the captain piloting those ships.

In 1988, during a Vice-Presidential debate, the GOP nominee was Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle. Responding to claims that his resume for the job was a little thin, Quayle noted that he had “as much experience in Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency.”  To which, in a put down for the ages, the Democratic nominee responded “Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy.”

Kennedy, a war hero, never lacked for courage and never asked someone else to stand in the way of a bullet he wouldn’t take himself.

Donald Trump is no Jack Kennedy.

And though from time to time he sounds like him . . .

He’s no Casey Stengel either.