Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Part I

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A Ceasefire Between Israel and Iran? President Trump Announces (On Truth Social) That Iran and Israel Have Reached a Ceasefire Agreement

Events continued to unfold just over the last couple of days, particularly in the Middle East, and we’re looking specifically at the military action taken by Israel against Iran, retaliation by Iran against Israel, the entry of the United States and our armed forces into the picture on Sunday morning, a retaliation that came from Iran, but in a limited sense it was a missile attack upon a US military base in Qatar.

The very interesting thing about this, it really comes down to two very interesting things. Number one, it was really clear that Iran was not seeking to harm American military personnel. So as you look at this in the theater of world affairs, this was an act in the theater in which Iran was able to say to the nations, and for that matter, most importantly, probably to its own people, that it had undertaken a retaliatory strike against the United States over against the rather massive aerial and submarine-launched attack that had taken place from the United States there against nuclear facilities on Sunday morning.

It began very early Iran time on Sunday morning. So to save face, Iran has launched an attack against the United States, but there are two things about it. Number one, the United States was informed that the attack was going to take place so the personnel could be moved. And secondly, the attack was actually quite limited and measured. And so the attack did take place. Iran did retaliate, but it did so in a calculated manner, calculated not to escalate the war. That’s the important thing here. And when you look at what the White House had been saying after Sunday’s attack there on nuclear facilities and Iran, it was almost as if the United States and specifically the White House had expected this kind of response. So what is the clue there? The clues come down to this. The president warned Iran against striking out at America and in particular against American military personnel.

So this tells you the message was sent and the message was received. And when you look at skirmishes and exchanges, particularly in the Middle East in recent decades, there is precedent for this kind of action that comes with warning. So Iran is able to say that it responded. They could even say they retaliated, but it was a minor attack launched on a US military base in Qatar with advanced warning so that no personnel were wounded. The President of the United States, Donald Trump took this in stride and basically said that it was expected. And he tried to draw a line almost immediately by saying that this was, “a very weak response” and acknowledging that Iran had warned the United States of the impending attack. And then the President made very clear the fact that so far as he was concerned, nothing needed to escalate from this point. 

So the second big issue to consider here is not just that Iran did this and that. The second thing is that this demonstrates the fact that in much of world affairs there really is something of a dramatic presentation going on. There’s something of a theatrical dimension to foreign relations and you can just say, well, that’s just true of human life. It’s true of say, American politics. Yes, but it’s different when you have the international scene because in this particular situation, saving face is a huge issue. As the Iranian regime can now say to its people, we have retaliated. It’s a matter of national honor. That tells you something. Isn’t it interesting? So much of world history comes down to the issue of honor. Sometimes it’s individual honor. And of course you look at actions taken to preserve personal honor. This is even reflected by the way in the Old Testament law where you see there are limitations put upon a situation of some kind of defense of honor.

But nonetheless, honor is recognized. Classical civilizations recognize honor, and so it’s the honor of a person. Yes, it’s also the honor of a community. It’s the honor of a nation. And you see this at stake right here. You see that Iran wants to be able to say to its own people and even perhaps to other nations, particularly in the region, we have defended our honor. And so in this case, the President of the United States didn’t exactly play the game. In other words, he did not appear to be a wounded party. Instead, he referred to the retaliation as, “a very weak response” and pointed out that Iran had advised through intermediaries the United States in advance so the personnel could be moved. So what does this tell us? It tells us that the Iranian response probably had just about everything to do with domestic politics rather than sending any kind of international signal.

And so the regime, which evidently has a more tenuous hold upon its power there in Iran, it appears to be playing an anticipated playbook here to say we have retaliated, we have defended the nation’s honor. But it did so in such a way that it basically hedged its bets and made very clear it did not intend to escalate because escalation against the United States, even when the Iranian regime has referred to the United States now for decades as the great Satan, that is something that Iran knows it cannot survive. And then came the headline news later yesterday in which the President of the United States posted on Truth Social, this is another way the world has changed. The president posted on Truth Social these words, “congratulations to everyone. It has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a complete and total ceasefire. [Then in parentheses] (and approximately six hours from now when Israel and Iran have wound down and completed their progress, final missions!) for 12 hours at which point the war will be considered ENDED, capitalized every letter in ended.

Now, this is no longer a surprising means of communication by Donald J. Trump. This is no longer a new form of communication by President Trump. It however is a fairly new form of international communication when it comes to matters so grave as peace and war. The entire world of social media is a fairly new technological invention. And we know enough to recognize it can be very destabilizing in terms of relationships and communication, the entire landscape. But we also know that when you now have foreign policy, something as consequential as a ceasefire agreement announced on a US president’s social media feed, complete with a social media context with exclamation points and all capitalizations, this is very new. And we need to put that in the context of the fact that when it comes to formality and human relationships, one of the longest and lingering forms of that formality has been in foreign affairs and in foreign relations.

It is at that point that even the most casual of nations have had to express themselves in rather formalized terms. You look at treaties or for that matter, you just look, say, at the reception of a foreign leader, and you look at the ceremonials that are involved, you look at the language that is involved, you look at the language of treaties, it’s a very formal language. I think at least we need to note that it’s something of a destabilizing development when you have major announcements like this, complete with specifics posted on social media, and for one thing it does make you wonder if something that can be declared so quickly can perhaps fall apart so quickly. In this case, we certainly hope not. So what are some of the larger issues we need to consider here? Well, for one thing, Iran had suffered a very great deal in terms of the damage, the impact of the sustained effort by Israel.

And by the time we are talking about action yesterday, we are seeing an expansion of targets undertaken by Israel. It’s an expansion from explicit nuclear targets to military targets and then even to what were defined as symbolic Islamic sites. And so those targets represent an expansion of Israel’s effort, but it could represent something of, say, a period at the end of a sentence. And there’s a motivation on Iran for the ceasefire because it has clearly seen so many of its facilities degraded, so many of its military leaders assassinated. It has clearly been demonstrated to be a far weaker power than even far greater powers had considered just a matter of weeks ago. But Israel also has something to gain here. And one of the most difficult things for Israel to consider is the extent to which they needed to press the case and the cause in Israel, and then when they needed to declare some form of victory and at the very least reconsider the entire equation.

And here’s where the technology also enters into the equation, because at least a part of the self-assurance of Israel on the world scene has to do with its defensive technologies, including most famously its Iron Dome anti-missile technology, and Israeli authorities were admitting even going into the weekend that they were running short, the supplies were running low on those kinds of defensive missiles. And let’s just face the political reality, political support in Israel for this kind of war or military action against Iran, it was likely to decrease fast if more of those missiles were getting through, certainly with damage to civilian neighborhoods and civilian casualties, that would be a game changer inside Israel. And Israel certainly had to take that into consideration as well. 

As for the United States, President Trump has been pretty clear in stating that the actions that the US military undertook, and of course that means those massive ordnance bombs that were dropped on Fordow and other facilities, the president seems to be making very clear the fact that the US has a very limited aim. It was a very limited action, and that so far as the United States is concerned for now, that is the extent of it. And you see here the fact that at least to a considerable degree, it looks like Iran received the message and basically in its own strange way has confirmed the message. This also reminds us just how quickly we have to recalibrate some of our analysis of what’s going on in the world. Just a matter of months ago, the powers in the region, this would include Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Turkey, and many others considered Iran to have a formidable military. Its armed forces to be formidable, and destabilizing in the entire region. Well, Iran clearly wants to be formidable and it intends to be destabilizing worse for that matter in terms of its intentions. The reality is that its military has been shown to have been vastly overrated in terms of its threat and its power.

Many military authorities are saying the most surprising thing about the engagement of Israel against Iran is how quickly Israel was able to establish air supremacy. Basically, the defensive mechanisms knocked out. The second thing many military analysts are noting is the extent to which Israel was able to assassinate the senior leadership. And this includes, most importantly for this case, the military leaders, senior military officers and entire corps basically of officer-ranked military officials wiped out. And you’re also looking at nuclear scientists who were also individually targeted and a large number of them eliminated, as we’ve also recently discussed, the forward placing of drones and other munitions in anticipation of this kind of effort. That is something that is a game changer in terms of military realities. And you can count on the fact that good actors around the world and evil actors around the world are both getting the message very fast.

Part II

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The Culture of Death Scores Big Win in UK: Assisted Suicide Bill Passes in House of Commons

Okay, now I want to go to the United Kingdom in particular because in terms of worldview, big moral issues on the landscape, two developments in the United Kingdom coming, I think not coincidentally, at just about the same time. Two votes in parliament are incredibly explosive when we think about moral change and we think about how the culture of death extends its reach. In the United Kingdom, the culture of death, one big in two major votes in Parliament in the House of Commons. One was the decriminalization of abortion basically all the way up through the entire term of a pregnancy all the way right up to the moment of birth. And then you also have the passage of what is euphemistically called a “medically assisted dying act.” And that now goes to the House of Lords for review, but it’s only basically reviewable in some particulars. The general structure of this bill almost certainly will stand.

Both of these represent giant, horrifying victories for the culture of death. And as I say, they can’t be coincidental. And in the larger sense, I mean that when you look at the vast changes that have taken place in the moral landscape in which you have the culture of death advancing at the beginning of life in terms of abortion and embryo technologies, IVF and all the rest, but also at the end of life with euthanasia and assisted suicide. And what now, again, is mislabeled as “medical assistance in dying.” You understand that if you are going to compromise the principle of life, if you’re going to deny the reality of human dignity in the beginning of life, then you will deny it at the end of life. And eventually, by the way, you’ll deny it at every point in between when it is culturally convenient. Okay, the legislation that was getting the most attention over the course of the last several months along these lines was the so-called medically assisted dying legislation.

And what we see here is that it in the end did pass. It passed after at least some in parliament expressed a very deep concern about what it would actually mean and how assisted suicide in this case would actually operate. And what we see here are all the predictable arguments. They’re all right here. You could almost write this in advance. And the advocates of assisted suicide, you know exactly the arguments they’re going to make. It’s an affirmation, they say, of personal autonomy. It is an affirmation by their definition of human dignity because their definition of human dignity means human autonomy and control of one’s life, even in the circumstances of one’s death. And you can also in advance say that what they’re going to argue is that this is going to apply only in some very limited categories with a good deal of legislative protections.

And that’s exactly what happened. That’s exactly how this legislation was advanced. By the way, it is interesting that this did not come through the party leadership even of the Labour Party. It came by a backbencher and British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, of course, who is heading a Labour government, allowed this to go. And because it was declared to be a matter of conscience, it was also allowed as a free vote, which meant that the parties didn’t exercise discipline. Regrettably, that also tells you exactly what the numbers are. And the numbers came down to 314 versus 291. 314 members of the House of Commons voted for the so-called medical assistance in dying Act, 291 voted against. So that was closer than some other votes, but at the end of the day, the culture of death won. The culture of death almost wins in this kind of situation, especially when the arguments that were made so predictably began to gain traction among legislators. And you can see comments leading up to the vote in which legislators started to say, I was against it, but now I’m assured all the right protections are put in place. 

One of the other issues we need to see here is that the use of narratives of stories is used for moral impact. And so you had members of Parliament who brought in anecdotal stories saying, well, here’s this person who suffered greatly at the end of life. This was a deprivation of dignity, et cetera, et cetera. And the cumulative effect of those stories means that they had turned an issue, which they knew was very problematic in principle, they turned it into an emotional issue and just to try it for personal autonomy. And they were largely successful by means of those arguments of redefining the concept of human dignity to include what we can only call autonomy in death, and that means the right to destroy one’s own life, but also we should note the right to demand that others be complicit in ending one’s own life.

The so-called protections put in place mean that this should be available at least immediately only to patients who are over 18. We are told that there has to be some kind of official diagnosis with a terminal illness that has indicated no more than about six months to live. A doctor is to be authorized to prescribe a lethal substance, but the patient is going to take it without an action by the doctors, and so the doctor’s not going to administer the medication that would bring about death. We’re also told that two doctors would have to agree, and there also has to be a panel including a social worker, and the one who’s defined as a senior legal figure. The original intention was to require a judge to function in this way, but it tells you something that the British judiciary came back and said, there are going to be too many cases. It will swamp the courts. You can’t have active judges doing this. So a retired judge will do. There also has to be a psychiatrist involved in this. 

But my point is, number one, all of this is just another form of dishonesty in political theater because in virtually every case, and you can look at Europe and you can look at Canada perhaps right across our northern border for the most graphic and immediately close example, you can see the fact that all these criteria, all these protections, they’re put in place in the beginning and before you know it, virtually all of them disappear. And one of the reasons is because that once you have legislation like this and you buy into the idea that personal autonomy is the supreme issue, then how do you limit personal autonomy just because of someone’s arbitrary age at 18, how do you limit personal autonomy if you have a terminal illness, even if there’s not a six-month horizon, how do you require a terminal illness at all?

And if you’re talking about physical suffering, how do you not include mental suffering? And one of the other very ominous developments, it’s telling, it rarely comes, however, quite this fast. You have figures who are saying, this is going to help the National Health Service because after all, it’s beleaguered, it’s understaffed, and there will be cost savings involved with this. And then you understand the moral equation and how that quickly becomes not only a so-called right to die, but a duty to die because those who are in some medical conditions are simply expending too much money. And pretty soon this becomes a duty of granny to die because after all, she is using up the family’s resources. And even if the family doesn’t say that, the person in this new context is going to understand that the use of these medical resources and the drawing down of the financial accounts, that is something that would be avoidable if they just elected to exercise their autonomy to exit.

I appreciate the editorial board of the Telegraph, one of the most influential of the British newspapers, they simply responded by saying this, “Britain is a less civilized country today. Seldom has the House of Commons enacted legislation with such potentially calamitous consequences as the terminally ill adults end of life bill, which passed its third reading, as they say by a vote of 314 to 291.” They go on to say this: “the narrow margin of victory for the assisted dying bill indicates that opinion had turned against the legislation of euthanasia during the process of scrutiny, but not insufficient numbers to defeat it.” Another very telling issue, the editorial board of the Telegraph is speaking the truth here, and that is the fact that the longer this issue was debated, the fewer votes it had. And so in one sense, they had to kind of rush this to a vote because the longer it was discussed, the weaker the support came.

And then I go back to that number, the winning vote here is 314. It’s remarkable not for being so many, but for being so few. But at the end of the day, the law’s the law. And at the end of the day, this is indeed a calamitous day. Britain is indeed a less civilized country, and in that sense, the damage is done not only in Britain but to the whole world.

Part III

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The Culture of Death Scores Yet Another Big Win in U.K.: Decriminalization of Abortion Up Until Birth Passes by Wife Margin in House of Commons

Okay, now I want to go to the United Kingdom in particular because in terms of worldview, big moral issues on the landscape, two developments in the United Kingdom coming, I think not coincidentally, at just about the same time. Two votes in parliament are incredibly explosive when we think about moral change and we think about how the culture of death extends its reach. In the United Kingdom, the culture of death, one big in two major votes in Parliament in the House of Commons. One was the decriminalization of abortion basically all the way up through the entire term of a pregnancy all the way right up to the moment of birth. And then you also have the passage of what is euphemistically called a “medically assisted dying act.” And that now goes to the House of Lords for review, but it’s only basically reviewable in some particulars. The general structure of this bill almost certainly will stand.

Both of these represent giant, horrifying victories for the culture of death. And as I say, they can’t be coincidental. And in the larger sense, I mean that when you look at the vast changes that have taken place in the moral landscape in which you have the culture of death advancing at the beginning of life in terms of abortion and embryo technologies, IVF and all the rest, but also at the end of life with euthanasia and assisted suicide. And what now, again, is mislabeled as “medical assistance in dying.” You understand that if you are going to compromise the principle of life, if you’re going to deny the reality of human dignity in the beginning of life, then you will deny it at the end of life. And eventually, by the way, you’ll deny it at every point in between when it is culturally convenient. Okay, the legislation that was getting the most attention over the course of the last several months along these lines was the so-called medically assisted dying legislation.

And what we see here is that it in the end did pass. It passed after at least some in parliament expressed a very deep concern about what it would actually mean and how assisted suicide in this case would actually operate. And what we see here are all the predictable arguments. They’re all right here. You could almost write this in advance. And the advocates of assisted suicide, you know exactly the arguments they’re going to make. It’s an affirmation, they say, of personal autonomy. It is an affirmation by their definition of human dignity because their definition of human dignity means human autonomy and control of one’s life, even in the circumstances of one’s death. And you can also in advance say that what they’re going to argue is that this is going to apply only in some very limited categories with a good deal of legislative protections.

And that’s exactly what happened. That’s exactly how this legislation was advanced. By the way, it is interesting that this did not come through the party leadership even of the Labour Party. It came by a backbencher and British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, of course, who is heading a Labour government, allowed this to go. And because it was declared to be a matter of conscience, it was also allowed as a free vote, which meant that the parties didn’t exercise discipline. Regrettably, that also tells you exactly what the numbers are. And the numbers came down to 314 versus 291. 314 members of the House of Commons voted for the so-called medical assistance in dying Act, 291 voted against. So that was closer than some other votes, but at the end of the day, the culture of death won. The culture of death almost wins in this kind of situation, especially when the arguments that were made so predictably began to gain traction among legislators. And you can see comments leading up to the vote in which legislators started to say, I was against it, but now I’m assured all the right protections are put in place. 

One of the other issues we need to see here is that the use of narratives of stories is used for moral impact. And so you had members of Parliament who brought in anecdotal stories saying, well, here’s this person who suffered greatly at the end of life. This was a deprivation of dignity, et cetera, et cetera. And the cumulative effect of those stories means that they had turned an issue, which they knew was very problematic in principle, they turned it into an emotional issue and just to try it for personal autonomy. And they were largely successful by means of those arguments of redefining the concept of human dignity to include what we can only call autonomy in death, and that means the right to destroy one’s own life, but also we should note the right to demand that others be complicit in ending one’s own life.

The so-called protections put in place mean that this should be available at least immediately only to patients who are over 18. We are told that there has to be some kind of official diagnosis with a terminal illness that has indicated no more than about six months to live. A doctor is to be authorized to prescribe a lethal substance, but the patient is going to take it without an action by the doctors, and so the doctor’s not going to administer the medication that would bring about death. We’re also told that two doctors would have to agree, and there also has to be a panel including a social worker, and the one who’s defined as a senior legal figure. The original intention was to require a judge to function in this way, but it tells you something that the British judiciary came back and said, there are going to be too many cases. It will swamp the courts. You can’t have active judges doing this. So a retired judge will do. There also has to be a psychiatrist involved in this. 

But my point is, number one, all of this is just another form of dishonesty in political theater because in virtually every case, and you can look at Europe and you can look at Canada perhaps right across our northern border for the most graphic and immediately close example, you can see the fact that all these criteria, all these protections, they’re put in place in the beginning and before you know it, virtually all of them disappear. And one of the reasons is because that once you have legislation like this and you buy into the idea that personal autonomy is the supreme issue, then how do you limit personal autonomy just because of someone’s arbitrary age at 18, how do you limit personal autonomy if you have a terminal illness, even if there’s not a six-month horizon, how do you require a terminal illness at all?

And if you’re talking about physical suffering, how do you not include mental suffering? And one of the other very ominous developments, it’s telling, it rarely comes, however, quite this fast. You have figures who are saying, this is going to help the National Health Service because after all, it’s beleaguered, it’s understaffed, and there will be cost savings involved with this. And then you understand the moral equation and how that quickly becomes not only a so-called right to die, but a duty to die because those who are in some medical conditions are simply expending too much money. And pretty soon this becomes a duty of granny to die because after all, she is using up the family’s resources. And even if the family doesn’t say that, the person in this new context is going to understand that the use of these medical resources and the drawing down of the financial accounts, that is something that would be avoidable if they just elected to exercise their autonomy to exit.

I appreciate the editorial board of the Telegraph, one of the most influential of the British newspapers, they simply responded by saying this, “Britain is a less civilized country today. Seldom has the House of Commons enacted legislation with such potentially calamitous consequences as the terminally ill adults end of life bill, which passed its third reading, as they say by a vote of 314 to 291.” They go on to say this: “the narrow margin of victory for the assisted dying bill indicates that opinion had turned against the legislation of euthanasia during the process of scrutiny, but not insufficient numbers to defeat it.” Another very telling issue, the editorial board of the Telegraph is speaking the truth here, and that is the fact that the longer this issue was debated, the fewer votes it had. And so in one sense, they had to kind of rush this to a vote because the longer it was discussed, the weaker the support came.

And then I go back to that number, the winning vote here is 314. It’s remarkable not for being so many, but for being so few. But at the end of the day, the law’s the law. And at the end of the day, this is indeed a calamitous day. Britain is indeed a less civilized country, and in that sense, the damage is done not only in Britain but to the whole world. 

 

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The other major development that came virtually at the same time, just within the same few days in the United Kingdom, is that parliament decriminalized abortion for women all the way up until the point of birth. As I said, this is a remarkable development. And in this sense, they just redefined abortion law without, by the way, the courage to repeal previous laws. They just have amended it in such a way that they have decriminalized it, which means that according to the law, abortion under many circumstances is still a crime, but it’s not going to be a crime that is prosecuted.

Arrests are not going to be made. Again, the power of story shows up here. You had people, and you see this in the United States as well, making claims that as soon as you pass any kind of pro-life legislation, you have caused all kinds of injury to women. But one of the most interesting things to note here is the acknowledgement that it is a category of psychological or mental injury or damage to a woman’s mental health that becomes the excuse that justifies just about any abortion. And even as authorities in Britain have recognized, the vast majority, well over 90% of abortions, some say close to 99% of all abortions, under that category, which means it has practically speaking been just elective abortion. So what does it mean that it is now decriminalized in this sense? Well, it is decriminalized when it comes to women. So women may use whatever means are available to them, and that means mostly medication abortions, abortion pills.

They may use them all the way up to the point of the baby’s birth without any kind of criminal consequence. There is no possibility of any kind of criminal consequence. That has basically just been taken entirely off the table. It is one of the darkest moves I could imagine. Also, basically, cowardly and dishonest as critics have noted. Nonetheless, it will be the law. And in this case, it wasn’t a close vote. In this case, the vote was rather overwhelming. The vote was 379 to 137. So that tells you how the culture of death has advanced on the question of abortion in the United Kingdom over the course of the last several years. And that takes us back to a little bit of history. Major legislation on abortion passed in the United Kingdom in 1861, in 1929 and in 1945, and then abortion was largely legalized in the Abortion act of 1967.

So you’ll notice how much of this shows a parallel movement in terms of moral change on both sides of the Atlantic. You’re talking about the sixties as crucial years of moral revolt and that come with real consequences, and in this case, Britain’s Abortion Act. It was very similar to the laws concerning abortion in several of the states before Roe V. Wade. Abortion was legal, but under certain circumstances, basically what you see here is the abandonment of that entire structure when it comes to a woman and the act of abortion. It’s decriminalized all the way through pregnancy. Period. It is also telling to see that in the United Kingdom you have liberal newspapers, liberal authorities such as The Guardian coming out and criticizing Parliament for being hypocritical because they didn’t take the original legislation on, certainly not head on. Instead, they just decriminalized it. So something is still on the books illegal, but it’s not going to be prosecuted criminally. And by the way, at least at this point, medical doctors can be prosecuted if indeed they are involved in this past the legal limit. 

But in reality, we just need to face the facts. This is pretty much a total collapse on the issue of abortion in the United Kingdom, and you can pretty much write the script from this point onward. James Mildred, writing on this issue at Evangelicals Now, there in the United Kingdom, said, “to be clear, this means a woman might have an abortion at say 36 weeks gestation, long past the 24-week time limit, even far beyond the point where the baby could survive outside the womb and this would not constitute an offense.” He goes on to say that the passing of the bill means, “that unborn babies will have lost the scant remaining protections in our law.”  He also notes, “the UK already has some of the most liberal and permissive abortion laws in the Western world.”

But what you see here is a race, at least among those who are pressing for abortion rights as they define them to get advanced in every single case, every single abortion, until basically there is no abortion whatsoever. Not only is it not criminalized, not only is not prosecuted, but they’re going to press on until every single abortion at every stage for any reason is paid for. But as I conclude, let me just point out that it cannot be a coincidence that these two bills went through the British Parliament at virtually the same time and with the same result. And you look at this and you understand it’s further evidence that the culture of death works both ends of the lifespan energetically. It takes no prisoners, and it reveals enormous political cowardice.