“Trump has no strategy and no endgame. No amount of success in tactics will win. No military campaign has ever been won solely from the air.” — Jason Pack

Happy May Day! Today’s papers are leading with stories about Obamacare, a Gaza flotilla, and the price of oil. Everything but the story at both the front and back of our minds. Only the Wall Street Journal leads with Iran. Which is more than a bit odd, given that America is supposed to be at war there. Or is it? Jason Pack — Middle East analyst, host of the Disorder podcast, and our man in London — joins for a special May Day show on the most surreal conflict in recent memory.

Both sides, Pack argues, care more about the narrative war than about actual military strategy. The official word out of DC and Tehran is the same: we’re winning. But no military campaign in history has been won solely on the airwaves. Pack sees two sides that are doing their surreal best to ignore a war that they are both fighting. If you pretend it’s not happening, then maybe it isn’t. Don’t mention the war. On this May Day, everyone is Basil Fawlty.

Five Takeaways

• Two Sides with No Strategy. Both Trump and the Iranian regime are more invested in the narrative war than in having an actual endgame. Neither has stated what they want: not on the nuclear file, not on territory, not on regime change. Two sides that don’t know what they want to get out of a war they’re both pretending is going well.

• No Campaign Has Ever Been Won Solely from the Air. Extraordinary AI-enabled tactical capability means nothing without an endgame. Territory must be controlled. New leaders must be installed. These things cannot be done from altitude. The Shia axis, systematically degraded, could reconsolidate around the narrative of martyrdom if the political work isn’t done.

• Trump Does Projection. He says the blockade will make the Iranians cry uncle. Track his history: that means he is on the verge of crying uncle himself. The absolute worst outcome is Trump as the one who folds — losing not a war but the credibility that underwrites the entire international order.

• Pakistan: The Sleeping Giant. Nuclear weapons. A large Shia minority. Complex relationships with Iran, China, the Gulf, and the US. Any escalation necessarily involves the question of what Pakistan does. Pack considers this the most under-covered dimension of the conflict. The sleeping giant has not yet been asked to choose sides.

• The First AI War. Six antisemitic attacks in London in six weeks. Russian and North Korean disinformation seeding conspiracy theories on social media. AI-enabled targeteering in the actual conflict. This is the first AI war. Future historians will untangle what that means. For now: the world is more disordered than any single headline suggests.

About the Guest

Jason Pack is a Middle East analyst, host of the Disorder podcast, and author of Libya and the Global Enduring Disorder.

References

Disorder podcast: disorder.fm

About Keen On America

Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.

Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow

Chapters:

00:00:31 May Day: is there even a war happening?
00:02:09 Both sides care more about narrative than strategy
00:04:18 How the Middle East covers the war
00:06:09 Shia vs Sunni
00:11:00 Pakistan: the sleeping giant
00:14:00 The equivalent of Suez?
00:26:00 Trump does projection
00:34:22 The first AI war
00:38:02 London antisemitism and disinformation
00:42:13 Subscribe to Disorder