Readers Write: Israel-Iran war, United States v. Skrmetti

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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I agree with President Donald Trump’s decision to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities. I think the world will be a safer place without having Iran or its proxies having this capability. Trump’s superpower is that he takes blame for nothing yet takes credit for everything. It’s like he’d take credit for making the whole sundae when all he did was put the cherry on top.

Yes, this was a bold decision to take out Iran’s capabilities and hopefully end that possibility altogether, but Trump and his team take full credit for everything. They said Trump is the only president in all these years to actually have the guts to neutralize Iran. This would not have been possible if Israel had not taken out the threats from Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran’s air defenses. Then Israel had a week to bomb Iran’s military targets before the U.S. got involved.

None of the recent presidents had a path to victory laid out like this, so they had to negotiate an agreement. Trump later decided to pull out of that agreement. The stars were aligned for Trump to take military action, and it was a good and successful plan. I’d pat him on the back if I could, but he and his people are already doing that with gusto, so there’s no room for me.

Casey Zimmerman, Plymouth

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Prior to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas against Israel, there had been optimism that a peace treaty between Israel and Saudi Arabia was close to being signed. This would have been a historic step forward toward lasting peace in the region. The leader of Hamas at the time was Yahya Sinwar (since killed) who likely acted, at least in part, to sabotage these peace efforts. It worked — the agreement, like much of Gaza, has been vaporized as a consequence of the ensuing war. It is not surprising that the leader of Hamas would choose war over peace.

What is more surprising is the recent actions of the Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, who chose to take military action against Iran while Trump was asking for time to allow his negotiations with Iran to finish. It is impossible to tell now, but informed observers reported that there was a real chance that an agreement could be reached. Like Sinwar, Netanyahu chose war over the possibility of peace.

The negotiations with Iran that the Trump administration was desperately trying to conclude were seeking an agreement to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons. It sounds very similar to the agreement that was already in place when Trump took office the first time. He canceled that earlier agreement without any plan to replace it. It could be argued that the current military actions — all the fear, killings, and destruction — would not be happening if Trump had simply left that earlier agreement in place.

How is it that great democratic nations end up with leadership that either choose war or bungle their way into war? It breaks my heart to think that both Israel and the U.S. have the leadership that they deserve. Great no more.

Dan Martin, Minneapolis

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Had Presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama or even George W. Bush taken the extremely risky and potentially catastrophic action to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites, I might have been inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. But with this president, I tend to see the move as a page out of the autocrat’s playbook: Gain public support and distract from other damaging policy and governance by initiating military action.

I do hope to see Iran’s regime defanged for good. But I do not wish any success in that regard to benefit Trump or his cronies.

Robert Patton, Plymouth

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I can’t believe I have to write this, but there now has to be concern that groups and individuals in Minneapolis are praising and supporting Iran against what they call American imperialism and Israeli Zionism.

Now, you can be against Trump and his decision to bomb three nuclear sites in Iran. You can also be against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to scale up the conflict in the Middle East by going after Iran. However, running around Minneapolis with Iranian flags is just disgusting.

But if you do not take my word for it, then take the word of Democratic U.S. Rep. Yassamin Ansari of Arizona, who is Iranian-American and whose parents fled Iran after the 1979 revolution:

“The regime in Iran is brutal. It is an authoritarian dictatorship and Iran should not have a nuclear weapon. But I’m very concerned about U.S. escalation in this conflict, [and the] U.S.’s role in a potential war.”

And that is what I believe should be the right response instead of disgustingly insisting that Iran’s government is the good guy.

William Cory Labovitch, West St. Paul

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Regarding the letter “Like it or not, Israel is making us all safer” (Readers Write, June 23): Israel was the first state to introduce nuclear arms into the volatile Middle East (with at least tacit U.S. approval), but when it bombs its neighbors who try to acquire the same weapons (Iran at the moment), this makes us safer? That seems to be the “Dr. Strangelove” logic of the letter writer. I would feel much safer if the Middle East were a nuclear-free zone, and if Israel were not pursuing its horrific war against the people of Gaza, supported by U.S. taxpayers. And a final what if: Suppose Russian President Vladimir Putin were to decide that to preserve his sphere of influence in the Middle East and protect his ally, Iran, he needed to take out the Israeli nuclear threat? Unthinkable? Certainly not reassuring.

George Muellner, Plymouth

I believe that the Supreme Court wrongly upheld Tennessee’s law prohibiting gender-affirming medical treatments for minors. Why does the state of Tennessee wish to prohibit them? Such treatments have no effect on anyone but the patient. There are no injured parties who are protected by the law, so there is no state interest that is accomplished by it. On the other hand, resolving this contradiction will be of enormous psychological benefit to patients.

Since there is no justifiable state interest in banning medical treatment for gender dysphoria, the law should have been overturned on the basis of substantive due process. This is the basis for the “right to privacy” that justifies, for example, access to contraceptives, same-sex and interracial marriage. Laws forbidding these behaviors should not be permitted because they are both victimless and nobody’s business. The impetus for such restrictions is always “moral disfavor,” a euphemism for using the law to impose the dictates of one’s religion on people who dissent from it.

The Constitution does not mention a right to privacy, but the Ninth Amendment does not allow that omission to invalidate it: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Sex-correction surgery did not exist when the constitution was adopted and so could not have been a right enumerated in it. The right to it should nevertheless be secure against government interference.

George Francis Kane, St. Paul