February 28, 2026

Saturday. Left at 9:30. Nikor. Borderline chilly, with fairly stiff southwesterly breezes. Gray skies, but varied, with very light spots, even pieces of blue. Once or twice, the sun itself tried to push through. Pavement a little damp from overnight showers, and puddles. Gele brug to Alendorp and Rivierpad. Saturday activities: walkers, runners, dogs, children. The grass alongside the Rivierpad looked as if it's coming out of hibernation. The rest of the land and the trees not yet. Breudijk to Gerverscop. Some cars. The views west from the Rodendijk. Schutterskade to Galgerwaard. Breukelen to Scheendijk-zuid. Stork couples taking up residence on the nests alongside the Strook and the Bethuneweg. Birdspotters were out too. Herenweg to Oud-Zuilen, and back into the city amid the runners. The paper at Mos didn't have the overnight news yet of the new assault on Iran. It was clear that we were headed for this, but what this is supposed to be exactly is not clear. Regime change may sound good, since few would mourn the demise of the Islamic state. But exactly what would take its place is far from clear. Given the extent to which the Revolutionary Guards have entangled themselves with the state and the country at large, the replacement of the Ayathollas by some other leaders may not change all that much, least of all for the population. How this replacement would happen is one of the many unknowns, but the administration probably believes they're doing some kind of rerun of the Venezuela operation, minus the kidnapping of the regime's head guy. It is not clear at all how much that would change in the country and the region, and it's certainly possible that a collapse of the Islamic state could lead to chaos and more bloodshed. As to motives, it's best to keep the personal interests of the leader in the White House front and center. After all, for the leader himself, there's nothing else. In other cases we might speak of political objectives, but in this instance that's a meaningless distinction. The perverse upside of this operation going off the rails would be that the domestic troubles of the president and his allies would only get worse.