ArcaMax

PARIS — Trump kicked off Women’s History Month by dropping a missile on roughly 160 schoolgirls in Iran. Then he put out a statement bragging that his administration’s pro-women policies “uplift our children.”

How so? By bouncing rubble around in Iran like it's a giant trampoline? He also says that he “emboldens women.” Great, so then where are all the female Trump appointees currently within the political blast radius of this administration to shut this fiasco down?

Here in France, in passing conversation with a group of women, the unanimous take on Trump and his de facto boss, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, setting the Middle East ablaze was that men should lose the privilege of running the world. That none of this would have happened if women had been in charge.

Except that there are women in charge. Trump has appointed several of them to this administration. Where’s Tulsi Gabbard, his director of National Intelligence, who has long openly advocated against Iranian regime change and the risks of it for Americans? Suddenly, she has nothing to say when her own boss does it, having apparently dropped off the face of the planet. Or how about chief of staff, Susie Wiles, captured in a situation room photo with Trump as he launched the first missiles — and who’s now reportedly concerned about gas prices, albeit behind closed doors. A bit late, no?

Much is now being made of how Trump is unpleasantly surprised by how all this is turning out. How did killing Ayatollah Khamenei result in the emergence of another Ayatollah Khamenei? Well, see, that’s what happens when your foresight is so impaired that you end up clearing your entire future puppet shelf of all the potential rivals to your target’s even more hardline kid.

Why didn’t Iranians come out and overthrow their government when Trump encouraged them to, like he was staging the end of his own Hollywood blockbuster? Instead, the New York Times has published images of Iranians ignoring the script with massive rallies against their Israeli-American invaders. What did he think would happen? Can’t these people manage to place themselves in the position of the average Iranian? Imagine if you, as an American, witnessed another country bombing the White House under the pretext of liberating you of your unpopular government. Would you welcome that enthusiastically? Or would you be like, “He may be a jerk, but he’s our jerk! Who do you think you are?” It’s like when you complain about your family to your significant other, who suddenly starts badmouthing them. Then bombing them — and wondering why you’re not cheering him on.

Apparently, Trump didn’t foresee that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz, sending oil prices skyrocketing. He can’t even say how long all this is going to last. One day he’s doing his best impression of President George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” routine from the beginning of the War on Terrorism. The next, he’s saying that it will end when “I feel it in my bones.”

Just how strong of a kick to the back-pocketed wallet is needed for that?

It all has the vibe of a frat house toga party gone wrong. Especially when ambiguously reformed kegger enthusiast and former morning TV talk show host turned war secretary, Pete Hegseth, is oscillating between the kind of religious proclamations more suited to the porcelain God on one hand, and barstool brawl talk of “punching” Iranians on the other.

Now add in the White House’s online posts showing footage of the airstrikes depicted as a bowling strike video game, or repackaged as Hollywood movie- style trailers, and the situation is just begging for a woman inside the establishment to shut it all down.

So where are they? Don’t expect any here in Europe to do the job. The president of the European Commission and the EU’s chief diplomat are both powerful women, but they’re too busy distorting reality to avoid angering Trump. So they’re merely calling for a generalized respect for international law. The same one that Trump has already violated six ways from Sunday.

Women on Team Trump should be following in the footsteps of his Supreme Court appointee, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who has had no qualms ruling against Trump from the bench when he’s gone offside — most recently on illegal globally-imposed tariffs. Trump recently called two of his appointees, including Barrett, “disloyal” and an “embarrassment to their families.”

Unfazed, Barrett showed up shortly thereafter to his State of the Union address — all business. That’s how powerful female leadership is done. The kind that feminists on the left say they dream of exercising, but that women on the right are now in a position to actually demonstrate, but are foregoing the opportunity.

We’re talking here about a war that’s already verging on historical unpopularity, even as experience suggests that things tend to only get worse for the U.S. after the original shock and awe.

Courage is contagious, and it has rarely ever been made so easy. Particularly when Trump’s own base has always been against such wars.

And yet, here we are, watching establishment women largely sit on their hands, far too complacent in abdicating any responsibility to the usual suspects on the antiwar left, like Jane Fonda, who at 88 years old, is still out there speaking out against sending troops to fight wars for shady special interests. All while women with a seat in the Situation Room stare down at their feet. Talk isn't enough. Where are the demands for impeachment or sanctions?

What good is proximity to power without the courage to act when stakes are highest? What's the point of women having a seat on the frontline of power just to hold the hands of the man-children making the mess of the world and watching it burn?