A few days ago I was pondering whether events in Minneapolis were (a) Trump and Co doing their usual kind of half-arsed, cruel, careless, brutish, incoherent spectacle and getting people killed as a predictable side effect, or (b), Trump and Co actually setting out to murder people as a terror campaign, with the ICE goons told in advance they would be backed up no matter what they did.

Given the way MAGA spokespeople defended the murderers wholeheartedly, I lean toward option (b) which means the situation is extremely dangerous. But the development of a mass, determined and tactically astute resistance movement on the streets of Minneapolis means that whichever it was, Trump and Co have failed at least for now.

While the Trump regime has only made tactical retreats so far, recalling Obersturmbahnführer Bovino, I feel a change in the wind. It looks different from the 2020 uprising, more disciplined and targeted, but it is an uprising, and the first big one the Trump gang has run into in its second term.

But it now looks like the Minneapolis battle could be overshadowed within a few days by a massive US attack on Iran.

If I read the patterns of Trumpism right, we are probably looking at the prospect something more limited, confused and cosmetic than all-out war. The much-hyped naval build-up is not sufficient to wage an actual war.

But maybe the pattern is that there is no pattern. It’s not a mad man strategy, just a mad man. The last month alone has seen a year or two’s worth of drama even by Trump standards – Iran, Venezuela, Greenland, the Gaza “Board of Peace”, Minnesota, Iran again. Maybe it’s the fear of the midterm elections, maybe it’s senility, maybe it’s “flooding the zone with shit…” or maybe it’s all just sound and fury, signifying nothing. But Trump has been getting Trumpier to the point where things could go critical.

The US military vessels conducting the attack would be sitting ducks for Iranian retaliation, even to a more limited strike. Heavy blows could fall on the human personnel, trillion-dollar war machines, and prestige of US imperialism.

What would the consequences in Iran be if, say, a lot of military facilities were bombed and a lot of political leaders assassinated? I don’t see how that  would bring about any kind of democratic revolution. People have already stopped protesting, and fear of US bombs and atrocities would smother any desire to return to the streets. I think the US state apparatus generally, not just Trump, are pretty comfortable with an outcome where Iran simply collapses into decades of senseless violence. The heads of zero powerful people in the US rolled after they spent untold lives and money procuring that outcome in Iraq. I can see that scenario for Iran if the US attacks. But the more likely scenario is that US attacks cut across what’s left of the mood of protest, and the regime survives.

And how would things go in the US if some hundreds or thousands of naval and air personnel died in a couple of days? A vengeful response, rallying around the government to take revenge, a 9/11 or Beirut truck bomb response, is not what I think would happen in this case. It’s widely perceived that Trump pursues gratuitous conflict, that he pushes things to the brink of carnage just for his own ego. The stated goal of helping the Iranian protesters is the kind of neocon hypocrisy that just stopped convincing most people a long time ago. There would be massive cynicism toward any attack on Iran, even a successful one.

I’m skeptical about the prospect of a massive US attack disarming and decapitating the Iranian state apparatus without losing a ton of ships and planes in the process and in the retaliation.

It might not come to that. This is Trump. He could be photo-opping and grinning with the Ayatollah within weeks. More likely, he will cut some unimpressive deal with the surviving portion of the Iranian state apparatus and once again declare himself the greatest peacemaker in history.