You would think that the Afghanistan debacle is another blow to neoconservatives: That the school of foreign policy experts inside the Beltway who gave us the Iraq war would be further discredited by the fall of Afghanistan. And you would be wrong.

As the tragedy in Afghanistan continues, there is at least one positive consequence. The warmongers in Israel and their allies in the neoconservative Washington, D.C. war party will find it even harder to convince the American public to support an invasion and “regime change” in Iran.

Trump reportedly berated Sheldon Adelson for not giving more millions to his flagging campaign. That’s good news. Trump is less likely to deliver to Adelson, and nuke Iran. Not that the New York Times even explores the foreign policy ramifications of the report.

Donald Trump disappointed John Bolton las tyear by refusing to strike Iranian bases in response to Iran destroying an American drone, because the strike would likely kill 150. “Disproportionate… Too many body bags,” Trump said. Bolton writes, “This was the most irrational thing I ever witnessed any president do,” and says he nearly resigned. The author doesn’t understand how frightening this story is, about Bolton himself.

Bolton’s index cites “Iran” 240 times, and his tone throughout this long book will remind classics scholars of Cato the Elder’s famous calls for Rome to exterminate its rival across the Mediterranean, Carthage, in 151 B.C. “Carthago delenda est — Carthage must be destroyed.”

The media can’t talk about Sheldon Adelson when discussing the US confrontation with Iran over nukes, though he’s only Trump’s biggest donor, and John Bolton’s protector, and he was at White House officials’ side when they took part in a settlers’ bash in occupied Jerusalem.

Neither the US political establishment nor the people want a war with Iran, and Donald Trump knows it’s a political disaster. But 9 years ago Obama was seen as untrustworthy on Iran, and the lead reporter on the Middle East Jeffrey Goldberg goaded him to attack Iran with a report that Israel was going to attack Iran, a report that proved false.

By threatening Iran with war, Donald Trump is proving to be the “perfect little puppet,” as he once put it of his largest donor, Sheldon Adelson, who is close to Netanyahu and once called on Obama to nuke Iran. Too bad the media can’t talk about it.

Hawks in the White House, led by National Security Advisor John Bolton, see a war aimed at eliminating Iran’s clerical leadership as a potentially big win for Washington. Many top officials in the U.S. military, however, see the matter quite differently. These days, the Pentagon is increasingly obsessed with preparations for another type of war in another locale entirely: a high-intensity conflict with China, possibly in the South China Sea.

U.S. intelligence on alleged Iranian attacks is reminiscent of the faulty intelligence leading up to the Iraq war, and three mainstream sources have said that Israel is behind some of that questionable intelligence– the New York Times, Israel’s Channel 13, and Newsweek. But Netanyahu and Sheldon Adelson’s influence on the president ought to be a scandal.