Thinking that the attack on Iran is all about Epstein is a pretty significant misunderstanding of the moment. For this to be true, you HAVE also to believe that this attack wouldn’t have happened otherwise, and I think that’s a good indication of a lack of awareness of MAGA foreign policy (such as it is).

Any distraction Trump gets from Epstein is a bonus (if indeed everyone forgets about it, which is questionable). The real reasons for this war include several factors. First, for YEARS, a large faction of the American right has itched to attack Iran. Obsessed over it. And now they have their wish, in exactly these terms, which is that Israel leads the attack at first.

That it unfolded in this way, with Israel firing the first missiles, is in part due to the Christian Nationalist movement that runs the country at the moment being very, very focused on triggering the Rapture, and their entire policy related to Israel is based on that. According to their twisted interpretation of Revelations, Israel must attack Iran to get the ball rolling. Don’t believe me? Evidence of this very crazy way to run a country’s foreign policy is this BBC story about the ambassador to Israel begging Trump to start a war between Israel and Iran. The ambassador in question is Noted Crazed Fundamentalist Mike Huckabee.

Mr. President, God spared you in Butler, PA to be the most consequential president in a century – maybe ever. The decisions on your shoulders I would not want to be made by anyone else. You have many voices speaking to you, Sir, but there is only ONE voice that matters. HIS voice. I am your appointed servant, and I am available to you, but I do not try to get in your presence often because I trust your instincts. No president in my lifetime has been in a position like yours. Not since Truman in 1945 [Harry Truman had to decide whether to drop nuclear weapons on Japan]. I don’t reach out to persuade you. Only to encourage you. I believe you will hear from heaven and that voice is far more important than mine or ANYONE else’s.

Never mind that any sane person would find the idea of sparking a war due to a specific dogma that not every Christian believes, much less anyone else, as completely batshit nuts and disturbing. But that’s where we are.

Historian Tim Snyder’s take on this raises a more significant reason for this war with Iran than the idea of “distraction.” Snyder notes that this is something that has been going on for years with the Trump family, and few seem to be aware of it or understand how bad it is. For years, the MAGA world insisted that regime-change wars were the ultimate symbol of establishment stupidity—forever wars cooked up by neocons and the blob. And yet here we are, suddenly flirting with the idea that the Iranian government simply must go. Timothy Snyder points out the obvious contradiction: if regime change was supposed to be anathema to Trumpism, why does it now sound like a talking point? Maybe because the loudest cheerleaders for taking down Tehran aren’t Midwestern isolationists—they’re Gulf monarchies and Israel, longtime regional rivals of Iran whose geopolitical interests in weakening it are hardly a secret.

But Snyder goes further, and this is where it gets uncomfortable. The structural rivalry in the region explains some of the pressure. The money explains the rest. Gulf states that want Iran sidelined have also happened to shower Trump and his family with investments, sweetheart deals, and outright gifts. The UAE backing a family firm. The Saudis dispensing favors like party favors. Qatar handing over a jet. And now U.S. military force just so happens to align perfectly with the interests of those very benefactors. At minimum, Snyder argues, such context belongs in any serious discussion of conflict with Iran. Because when foreign policy lines up this neatly with personal enrichment, it stops looking like strategy and starts looking like a pay-to-play empire.

I don’t doubt that Trump is hoping for the side benefit of distraction, similar to how you might say travel to Chicago for a conference, and a friend there meets you for lunch. Meeting your friend for lunch was nice, but that’s not the reason why you went to Chicago.

So is the case here. Thinking that Trump is doing this solely over Epstein is really missing a lot. Like so many things Trump does, it seems bad enough on the surface, but it’s much worse the deeper you dig. I will add one more thing to the pile: Apparently, people are getting very rich betting on the war, including a few Polymarket accounts that joined right before the attack.

Who needs conspiracy theories when reality is so much more creative?

The last word goes to The Police.