All reporting I’ve seen on Israel mention destruction of Iran as long time dream of Bibi and it distracts from his legal and political troubles and unites country behind him - war has 90 plus percent approval among Jews and about 25 percent among Arabs who don’t vote for his coalition anyways, so political win for him. For modern GOP, “the cruelty is the point” can be used to explain most of his policy decisions, the book and original essay make the argument that making “others” suffer is uniting factor for GOP since Trump took the reins (in spite of many conflicting reasons Rubio, Trump and Hegseth have given to justify this war including setting stage for apocalypse foretold in Revelations to please fundamentalist Christian voter bloc) Many GOP voters have backed Trump in interviews even after being hurt by his tariff regime, immigration crackdowns, DOGE cutbacks, threats to annex territory, the only thing that appears to move the needle a little in GOP approval has been the recent run up in gasoline prices. One case in point - Farmers got hurt in first term by Trump tariffs, overwhelming supported Trump three elections in a row, and after second term tariffs hurt them, still support Trump, one would think if one farmer said I’m off the Trump train that reporters would be all over it. There is no rational thought process going on here beyond first order effects.