> It's not whataboutism, unless somehow Pearl Harbor is whataboutism to Nuking Hiroshima. Sometimes things have direct cause and effect, even if it's inconvenient to your argument.

Wouldn't that technically be a whataboutism? As far as I've seen it used, "whataboutism" usually means that there is a cause and effect that is inconvenient to someone's argument. Whatever a whataboutism is in the popular parlance, it isn't a logical or factual error.

Anyway, the key point here is it'd be really helpful to understand exactly what magic the Israelis used to get the US into this war. It has to be the most bizarre promise-not-kept of any US president in decades. Nobody seriously thought this sort of escapade could end well and although Trump is pretty vague he seemed clear enough in understanding that lying the US public into wars was a legacy killer. It looks like it'll re-cripple the Republicans in the same way the last Bush administration did.