Thank you, Israel

Love, the US Marines

The news out of the Middle East this week that's clearly getting the most coverage and attention is yesterday's successful Israeli assassination of Hamas' political leader, Ismail Haniyeh — in Iran, mind you.

It's a pretty cool story.

Haniyeh was in the country for the inauguration of Iran's new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and was staying in a guest house in an upscale neighborhood in northern Tehran.

At about 2 am Wednesday, Haniyeh was in bed, maybe spooning with his bodyguard, when —BLAM-O!!!— a bomb that had been snuck into the heavily guarded building two months ago was remotely detonated.

The targeted guest house where Ismail Haniyeh met his fate

Remarkably, the building was protected by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and even Iranian officials have called it a catastrophic intelligence and security failure, not to mention a serious embarrassment for the IRGC.

This morning, the Israeli military also confirmed that, in a July 13 airstrike in Gaza, the Israeli Air Force schwacked Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas' military wing and one of the architects of the October 7 attack.

Dead guy Mohammed Deif

Both of those stories are really great news.

However, as a retired Marine, I was especially pleased by another headline.