Did President Trump, as talkshow host Jon Stewart suggested, start this conflict so America could learn more geography and where Iran, the Straits of Hormuz and the island of Kharg are, on the map? It would seem as much of a well-thought reason as any we've heard.
Certainly, Russia, North Korea and China, are currently listed, along with Iran, as ‘primary adversaries’, meaning “militarily and geopolitically opposed”, according to the State Department of the United States. Add in the ‘rogue states’, due to their “strained diplomatic relations”, with Venezuela, Cuba, Belarus and Syria, who are all the subject of significant sanctions and the countries listed by their State Department as ‘countries of particular concern’ because they have “strained or hostile relations”, such as Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Nigeria, Nicaragua and Afghanistan. Maybe geography is the reason.
Does it necessarily follow that any of those countries may now find themself, on a whim, under attack because their internal machinations don’t conform to the militarist, societal, or religious imperatives of the world’s strongest society and nation? Rhetoric is just that, threats are only words and while human rights abuses and the absence of democratic processes may be difficult for us to understand or tolerate, we can’t fix everything that’s broken!
We cannot cure, fix, or even get any semblance of control of global hunger, poverty, inequality and food insecurity; desertification and scarcity of water; refugees and undocumented migration; climate change and the environment; global health issues and pandemics; nuclear proliferation and militarism; the burgeoning threat of artificial intelligence; global economics and the accumulation of wealth by the one per cent; and finally, the uncertainties of our planet and solar system.
And surely, as the list of ‘unfriendly’ nations will not be diminished by the actions of the United States President and his military sycophants, Trump’s critical comments towards several respected allies, are neither going to win friends, nor influence people. The casual manner with which the triumvirate of Trump, his VP, J D Vance and Secretary of War, ‘Pistol Pete’ Hegseth denigrate global leaders and statesmen is appalling for its casual disrespect.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Canada’s Mark Carney, France’s Emanuel Macron, the UK’s Keir Starmer and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky are just a few of those who have earned the wrath of the extraordinarily aggressive political hierarchy.
Are we taking too much of this conflict at face value? Are we wrong to think there is more to this conflict than a President who decided to flex his ‘muscle’ just because he can, in one last hurrah? Maybe. Only he knows and even if he said so today, he would deny it tomorrow, so we would never really know. However, we should have no doubt he is testing the water of a ‘third term’ of presidency, and it is rumoured, but he would need two thirds of his party’s support and with his current popularity languishing around 40 per cent, I doubt he would be that foolish.
Anything’s possible in that crazy world that is America's political landscape and the new MAGA baseball caps have been ordered! This is only to distract us from the fact that due to impetuosity and the expectation that the Iranians would ‘roll over’, tamely and submit, with minimal implications for the global economy and Middle Eastern security and wellbeing and none of that's happened, has it?
Samuel Johnson wrote, in 1750, of old men complaining of 'growing depravity, petulance and insolence'. He was yearning for the decency and discipline of his youth, but found only, "no more to be expected, since confusion has broken in upon the world" and in those words, lies the blame, the horrendous irresponsibility for this ill-conceived geography lesson of a war, gone horribly wrong.
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