Donald Trump menaces the world. He’s global public enemy number one. He’s steadily losing the illegal war with Iran he started but cannot stop. His violence-addicted Israeli sidekick, Benjamin Netanyahu, is terrorising Lebanon. And ordinary people everywhere, their security threatened, face a huge economic bill for his reckless folly.
Add Trump’s war-making to his daily debasing of democracy, appeasing of Russia, punitive tariffs, climate crisis denial and flouting of international law, and it’s clear this White House travesty has gone on long enough. Americans must put their house in order and act decisively to restrain someone who endangers us all.
Trump is a man without a plan. He hasn’t the foggiest what to do next in Iran, deluding himself that he is in control of events. The more the US and Israel batter Tehran and other cities, the more defiant is the odious, unvanquished Islamic regime. US regional bases and Gulf Arab partners are sustaining significant damage from retaliatory strikes.
Iran has succeeded in closing (and is now reportedly mining) the strait of Hormuz, which Trump, astonishingly, failed to defend. Rising oil and gas prices are driving a global energy shock that harms international trade, fuels inflation and creates food and medicine shortages. Poorer countries will suffer most. But few will escape the Trump plague. He’s the new Covid.
Netanyahu’s worst instincts have free rein as Trump flounders. Unceasing, disproportionate Israeli air attacks are hitting Iranian homes, utilitiesbanks, cultural heritage sites and mosques. The attacks are said to be counterproductively rallying nationalist support for the regime.
In Lebanon, it’s the same criminal story: civilians killed, hundreds of thousands of people displaced, destruction, occupation – all supposedly necessary to smash Hezbollah terror. But this is something worse: it’s state terror. Compare it with unchecked Israeli settler depredations in the West Bank. The “greater Israel” project advances on all fronts, olive grove by uprooted olive grove, village by depopulated village.
Taking fright as markets tumbled, Trump half-tried to declare victory last week, but even he couldn’t sustain so big a lie. At least George W Bush had the courage of his (foolish) convictions in Iraq in 2003. Bush knew only a land invasion would achieve his aims. Trump lacks the balls for that. In Iran, he sought swift, painless victory from the air.
What he – and the world – have got instead is, potentially, another forever war. The regime will keep fighting, increasingly by asymmetric means; there can be no popular uprising while this continues. Israel wants to make Iran and Lebanon like Gaza: permanent aerial free-fire zones. And thanks to Trump, the US is pig in the middle.
Trump and his Bible-thumping Pentagon mouthpiece, Pete Hegseth, would prefer to declare “mission accomplished” sooner rather than later. It’s undeniable Iran’s military capabilities have been severely degraded, however this will not end well for Washington.
Humiliating failure looms, prospectively as symbolically damaging to US global standing and national self-esteem as Afghanistan or Iraq. Body bags are coming home. And the war’s financial cost is running at more than $11bn a week. Midterm election voters, watching prices rise, will not easily forgive its careless architect. Donald J Trump: making America lose again.
The central issue of Iran’s suspect nuclear intentions remains unresolved. Its facilities have been “obliterated” not once but twice. Yet it retains a hidden stockpile of highly enriched uranium, plus scientific knowhow that cannot be bombed away. This stockpile might have been peacefully surrendered or diluted, had Trump not torpedoed negotiations.
Some hardliners want to copy North Korea and build nukes to ensure regime survival. To date, Iran has not taken that final step, blocked by a fatwa from the then supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. Now he’s been assassinated, that may quickly change. If Iran does finally go nuclear, it could be Trump’s and Netanyahu’s doing.
The Iranian missile and drone threat is diminished but far from eliminated, as Tehran’s continuing strikes show. Pentagon boasting about “permanently” destroying Iran’s offensive capabilities is plain silly. The US is taking hits, and suffering casualties, at military bases across the Gulf as Iran learns how to exploit defensive vulnerabilities. Tehran is also holding proxy militias in reserve.
Hegseth’s ranting about “barbarians” and “savages” says more about him and his boss than his enemies. It seems the “secretary of war” may have had some traumatic experiences while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, where many US and UK soldiers were killed by improvised explosive devices (IEDs). In contrast, draft-dodger Trump probably thinks an IED is a contraceptive device.
The coming US defeat is moral and legal, too. Trump’s lying efforts to shift blame for the killing of more than 100 schoolgirls in a US Tomahawk missile strike in Minab on 28 February are utterly contemptible. Deliberate or not, Minab was a war crime for which those responsible must be held accountable.
In this context, it’s significant that Trump went to war without necessary congressional authority, flouts the Geneva conventions and ignores international law. US troops observe no rules of engagement. Ethically challenged Hegseth claims they can do whatever they want, with impunity. No, they cannot.
Trump’s “little excursion” will have big geopolitical consequences. Regime change, which he cruelly promised protesters, is slipping off the US agenda. It was always unrealistic to suppose it could be imposed from above. For his part, Netanyahu still hopes for regime collapse, not least because it may boost his re-election chances. He will want to keep on bombing Iran and Lebanon (and Gaza) when it suits him, regardless of whether Trump proclaims an end to the war.
Allies including Britain are dismayed and alienated by Trump’s arrogant refusal to consult and fatal lack of strategic planning, exemplified by his strait of Hormuz fiasco. He’s irresponsibly escalating the war, saying he is bombing Iran’s Kharg Island oil terminal “just for fun” – which could further drive up global prices. Simultaneously, he’s asking those same allies to get directly involved by sending warships to his rescue in the strait. Unsurprisingly, there are no takers so far. Meanwhile, Russia – “temporarily” released from US oil sanctions to Ukraine’s great detriment – and China are profiting from Trump’s bellicose bungling and disdain for global opinion.
If there is any justice left in the world, Trump’s Republicans will be punished in November’s elections. But that’s the very least that should happen. US and Israeli leaders should face prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity in national and international courts. Britain and other adversely affected states should demand the US pay compensation. Iran and Lebanon should receive reparations. And Trump should be impeached in Congress for his many gross abuses of power.
People may say this will never happen. But the point is, it should – and must. This is the universal standard to which even the most powerful leaders must be held, or else all is lost. Trump has almost three years left in charge, what else might he do if allowed to rampage on unrestrained?
Failing, flailing Trump poses a clear and present danger to the US and the world. Take him down.
