By SJ Otto
Last Tuesday the US endured one more ignorant foreign policy blunder by our brutish-buffoonish President Donald Trump, as he pulled this country out of the Iranian nuclear deal. The consequences of this action may be grim. It could actually lead this country into war, as Amanda Erickson, of The Washington Post, suggested early today.
Very few countries in Europe are happy with Trump’s actions. I’m not a fan of the Iranian regime, but I also don’t really believe that Iran’s government seriously wanted to build a nuclear bomb. The agreement did provide some peace in a region that is constantly at war. We simply don’t need to be at war with Iran.
Each morning, as I sit at my breakfast table and get ready for work, I realize that the Republican Party has provided us with a president that is so despicable that I want to throw a brick through my TV set. Every few years we get someone as contemptable as Trump—such as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush. These are leaders who make sure those of us who are poor, common workers and people on the left, feel exclusion as their right-wing policies are forced on us. Wealthy elites are given a glutton of tax breaks, freebies and an atmosphere of complete control over the working people they command. Workers are left powerless in an atmosphere where they have no control over their own destiny. Poor people are relentlessly attacked with a kind of pogrom that deprives them of almost everything they need to survive. Foreign policy under these leaders is an orgy of jingoism and relentless war against all who would dare to question the mighty US Empire.
And this action, pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, is based on a desire for war against a perceived opponent as well as contempt for the former President Barack Obama. This is a major action based on intolerance of a non-Christian nation and a left-wing (at least compared to the far-far-far-far-far right-wing attitudes of Trump) president.[1]I should point out that a few Republican presidents, such as Gerald Ford, were able to lead this country without the blatant contempt that the other leaders inflicted on us. That’s not to say Ford’s policies were very different, just that he wasn’t in our faces so much as the other leaders.
Trumps scuttling of the Iran deal is straight-out contempt of any action taken by former President Obama. Trump argues that he can get a much better deal. He has re-introduced sanctions that will hurt the people of Iran. He has threatened countries, in Europe, who may find themselves in violations of Trump’s own unilaterally inflicted sanctions. He, and his flunkies, such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have insisted that other countries that do business with Iran won’t be able to do business with the US.
Trump claims he can do something about Iran’s use of terrorism. What he is really referring to is Iran’s support for proxy armies, such as Hezbollah. The US and its allies, such as Saudi Arabia, are doing the same kinds of things. We don’t call it terrorism when we do it. But the actions are the same. Saudi Arabia is trying to create its own little mini-empire, mostly in Yemen. They have been actively carrying on their own “terrorism,” such as recklessly bombing civilian targets. So Trump has two different standards for countries in the Middle-east. Proxy armies are terrorism if our opponents do it, but taking part in wars and expanding conflicts are just the norm for the US and its allies.
Iran and Israel have already traded missile attacks in Syria, just after Trump’s announcement to pull out of the deal, which has proven Amanda Erickson’s prediction that the action would result in war. Trump is so sure he can develop a better deal with Iran that he is willing to put other people’s lives on the line. He is willing to risk the lives of US soldiers, along with those of our allies and the lives of both military and civilians in Iran.
We are seeing the actions of a swaggering bully who wants the citizens of the world to realize that the Trump “Empire” is something our president takes seriously and he is willing to bet the lives of other people to prove to himself.
Pix from History | Washington State University.