- Incorrigible Trump’s verbal terror war on Iran
From his first day in office, the weird White House incumbent has provided the world with plentiful fireworks, the emphasis more on the ‘fire’ aspect. The bullying tone of his preferred mode of communication, the tweet post, has kept friends and foe alike on tenterhooks. With his EU allies and China he is ‘trading’ threats over tariffs, a fraught conflict that can shake the world economy. Domestically he is assailed by skeletons in his closet, mysterious Russian connection, and the excess baggage of salacious ‘conquests’ which he carries as the proud burden of being an eminently successful American tycoon, or rather robber baron, and which are now under investigation, for ‘no man is rich enough to purchase his past’.
The US president does not mean what he says, and does not say what he means, which translates into an unknown, unpredictable commodity. The metaphorically blood-splattered verbal war carried on with the equally impulsive North Korean leader actually ended in the amiable Singapore Summit and its goodwill hype. Trump seemed just an arm-length away from giving the reclusive Kim Jong Un a good old fashioned Russian-style bear hug.
Trump’s super-heavy artillery of tweet rhetoric has now been turned on Iran, an old eyesore and foe to American neocons, and the only rival left standing of the Middle East nuclear state that is actually the controlling and directing brain behind the sole superpower. Former Israeli PM Ariel Sharon, asked about the best time to invade Iran promptly replied, ‘the day after Iraq’, and this potentially catastrophic mindset has been reinforced by Trump recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, rejecting the hard-won Iran nuclear deal despite EU protests, and appointing Iran-phobic hawks like Mike Pompeo and John Bolton to key positions. Iran, already weakened economically, socially and militarily by long-standing sanctions, cannot take Trump’s threats lightly, though by asymmetrical warfare and blocking the Strait of Hormuz it too can bring the global economy to a grinding halt, and turn the Middle East into a sea of flames. Russia, China, EU and the entire world community must take a firm united stand against any US-Israeli adventurism, for these latter two cooks will serve the world nothing but ‘over-peppered dishes’.
