"Trump now appears to be an unpredictable psychopath who chooses to rely on power than on realism and rationality."
"Trump now appears to be an unpredictable psychopath who chooses to rely on power than on realism and rationality."
There is much bravado in the decision by US President Donald Trump to give a go-signal for the US armed forces to commit murder by targeting the killing of a top Iranian general Qassem Suleimani. On Jan. 3, US-operated drones killed him while he was on a diplomatic mission to Iraq at the invitation of Saudi Arabia. It was premeditated because the target had no idea he will be targeted nor means to defend himself. The US together with Israel considered the general a high-value target that assassinating him would help counter the assymetrical war waged in areas occupied by US forces.
President Trump, without denying responsibility, said the general “threatened to wage war against the US.” On that basis, he was killed not on what he did. But after executing him, US propaganda resorted to enumerating the general’s alleged crimes as if that would absolve their crimes.
The second consideration was to deflect public attention away from the impeachment trial filed against him by the Democratic Party. Even if he cannot be impeached because the Republican Party still controls the Senate, his credibility is slowly being eroded and no sooner will that affect the frame of mind of the American electorate in his bid to seek reelection. Thus, executing Iran’s famous general though by his strategists to push upward his marginal chances for a second term and hopefully dust off the nasty image painted of him by his critics and the powerful US media as a Russian stooge seemed to him a sound idea.
The case is unusual because for the first time the President mixed his foreign policy by employing the strategy of “brinkmanship” or the art of pursuing a dangerous policy to the limits of safety before stopping. This was a calculated strategy of wanting to hit two birds with one stone. It was also a calibrated gambit to shore up his popularity while pleasing the truculent agents of the military industrial complex who is always in search for a new war to boost the stocks.
Killing Suleimani could defang both the hardliners in Iran and domestically calm down the hooting of those seeking his impeachment. The extraordinary braggadocio was more of a show that there is no safe haven that could not be reached by the wrath of US vengeance.
Initially, Trump was not bothered by Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani’s vow to make revenge because he relied on the advice of people like secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, who presume that hitting hard the enemies of the US would help boost the stock market of the arms traders while achieving peace on their terms. They instilled into the President’s frame of mind that the US is invincible and that nobody would dare challenge its power. His reliance on the ability to defend was more assessing the parameters for peace than in attaining a win-win situation as what China is doing.
Trump now appears to be an unpredictable psychopath who chooses to rely on power than on realism and rationality. He deals with other countries as though they are always bent to cross the path of US foreign policy and not as one seeking to peacefully advance their own national interest. Pompeo and the disgraced national security adviser John Bolton always see things differently—that things can be resolved through intimidation and blackmail than in diplomacy.
But when he saw the throng of public outpouring during the funeral of the slain general where all chanted for revenge and called the US a Satanic empire, Trump suddenly changed gear. As observed, he and his advisers always think all will go as planned; that Iran and the Ayatollahs can just gnash their teeth in anger. In fact, bullying Iran would be the last card of the US can do. Trump never anticipated Iran would be as determined to seek revenge. He forwarded the wrong foot by threatening to destroy all historical sites in that country.
The devastating effect in the use of poison gas that saw millions killed in World War I, made Hitler refrain from using it. It never came across Trump’s mind that to bomb historical relics and sites and to use poison gas were war crimes. To remind Trump and his war merchants, the US is the only country that destroyed everything including historical relics of human civilization when its ordered the dropping of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was his usual braggadocio to threaten countries at the slightest attempt to show signs of resistance as if to tell them to think twice before they make good on their revenge.
Before that Trump backpedalled by retouching his words saying that the US always “abided” by international law forgetting that what the US did in killing the general who was on a diplomatic mission to deescalate the war in Iraq, specifically for violating the air space of another sovereign country, and the gruesome case of a state-sponsored murder.
The reaction was unexpected that its NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said it was the decision of the US, and impliedly admitting NATO had nothing to do with that adventurism. That now forced Trump to think whether the killing of the general was really in pursuit of protecting of US national interest or was meant to raise the ante for the US war industry and stupefy the impeachment hysteria in Congress. It was most expedient to elevate murder to one of protecting the nation’s national interest.
In fact, the anti-war movement which have long been in hibernation after their involvement in Vietnam in the 70s proved to be anti-climactic. If the revenge by Iran came during or after the Jan. 24 nationwide peace rally, like the attack targeting the cordoned US controlled Greenzone and to its military bases in Ain al-Asad military bases in Iraq. It could be interpreted as in defiance by Iraq of international law.
It did not even take Trump 24 hours to issue a statement saying that Iran has decided to de-escalate the war by not making further revenge aimed at hitting US targets. Nobody really knows what he means.
The pressure for peace has overwhelmed the demand of the warmongers that the theory of engaging in another war to deflect the real issue of impeaching him has backfired. Iran has already made good on its threat to retaliate, and the move is now on the US whether to hit back with greater destructive intensity. The eye-for-eye doctrine of the Zionist is much doubted because those hankering for war are following a different parameter that sadly is not understood by Trump.
Whatever the US President says now, it is clear that he has backed out from a possible war. Remember, if Trump is surrounded by warmonger, so is Iran with their fanatical ayatollahs. As this column wrote on Facebook the day after the assassination, Trump failed to deflect the issue of impeachment. The US can impose further sanction against Iran, but it should realize that it has lost much of its venom. Other countries are now racing to sell other products they could sell in exchange for oil. As this goes on, the US economy is shrinking, and the US will have to think twice whether to recklessly use the weapon it imposed on Iran.