Watching Trump make war is like watching a child play pretend. He just can’t believe his target won’t lie down and act dead.
If I had been a Trump fan, I’d be cringing so hard, I might never show up on social media (or the comment section) again.
In the last week, the wheels have started to come off the war that was supposed to cement Trump’s legacy as the greatest president ever to president in the history of presidenting in all of recorded history and prehistory too.
Every bleat on Truth Social paints a picture of a flailing nitwit who is outraged that Iran won’t just roll over and die, as he told them to. With every post, he looks more clownish, more delusional, and more panicky.
As much as I support the notion of overthrowing the murderous theocracy of Iran, I cannot imagine a bigger buffoon having a go at it.
At first, I had hoped that he had more of a plan than he was letting on. Perhaps he was executing a plan drafted by real military and geo-strategic experts, instead of by, say, a bombastic former Fox News commentator and faux frat-house muscle-boy Pete Hegseth.
It isn’t
It’s been a week since Trump declared the Iran was to be “very complete, pretty much”.
It isn’t.
It’s been two weeks since Trump offered government-backed risk insurance and US naval escorts for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, and promised that the United States would “ensure the FREE FLOW of ENERGY to the WORLD”. This, after the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps declared the Strait closed.
It’s been a week since Trump posted: “If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far. Additionally, we will take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back, as a Nation, again — Death, Fire, and Fury will reign upon them — But I hope, and pray, that it does not happen! This is a gift from the United States of America to China, and all of those Nations that heavily use the Hormuz Strait. Hopefully, it is a gesture that will be greatly appreciated.”
Iran did. And to date, the US Navy has escorted not a single vessel through the Strait. Insurance for transit through Hormuz has skyrocketed, and nobody is passing through the Strait unless Iran lets them because they are carrying Iranian oil to China or India.
For some reason, all of those nations that heavily use the Hormuz Strait are not kowtowing in abject gratitude before the great wielder of Death, Fire, and Fury.
“We don’t need you”
It’s been 10 days since Trump posted: “The United Kingdom, our once Great Ally, maybe the Greatest of them all, is finally giving serious thought to sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East. That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer — But we will remember. We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won!”
A week later, he changed his mind, and came a-grovelling: “Many Countries, especially those who are affected by Iran’s attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe. We have already destroyed 100% of Iran’s Military capability, but it’s easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close range missile somewhere along, or in, this Waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are. Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint, will send Ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a Nation that has been totally decapitated. In the meantime, the United States will be bombing the hell out of the shoreline, and continually shooting Iranian Boats and Ships out of the water. One way or the other, we will soon get the Hormuz Strait OPEN, SAFE, and FREE!”
So, he needs British help after all.
If Trump had the emotional capacity to feel embarrassment, he would have been mortified. Luckily, he’s a narcissistic psychopath, so he can just brazen it out.
He also wants help from… eh, that great US ally, China‽
Is he actually nuts? That’s like Roosevelt asking Germany for help against Japan. Has he forgotten that Russia and China are on the other side of this proxy war, and are providing political, economic and military support to Iran?
And if the US has “destroyed 100% of Iran’s Military capability”, how is it “easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close-range missile…”?
“Muted response”
But never mind, “Many Countries… will be sending War Ships,” Trump trumpets, with suspiciously German noun capitalisation.
Except… they won’t. With typical English understatement, The Guardian says his call “meets muted response”.
They mean that not a single country has answered Trump’s plaintive call for help. Not one.
“There is no question of sending any vessels to the strait of Hormuz,” said French defence minister Catherine Vautrin.
China isn’t… well, of course China isn’t sending war ships to Hormuz. It is an enemy of the US, and has no trouble receiving oil from Iran.
The UK is maintaining what one might call “strategic ambiguity”, and Japan and South Korea are being characteristically inscrutable.
Germany’s foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, said he is “very sceptical” that redirecting Aspides, the European Union’s three-ship mission to protect shipping through Suez from Houthi attacks, to Hormuz would “provide greater security”.
Norway banned its commercial ships from the region, and said, “We currently have no plans to conduct military operations there.”
The Gulf states are in a flat panic, and their oil is now approaching $150 per barrel, compared to a global oil price, at the time of writing, above $100 per barrel. They’re also not sending their vast navies to the Strait.
And meanwhile, Iran is still blocking the Strait, leaving 250 oil tankers, 100 bulk carriers, and 50 other ships – 400 in total – stranded.
Not only is this affecting oil supply to the rest of the world, but it has also cut off 90% of the Gulf region’s food supply.
“Team effort”
“The United States of America has beaten and completely decimated Iran, both Militarily, Economically, and in every other way,” Trump bleated on Sunday, doubling down on his claims, “but the Countries of the World that receive Oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage, and we will help — A LOT! The U.S. will also coordinate with those Countries so that everything goes quickly, smoothly, and well. This should have always been a team effort, and now it will be — It will bring the World together toward Harmony, Security, and Everlasting Peace!”
If it always should have been a team effort, why did Trump not ask for help in advance?
He might have usefully explained exactly what he wants to achieve by joining Israel in a war against Iran, which he has failed to explain even to his own base. He might have explained how he proposes to achieve it, which the American public still does not know. He might have explained what’s in it for potential allies in this campaign, which – other than returning the oil price to pre-war levels – he seems unable to do.
Those potential allies could have then told him that his plan is pretty flimsy: merely having a BFG 9000 is not necessarily enough to defeat Iran.
“We won”
In his latest Truth Social rant, Trump accuses the media of treason (sorry, I mean “TREASON”) for reporting “fake news” about commercial ships burning after being attacked by Iran.
“You never like to say too early you won,” Trump told a rally in Kentucky last Wednesday. “We won. In the first hour, it was over.”
That has echoes of George W. Bush’s ill-advised “Mission Accomplished” banner, six weeks into an eight-year war.
But the US has not won.
It, and its ally Israel, have certainly done a tremendous amount of damage, and are vastly more powerful than Iran is, or was. They have killed a large number of Iranian leaders, including the Supreme Leader. They have indeed reduced Iran’s military capabilities to a great extent.
That the Iranian regime had it coming, because it was sponsoring terror against civilians around the world, and killing tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters at home, is also not in dispute.
But the US has not achieved any of its stated objectives. The regime is still standing, under a new Ayatollah who is reportedly more hard-line than his father ever was.
At the outset of the war, Trump called upon the Iranian people to grasp the opportunity to rise up and overthrow the regime. They have not heeded that call, knowing full well that the regime remains plenty strong enough to respond with deadly violence.
Two weeks later, Trump admitted, “I really think that’s a big hurdle to climb for people that don’t have weapons.”
Gee, nice of you to join us here in the real world, Donnie.
The US has not prevented Iran from projecting force outside its borders. Iran is still firing missiles and launching drones against neighbouring countries and US assets in the region, and it is still capable of keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed.
Iran not cowed
All of Trump’s ridiculous fire and brimstone threats appear not to have cowed Iran, or reduced its determination to resist the US for as long as it takes. On the contrary: it seems Trump has only heightened the hatred for the US within Iran.
Iran’s only goal in this war is the survival of the Islamic Revolution.
It does not expect to beat America or Israel on the battlefield in a fair fight, which appears to be what Trump was expecting. It expects to beat the Great and Little Satan by continuing to pose a threat to its enemies and neighbours in the region, and to the global economy.
It is too early to call Iran the winner, but it is clear the US has not won, either.
Peace President
Trump once said, about the Houthis, “You can solve problems over a telephone. Instead, they start dropping bombs.”
He once claimed that a vote for Kamala Harris was a vote for war, and a vote for Trump was a vote for peace. He accepted the absurd FIFA Peace Prize created by the corrupt ass-licker, Gianni Infantino, after Trump failed to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Then he had the gall to accept the Nobel Peace Prize medal awarded to Maria Corina Machade, when the Venezuelan opposition leader offered it to him in a bid to influence his decisions about her country’s political future.
Who does that? I’ll admit, I once accepted a medal someone else had won, but I was six, and my mother gave me an old athletics medal of hers as a reward for hiking up the Soutpansberg. What self-respecting 79-year-old would be the kind of pathetic loser to accept a medal he has not earned?
Yet the self-declared Peace President became the most war-like president in 20 years.
So far, he has launched military strikes in Yemen (where it turns out you can’t solve problems over a telephone), as well as Syria, Iraq, Somalia and Nigeria. The US attacked boats he claimed, without evidence, to be drug boats, in the Caribbean and Pacific, and when the attacks didn’t kill everyone, turned back to kill the survivors. (That is a war crime, but then, so was blowing up boats in international waters on mere suspicion of smuggling drugs.)
Trump has replaced a repressive socialist regime in Venezuela with a repressive socialist regime in Venezuela that will sell oil to the United States.
Now, he has replaced an Ayatollah who threatened his people and the region with another Ayatollah who will be determined to restore Iran’s ability to threaten his people and the region.
Desperate
Having failed to bomb Iran into submission, Trump now sounds desperate to extricate himself from this entanglement, and to hand the whole bloody mess to the very allies he insulted just the other day.
He looks like an absolute clown. Like a toddler who shouts “pew-pew” at his playmate, and then gets angry that his target doesn’t fall over to play dead.
The whole thing would be funny if the consequences – for Iran’s people, the Gulf region, and the world – weren’t so extremely serious.
Trump has few options left. The notion of destroying all offensive capabilities in Iran just through bombing campaigns is futile. It doesn’t take much to keep the Hormuz Strait closed.
He could go after the new Ayatollah, but that’s just cutting a head off a hydra.
He could belatedly get the Kurds involved, but they’ve lost the element of surprise.
He could arm the Iranian pro-democracy forces, but that’s hard to do without boots on the ground.
He could just walk away and declare victory, but nobody would believe him and it would just plunge the region into long-term instability.
I get that Americans were a bit tired of left-wing wokery. So was I. But that really is no excuse for unleashing an armed, diaper-wearing toddler upon the world.
Cleaning up after him will take decades.
[Image: Hormuz from Space.webp]
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