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.
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