CHEATER GAMBLER

Why is US intervention in the Israel-Iran war just a matter of style of the same neoconservative policy that ruined Americans? Donald Trump plays dice with his country's destinies

By Sidney Hey

When Trump's message was made public on his X network, a colleague with whom I was having a cool drink in a pub in Horbat smiled and with his mouth half open said ‘touch your balls, who can believe this guy?’ His witticism made me burst out laughing not in derision but at the way he said it. I agree with his opinion and that is why I told him that if I were a military adviser to Ali Khamenei I would tell him that the last thing he should do is to let his guard down. 

At this point you can't take anything Trump says seriously, let alone his little social media messages. The real question is why is he trying to stop this confrontation in its tracks? Let's rule out good intentions, the recognition of Rafael Grossi's malice and even less an interest in peace.

We could speculate on several alternatives to this question but note that all of them involve Bibi Netanyahu. To begin with, Trump knew very well and was informed by his Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard that Tehran was not developing any nuclear bombs.

Let's not forget that Donald Trump played a dirty hand and while he said he was giving two weeks to think about how to negotiate the situation with Iran, he ordered a fleet of B2 stealth planes from his base in Missouri to attack the nuclear plants at Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan with anti-bunker bombs, very clever, or at least that's what he thought.

Let there be no doubt that this move was reported to his friend Bibi who believed that this would give the coup de grâce to Iran's nuclear programme and the Iranian government by getting it out of the predicament in which his government was left. But at the same time this shows that Trump has no idea what the situation is all about, let alone what Iran really represents.

Tehran, far from panicking as Trump and his Zionist retinue in the White House no doubt expected, doubled its bet and launched a replica with three missiles against one of the most important US bases in the region, Al Udeid, in the emirate of Qatar. Trump thus received a resounding slap in the face just as he received in 2020 when, after ordering the CIA to assassinate Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi Shiite militia leader Mahdi Al Muhandis, Iranian missiles devastated the US base ‘Al Assad’ in Iraq.

At the time his advisors, whom he never listens to (like Tulsi Gabbard), told him that it had been a grave mistake to take Iran lightly. He also seems to have forgotten that after that retaliation Bibi did not pick up the phone. But it seems that Trump either has no memory or is still a very impressionable guy for the pro-Israeli lobby in Washington, so much so that he is capable of doing anything stupid to ingratiate himself with the Zionist ultra-rightists.   

There is a reality that is far from what Trump himself and the Western media have said about how events unfolded, especially about Iran. The Israelis never controlled Iranian skies and even the Americans could never do so. The only time Israeli F-35s were able to penetrate Iranian airspace was with their treacherous attack on June 13, for which they lost several of those planes and a couple of pilots are now in some Iranian prison. After that, each and every one of their attacks was carried out by launching their air-to-surface missiles at considerable altitude from Iraqi skies which, let's remember, are now free and controlled by US CENTCOM. This tactic is the same as the one used to attack Syria from Lebanese skies.

Likewise, the limited range of each of the Israeli attack aircraft required the assistance of KC-130 tankers that took off from bases in the United Arab Emirates and other points in the region, demonstrating the complicity of the monarchies with the US and Tel Aviv.

With that assistance in aggression, the US had declared war on Iran and it did not take Donald Donald to order air strikes against Iran's nuclear plants to constitute a Casus belli. And if that was not enough, he took the liberty of threatening the Iranians with the haughty demand for ‘unconditional surrender’ as if it were a Hollywood movie. Trump has once again put his foot in his mouth, and although his mouth is spouting those strident phrases and statements that affirm nothing, he has once again dragged his country into another unnecessary war that (as the Pentagon is already analysing) will distract resources from the main strategic objectives such as China and the Russian Federation.

He seems to have reacted late to his foolishness, as criticism from within his ‘America First’ supporters, especially among Republicans, is calling into question the credibility they gave him when they trusted his administration to stop squandering human and economic resources on wars that have nothing to do with the interests of the American people.

The past condemns Donald Trump and when it comes to Iran, the record shows it. From the assassination of Soleimani (a crime against a foreign official) to withdrawing without explanation from the negotiations on the multilateral agreement on Iran's nuclear programme shows that he has always been hostile and has succumbed to every temptation blown in his ear by Netanyahu and his envoys.  

Despite Trump's message ‘forcing a ceasefire’, the Israeli jets continued their actions and Tehran responded with new missile rounds, including one of the new hypersonic multi-warhead missiles, which was impossible to intercept by Israeli anti-aircraft systems and proved highly accurate and lethal.