The Trump Regime proves again to be the single largest danger to humanity’s future

Here is Trump’s disturbing speech with an analysis of all the classical psycho-political delusions, hubris, arrogance and the blindness of military power. It can only go wrong now…

By Jan Oberg, TFF Director

There were only two things that surprised me – and would have been fitting – namely that he had been dressed in military battle uniform (I predict that, as Supreme Commander, he will soon show up in that), and that he did not argue that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize even more for what he has now announced.

That said, here is how you speak when you are a danger to the world:

1. WE ARE THREATENED BY EVIL ITSELF
   You accuse Iran of being a threat to the American people – while the US itself is the biggest military power on earth and has surrounded Iran, not the other way around. Only an insane mind would see Iran as capable of attacking the US homeland or occupy it or, for instance, conduct a regime shift in Washington.
2. WE ARE VICTIMISED
   You present yourself as a victim – Trump gave examples of how Iran has (allegedly) killed US militaries who were deployed illegally abroad, for instance, in Syria. He omits the US killings of Iranian – civilians and militaries – for instance, his own liquidation of General Solimani.
3. WE ARE INNOCENT
   You play innocent, we never did anything wrong – not a word, of course you may say, about US harassment of Iran for decades, the US/British coup against the first democratically elected Iranian leader in 1953, the support to the ruthless Shah, giving Israel nuclear weapons; not a word about the US economic sanctions since 1979.
4. WE ARE EXCEPTIONAL
   We can do what what others cannot do because we are exceptionally good – we will never allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons (an invented event anyhow) while we never mention Israel’s nukes or our own. Since we are the – exceptionally – good guys and they are the bad guys, that is morally defensible. They can never have what we have and what we threaten them with. The same applies to long-ranger missiles. We have plenty of them, but Iran cannot have it – we threaten no one, but Iran does.
   Since we are exceptional, international law does not apply to us.
5. WE ARE SUPERIOR & INVINCIBLE
   We have the raw power to humiliate and beat them into submission – a God-given right to humiliate and defeat others, and we do it to achieve our exceptionally noble goals. Our military is second to none, and no one should ever challenge us. If you do, we promise total destruction. Because we can.
6. WE DICTATE THE RULES OF THE GAME, NO COMPROMISE
   We set the conditions, the rules of the game – you morally and otherwise weak Iranian military have to either surrender or face death. You are a bunch of killers, we provide freedom to all Iranians and sacrifice our own servicement for this – “noble” mission. Conspicuously, Trump did not mention the ongoing negotiations which we must assume now served only to win time to get the US military in place.
7. WE DO HARD REGIME CHANGE AND DON’T CARE ABOUT THE UNITED NATIONS OR INTERNATIONAL LAW.
   We generously sacrifice to liberate you because you asked us for our help – you, the fantastic Iranians, and we know that 100% of you hate your leaders, so what could be more right and noble for the US but to hear your call? Norms and ethics are long out of the US window.
8. GOD IS ON OUR SIDE
   Perhaps it is a ritual but rounding off this speech with “God save…” means exactly that.
   In contrast to, say, the European leaders, Trump propagates Christianity as he goes to war. That is significant since the US is constantly at war with presumed inferior Muslim countries. If he can appeal to God to save American lives, he probably feels that he has a nice backup and confirmation from up above – and American love that in God’s own country. Fortunately, we cannot know what God thinks about Trump and US policies, but we can imagine various interpretations…
9. IN SUMMARY
   These are classical psycho-political elements of militarism/fascism operators legitimating going to war – absolutely nothing new. Also, no lessons learned – for instance, that changing the top leader(ship) usually is no guarantee that a better society emerges – think Iraq, Syria, Libya.
   The whole thing is delusional. It overestimates one’s own power, the evil of ‘the other,’ the righteousness of ‘our’ course and how noble ‘we’ are – and how we are threatened despite being innocent and doing good. It denies that conflict is about problems that stand between parties and assumes that conflict is only caused by the other side.
   It signifies how manifest it is that where military might goes in, analysis, truth, consequence evaluations, ethics and decency goes out. It’s called hubris…There was not one word based on any intellectual analysis or aiming at prudent statesmanship and caution. It was a speech worthy of a gangster.

   What will happen now?

   Well, the USrael attack may “succeed” in either taking over the leadership in Iran, in mass killing civilians on the way, in destroying more military installations (which it has already done before), in providing for Israel to continue to create a Greater Israel, in getting a lot of American soldiers killed and US installations in the region destroyed – and perhaps in getting the Strait of Hormuz closed.

   It may “succeed” in getting some Arab countries to gang up against Iran and, perhaps, getting the Shah’s son back.

   None of this will be a political success or create a better life for a single Iranian. It will be a long-war catastrophe for all involved and become a predictable fiasco for Trump and the US Empire.

   And even if a short war, it will cause an indefinite hatred among people throughout the region and the rest of the world – also on top of the Gaza genocide, Venezuela, Greenland, etc. Under all circumstances, Iran will be moving into unchartered lands because of this completely unnecessary war – unnecessary simply because, throughout the Western world, intelligent diplomacy is now a thing of the past.The West now runs exclusively on a world-endangering kakistocratic and militarist mindset. And it will continue until death does it part from the Rest. In that – tragic – perspective the war that started today will become yet another nail in its coffin.

Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research