by PAUL COLLITS – MY DEAR, late mother – before she succumbed to the inevitable senior’s mental deterioration, aka dementia – was a cryptic crossword aficionado.
For whatever reason, I still remember one particular clue she once shared with me. It was “I hurried to Persia”. The answer – Iran. Not that cryptic, you might say.
- A shit storm has ensued.
- The patent failure of Australian governments to maintain reserve fuel levels also have a bit to do with this.
- Meanwhile, a ground invasion of Iran is now a real possibility.
Well, Donald Trump has hurried to Persia. Twice.
As a matter of fact, he has been hurrying to Persia since 1980, when he first advocated blasting Persia of the face of the earth.
HOSTAGES
This was shortly after the Ayatollahs arrived and held America to ransom with hostages that Jimmy Carter couldn’t save, but The Gipper could and did. Trump can do consistency, after all.
The Presidents latest and most decisive attempt to obliterate the Ayatollahs means that Australians’ Easter travel plans are up the spout. And possibly our whole economy.
The collapse of small business upon the back of collapsed discretionary spending. Farmers denied fert. Inflation through the roof. Interest rates will spike further.
A shit storm has ensued.
Yes, the patent failure of Australian governments to maintain reserve fuel levels also have a bit to do with this.
The big geopolitical and moral (just war) issues are twofold. There are generally only ever two questions about any war. Is it worth it? Is it justified?
Someone once asked Mao’s right-hand man, Chou En Lai, what he thought the impact of the French Revolution was.
He famously replied: “It’s a bit early to tell.”
Well, pontificating on Trump’s war on Iran may be a little premature, too. The battle rages on, after all. The coming of the social media revolution hasn’t done much for historical perspective. It is more hysterical perspective.
So, answering our two questions is, at best, provisional.
But some immediate thoughts are not out of place. First, my own reactions. There are two.
First, as a reformed and embarrassed, now anti-neocon who once supported Iraq, I can only say, here we go again. How is this different?
Second, what was the point of it, if not to achieve regime change? That is not remotely close to achievement, nor is it likely to become a real possibility, any time soon.
So, channelling Mark Steyn, a latter-day, post-Iraq war sceptic, why did we (a wobbly coalition of the moderately willing) do it, and do we have the will and firepower to see it to completion?
Steyn simply thinks that you can’t trust the Pentagon because of its incompetence. The Yanks haven’t won a war since 1945.
A possible ground invasion of Iran, now, apparently, a possibility, merely recalls the nightmare that was Vietnam. And Iraq. And, God help us all, Afghanistan.
All this from a peace-loving President, elected on a MAGA agenda of no-more-foreign-entanglements! God help us all. Were we conned?
Now to the second question: “Is it justified?”
BRILLIANT
The usual, reliable sources are not in agreement. You will read compelling defences of Trump’s action, and then you will read equally brilliant pieces condemning him.
We are in unchartered MAGA territory.
The brilliant Christopher Caldwell in The Spectator puts this aspect of it best: “Having Donald Trump as your president probably resembles being a heroin addict: you undergo regular episodes of sweating terror and mortal danger, the end result of which is to get you – at best – back to normal.
“A year ago, the Liberation Day tariffs nearly caused the American economy to seize up, before China mercifully let the matter drop.
“Then came the even more reckless decision to join Israel in bombing Iran’s Fordow nuclear installation; Iran agreed to halt hostilities just as it was figuring out how to penetrate Israeli airspace with its missiles.
“But now the President has pressed his luck. He has joined Israel in a campaign of aerial assassination and bombardment against Iran – this time of an almost incredible violence – and has wound up trapped.
“American air power proved sufficient to kill Iran’s 86-year-old leader and dozens of schoolgirls, flatten apartment blocks and blow up much of the country’s navy – but not to neutralise Iran’s missiles, which have been able to rain destruction on America’s bases and Tel Aviv’s neighbourhoods.
“There has always been a red line: Americans did not expect Trump’s character flaws to endanger them.
“Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 per cent of the world’s oil passes. The reversal has not brought out the President’s dignified side.
“He now boasts about the comprehensiveness of his glorious victory, while imploring America’s hitherto unconsulted allies to join him in a naval campaign to get the strait back open. The message seems to be: “Help! Help! We’re kicking ass!”
“Trump has escaped other predicaments of his own making, but there is something different about this one.
“The attack on Iran is so wildly inconsistent with the wishes of his own base, so diametrically opposed to their reading of the national interest, that it is likely to mark the end of Trumpism as a project.
“Those with a claim to speak for Trumpism – Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly – have reacted to the invasion with incredulity.
“Trump may entertain himself with the presidency for the next three years (barring impeachment), but the mutual respect between him and his movement has been ruptured, and his revolution is essentially over.”
Oh dear.
Other sane voices, wedded neither to the never Trumpers, nor the no-longer Trumpers (see under Tucker Carlson), nor the always Trumpers (like Mark Levin), in equal measure unreliable, are pro the war; Tony Abbott, Victor Davis Hanson, Roger Kimball and, impressively, Nick Cater.
There are two main pro-arguments. One is the neighbour-domestic abuse argument. You know the regime is evil and crucifying its own people. Do you intervene?
TYRANTS
Look at the Iranian people’s mass, cheering demonstrations across the West. They love Trump. With reason. But there is a lot of shit going down in all sorts of regimes. We don’t go to war with all the tyrants and bullies. Is Iran exceptional?
The second is the geo-political. Iran is part of the evil empire. The Chinese run the place. The Persians run the Middle East terrorists. So, we take it out.
Then the world is a better place. Or, perhaps, just messier?
Is Iran a threat to the world? Well, it is a daily threat to Israel. The argument that it’s a (direct) threat to the USA (or to the world) is a little harder to make. Notwithstanding the China connection. And notwithstanding all of Iran’s “death to America” memes.
Then we get into the Israel-American foreign policy debate. Oh dear. Let the Israelis fight their wars.
Are Israel’s war our wars? The Melanie Phillips/Douglas Murray view is that they are. Israel is the front line in the battle for the West.
Do Aussies in the front bar even know what the West is and means? Nope. But they know the price of petrol. Will the Iran resistance remain strong?
What of the anti-war brigade? We can dismiss the recently dismissed CEO of The Centre for Independent Studies, Tom Switzer. He remains strangely protected by Australia’s Right-wing establishment and granted platforms he doesn’t deserve. Never Trumpers don’t count here.
Again, excepting Tom, there are sane voices implacably opposed to the Iran engagement, whatever its downstream, oil-related impacts. Think George Christensen.
The war on Iran is a war no one, but the global oligarchs and the politicians on their payroll, wanted, and so it has happened.
ANTI-WAR
The anti-war folks contain some of the usual suspects; sane on many things but wherever Israel is concerned, not to be automatically trusted.
I always prefer cautious, considered, nuanced political science.
Everyone is entitled to a view on any war, but always start with scepticism. Don’t fall for false binaries or conspiracy theories.
Iran isn’t Ukraine, which was always a set-up.
With this one, like almost all of the others, it isn’t either or.
The greenies will say just go EV. The anti-greens will say climate catastrophism caused this.
But we owe the difficult debate much more than John Howard’s on-the-run argument for supporting Bush 43’s Iraq War: “That America needs more than an 80 per cent ally.”
Post Iraq, we need much more than this.
Trump hurried to Persia. We can only hope that his slow/fast thinking on this and the Pentagon’s capabilities and resolve are going to be able to meet his objectives, if he and they know what they are, precisely.PC
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