The war on Iran is just and strategically sound. One only wishes it weren’t Trump waging it.
Then again, to use Trump’s chosen mode of expression, ONLY FOOLS would expect him to put his more objectionable traits on hold at a time of crisis. It’s not just a leopard’s belligerence that the president may match, but also the animal’s inability to change its spots.
One of Trump’s metaphorical spots is a tendency to shoot from the lip in volleys of insane braggadocio. By way of illustration, just compare these newspaper reports, two days apart.
7 March – Trump yet again paraded his command of grammar by writing in his favourite medium: “Iran, which is being beat to HELL [it’s ‘beaten’, Mr President, this side of the truck stops on I-495], has apologized and surrendered to its Middle East neighbors, and promised that it will not shoot at them anymore. This promise was only made because of the relentless U.S. and Israeli attack.”
9 February – headline in The Mail: Iran Unleashes Huge Overnight Attacks on Gulf States.
It definitely behoves a wartime leader to rally his troops and the whole population with fiery rhetoric. And ONLY FOOLS would hold the odd rhetorical flourish against such a leader. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that inspiring oratory is the essential part of the job at a time like this.
The actual conduct of the war is best left to professionals, with the civilian government offering little beyond setting strategic objectives before the war and providing oversight during it. But it’s not generals but politicians who unite the people, calling on them to bear the inevitable hardships for the sake of the common cause.
Churchill was one of the best practitioners of that art. His three 1940 speeches, “We shall fight on the beaches”, “Blood, toil, tears and sweat” and “This was their finest hour”, arguably contributed more to victory than Monty’s battlefield acumen did.
Granted, Britain’s circumstances were different – the country was fighting for its survival. Hence Churchill’s oratory can only offer a general pattern for future generations, not a verbatim blueprint. But the general pattern includes an injunction against uttering obvious bilge, easily perceived as such by the public.
Trump possesses none of Churchill’s language skills. After all, while Trump has failed to win the Nobel Prize for peace, Churchill earned one for literature. And as a political orator, Churchill bears comparison with Demosthenes and Cicero, not any modern politician.
But even modern politicians should have enough nous not to make themselves laughingstocks, especially at wartime. For when guns are firing, a president or prime minister personifies his country. If he comes across as a buffoon, so will the country.
So which is it, Mr President? Did Iran surrender and promise to desist or, to quote today’s report, “Iran has unleashed a huge attack overnight on countries in the Gulf, with Bahrain experiencing the highest number of casualties since the beginning of the war. 32 people were injured in an Iranian attack on Bahrain’s island of Sitra, the interior ministry said, after Bahrain’s Bapco refinery was hit by drones overnight”?
As a result of that ‘surrender’, oil and gas prices have soared, with petrol prices at the pump heading in the same northward direction. Since Americans tend to be rather sensitive to such developments, a soothing word was necessary.
Trump was happy to oblige, and I can’t find fault with his message. Such an increase, he wrote on Truth Social (too often coming across as Untruth Asocial in his able hands) is “a very small price to pay for USA, and World, Safety and Peace. ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY.”
True in substance, but the form doesn’t evoke Churchill. It falls even short of Dubya’s customary standards. For millions of Americans doubtless regard the price they have to pay for this war as exorbitant, and they ain’t seen nuthin’ yet, in Trump’s idiom. It would take a rousing, kind, intelligent message to inspire them, to assuage their fears. Instead they got a harangue.
Like most promises of a blitzkrieg, Trump’s earlier bravado seems to be ill-founded. The conflict is beginning to show signs of turning into a protracted war of attrition, with all the hardships this may entail.
About 20 per cent of the world’s oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz, which at its narrowest point has the width of the Channel from Dover to Calais. Choking it off is a relatively easy task even for Iran’s military.
Should that happen – and for all intents and purposes it has happened already – Americans and the rest of us would have to suffer economic problems potentially bordering on deprivation. The cost of shipping will head for the stratosphere, and it may take a proverbial mortgage to fill up an average car tank.
I agree with Trump: this price is worth paying if the war ends in victory. But what does victory actually mean?
For Iran isn’t Venezuela. It won’t be enough to decapitate its regime but leave it in place if it promises to behave itself. It won’t even be enough to destroy Iran’s armament and nuclear industry, army, air force and navy.
Given resolve, all of these can be rebuilt with some help from Iran’s friends, namely Russia and China. One of them may even give Iran a nuclear device or two ready-made. And the resolve of that evil regime isn’t in doubt, as its choice of the new supreme leader proves.
Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is no longer with us, is widely regarded as an extremist even by the standards of the Revolutionary Guard. It remains to be seen whether he’ll accept the post, but the very fact that it was offered suggests that the regime is ready for a long-haul battle at any cost.
Are Americans? Is Trump? Since I believe this war is just, I hope so. But I wish someone were to give Trump a crash course in wartime leadership. When a nation is hurting, bragging rights can easily turn into wrongs.