Last week American lawmakers voted against imposing any restrictions on Donald Trump assassinating foreign leaders or launching cruise missiles at schoolgirls, and now, as some US soldiers complain about superior officers enthusiastically telling them that the attack on Iran might hasten the Second Coming, it’s tempting to believe that the US is rapidly becoming a lot like the country it is obliterating.
False equivalences, however, are dangerous, and we should all be very clear that the US and Iran are very, very different.
The US, for example, has killed substantially more people around the world than Iran has, and, with its gigantic, high-tech military apparently serving nothing but the legal and financial interests of Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu and their respective cabals, it is fairly obvious that it is the US, not Iran, that is the greatest threat to security on the planet right now.
Still, at least we don’t have to worry about presidential paranoid delusions.
Last week, when Trump’s very own Chemical Ali, Karoline Leavitt, told the world that Trump had attacked Iran because “he had a feeling” Iran might attack first, it seemed as if we’d returned to Hitler-esque war-by-intuition.
After all, just because Pete Hegseth is a Christian nationalist with crusader-themed tattoos beloved of the far right, who wants to end the separation of church and state and who has shown an eagerness to revel in the killing of Iranians who were not leading members of the regime, it doesn’t mean that the world is lurching in a terrifying new direction, right? Right?
These fears, however, are unfounded: Trump may well have had a feeling, but I don’t think it was that sort of feeling.
Instead, I suspect it was the sort of feeling you get when Israel tells you it’s about to attack Iran and reminds you of all the reasons you need to do it, too, which gives you no-feeling because you thought you were in charge; and then you think about all the years you told your cult that petrol prices over $3 were a sign of a useless president, and your no-feeling gets worse; but then you remember that they’ll believe literally anything you tell them, so you end up with a yes-feeling.
I am also trying to remind myself that those 200 US soldiers who have reportedly filed official complaints about officers delivering briefings blazing with Evangelical holy fire, full of apocalyptic End Times hokum, are a tiny minority.
After all, just because Pete Hegseth is a Christian nationalist with crusader-themed tattoos beloved of the far right, who wants to end the separation of church and state and who has shown an eagerness to revel in the killing of Iranians who were not leading members of the regime, it doesn’t mean that the world is lurching in a terrifying new direction, right? Right?
I know I’m clutching at straws, not only because the dogs of war are running mad but because gathering straw is probably a good option for when the inflation tsunami arrives and I need somewhere warm to sleep.
Still, one shouldn’t panic, and, as some folks on social media have reminded me, it’s also important to try to see the bigger picture.
For example, they tell me, instead of selfishly worrying about how much poorer I and my compatriots are about to be made by Israel and the US, or fretting about what comes next in a world in which sovereignty depends on the mood of geriatric sexual abusers, I need to remember that the people of Iran are now free, or will be free as soon as the regime evaporates and Care Bears emerge from their burrows to gambol in the sunshine and Trump and Netanyahu appoint a puppet in Tehran and all Iranians join together as one to cry “Three cheers for turning us into an American-Israeli vassal state!”
Yes, perhaps one should try to look on the bright side, and think of all the people who are better off for this war, like Vladimir Putin.
On Sunday, reportedly fearing a supply squeeze that might drive prices even higher and start making MAGA voters antsy, the US temporarily lifted a number of sanctions on Russian oil, meaning that India can tuck in and buy it legally for 30 days.
Just over a year ago Trump saved the rouble by withdrawing military support for Ukraine, but Sunday’s intervention was no less heroic and timely, opening the sluices for some desperately needed cash to flow into Putin’s creaking regime. Trump’s favourite verse from the Trump Bible speaks true: when I was hungry you fed me, when I needed a quick few billion, you came through …
For those of us not lucky enough to have these sorts of pals, however, the immediate future looks rocky as hell.
Still, it could be far, far worse: we could be Iranians, trapped between two gangs of murderers, with nothing ahead of us but years of pain.
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