Trump and the sword of Damocles
The United States and Iran – with Israel, the US side-kick – are yoked in mutual catastrophe. But you don’t even know which is the nemesis of which! One thing
The United States and Iran – with Israel, the US side-kick – are yoked in mutual catastrophe. But you don’t even know which is the nemesis of which!
One thing is clear, though: global peace, security and prosperity are better off without the trio – all power loonies pouring Armageddon on the globe.
But the guiltiest party is the United States under Donald Trump. Since World War II (1939-1945), it got the mantle as global peace guarantor-in-chief. With that has come the rich privilege of honing its economic hegemony: with its dollar supplanting gold as the global treasure reserve.
It’s all back to the old quip: to whom much is given, much is expected.
But under President Trump, that global peace guarantor-in-chief is becoming the unhinged global war- monger-in-chief. Its most refined language of diplomacy is deranged threats and insane intimidation.
In racy hyperbole: Donald Trump is crashing, in 250 days, what America has built in 250 years! But it’s all self-inflicted. You don’t elect a Trump – not once, but twice! – and expect to live happily ever-after!
But it’s all down to a dearth of refined minds. The Trump court should have known what the classics – the very basis of western hegemony against other races – teach: that the Greek sword of Damocles never comes down. By the time it does, the mystique is off!
That explains America’s present Iran muddle. The one who hurried to levy war – a global Atlas pumping his fearsome muscles and touting his military hegemony – was also the one begging for peace, though with comical threats!
Advertisement
300x250
America lost face, big time! But even on that, it’s morning yet on its global near-total loss of influence!
Still, don’t get it twisted. Most probably still live in awe of America’s military brawn. For that nuisance value, many more fear it yet, particularly with an unstable commander-in-chief. But by now, not a few hold Uncle Sam in utter disdain, with how Trump has bullied others with America’s naked power.
But Iran – the only one so far to resist, though forced into it – is proving perhaps Uncle Sam, with all of Trump’s huff-and-gruff – is not so awesome after all: if not in raw military power, then in the sublime soft power that gets things done, after the guns have quietened.
That has near vacuum-cleaned whatever America has left of its global soft power. But the real tragedy is that Trump, irredeemable for his lack of introspection, all silly threats and un-presidential expletives, spews foul tantrums as usual! What bluster!
That brings back Damocles and his mythical sword. Even if Trump and his MAGA muscle-flexers know so little of ancient Greece and its myths, surely they know not that little about the four means of control – power, authority, legitimacy and influence – the commonest fare of Political Science 101?
Power roars: for it’s the most primary form of control. But the moment it’s challenged – and that accounts for Iran’s so-called “victory” – it becomes as dead as dodo, even if the challenger ends up in the morgue.
Authority is the charter of control, in the hand of the power wielder. Legitimacy is transient power transfer, subject to the temporary recipient wielding it responsibly. That is the basis of electoral democracy. Why, even feudalism is not so absolute: mass anarchy could completely sweep it away – as did the French Revolution (1789-1799) – replacing it with French republicanism!
But the most potent – yet most quiet of these means of control – is influence. In it, naked power recedes, yet influence makes the controlled revere the controller!
That is the Uncle Sam myth Trump just blew up with the Iran bombing sorties he launched with much crow on February 28. But by April 6, he had eaten crow, and was frantically begging for a ceasefire, but in the only way he knew – more threats! Will that ceasefire hold? Only God knows!
Advertisement
300x250
But even now, yoked in their mutual catastrophes, the trio makes the fetish of declaring “victory”!
Iran: 1,701 killed, including 254 children, by the tally of the Human Rights Activists News Agency, aside from a hideous pulverization of its core military hardware and civilian infrastructure, according to The New York Times. Iran, acting as the trapped animal, also took out no less than 32 people from its Gulf neighbours that suffered the delusion that they had America’s protection.
America: 13 servicemen killed, apart from tens of others that Iran missiles and drones hurt at their Gulf states’ bases. But America’s abiding loss, the cost not quantifiable right now, is its looming loss of global influence, the most precipitous since World War II.
Israel: 20 people killed from Iran missile attacks deep in its cities, despite Israel’s much vaunted mastery of the war air space. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not chastened from his war-mongering. So long as he has Trump’s America as poodle – the classic case of the tail wagging the dog – his mischief (mass murder of foreign leaders he deems Israel’s foes under the guise of contrived wars) seems undiminished. Yet, Israel is no closer to peace and security than before the Bibi years!
Lebanon – the pitiable fall guy in the entire mess: 2,020 (even more than Iran’s tally) killed from Israel’s perpetual shelling, after Hezbollah, the Iran caniche. By allowing Hezbollah, Iran’s militia mischief, to shift its demographics, this proud civilization from ancient Phoenicia, famed sea-farers dating back to 1500-300 BC, is bleeding from an Arab/Persian geo-political grudge and rage.
Read Also: Singapore to host Nigerian tech push as NIMENA links startups to global investors
Advertisement
300x250
Lebanon is the ultimate scapegoat in all of this lunacy. Little surprise: it’s not declaring any phoney “victory” when it’s clear all the belligerents are losers. But it won’t regain its peace until it disarms Hezbollah, and flushes out the powerful Hezbollah lobby from its polity. Easier said than done? Yeah. But that’s the only path to sanity regained.
In this thoughtless and hare-brained war, the United States and Israel have out-done Iran as the ultimate terror states. Just imagine Trump celebrating the bombing of a civilian bridge, causing death to unarmed civilians – a clear war crime!
But the ultimate blood on the American hand – and blot on its conscience – is the massacre of the 160 Minab, Iran, school girls, aged between seven and 12, at the very opening of the mad bombings.
Still, that hardly beatifies Iran and its theocracy from their terror tenet – except that, this time, Iran is more wronged than wronging anyone. But it has also gained a prized leverage in the Strait of Hormuz, should the push again come to the shove.
Besides, if America and Israel freely rain death down its skies – just because they can – who will now dissuade Iran from its nuclear bomb project, which now seems the ultimate guarantor of its existence?
For both, thank Trump for his sprightly thoughtlessness!
