Trump's Show-Boating as the Author of the Ceasefire Between Israel and Iran is Likely to Impress No One

The Wire

4 days ago

It is telling that major nations – including some US allies – have denounced Trump's unprovoked bombing raids on Iran.
Donald Trump has just dropped the Nobel prize for peace in case he was manoeuvring to grab it through the so evidently rigged recommendation of a revanchist military leader. Even after America's fiasco in Iran – where the US leader could advance no US interests or those of its morally crippled ally Israel – it is hard to put it past him to hustle the Nobel Committee into handing him the prize through threat and bluster.
Challenging the testimony of his own intelligence chief, Trump asserted that Iran was on the cusp of detonation and coolly bombed away nuclear sites in that country. Even for the American public it is hard to harmonise with such a leader, one who can take the country to the brink of a long-drawn war for no reason at all.
Evidently, the man did not care if, in the worst case scenario, an atom bomb got detonated through an act of self-glorifying recklessness on his part. It was at the cost of the people of Iran in this case but it could have been any similarly placed country at odds with another that serves as the local constabulary to protect US' imperial interests in West Asia and the Gulf.
To think of a war participant as a messenger of peace between any two combatants – in this instance Iran and Israel – is to stretch the limits of credulity.
Lies peddled by Netanyahu and consciously adopted by Trump
The lie peddled by the murderous Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who has for decades spread the falsehood that Iran was only weeks away from making the bomb – was consciously adopted by the US president as his rationale for deciding to bomb Iranian nuclear sites, including Fordow, embedded deep in a mountain side.
This suggests that the American leader didn't care a tuppence about the danger of possible nuclear radiation – leading to a massive human disaster whose scale would likely exceed that of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – in case his conviction about Iranian nukes had any worthwhile basis. In the event it had none.
It is relevant to keep in mind that America is the only country in the world that has killed people with the atom bomb for sport, ie. to assert its monopoly over power on the world stage in the aftermath of the Second World War.
When the US dropped its nuclear payload on the two Japanese cities in 1945, it was not to end the War. That wasn't needed. The war was already grinding to a close and would wind down entirely in a matter of days. The nuking of Japan was not related to the outcome of the Allies victory. It was to assert raw might in a world left devastated by six years of combat.
In the same way, it is to assert hegemony – within just months of taking over as the US president – that Trump chose to use bunker buster bombs to hit nuclear sites in Iran. This was indirect messaging to China, Russia, North Korea – above all Russia, the only country that matches America pound for pound in its nuclear weapons capabilities.
The leader of the so-called 'free world' in which the Western bloc meekly follows the pied piper – just see the kowtowing language and actions of EU in the face of the horror play enacted by Israel with complete US backing in Gaza – was perfectly at peace with himself in ordering an unprovoked attack on nuclear sites in Iran in violation of every provision of the UN Charter.
If proof was needed it is plain yet again that the Americans can be bloody-minded, and are a thoroughly irresponsible and unreliable quantity on the world stage. Their words on making peace and honouring agreements now stand at a severe discount.
Trump pretended to prepare the ground for a resumption of nuclear negotiations with Iran that he had broken off in his first term while all the time he was plotting with Netanyahu to attack Iran. This American leader can in fact go to the dubious extent of deploying the Army to deal with peaceful anti-immigration protesters in his own country, as we have seen in California.
The reputational damage to the Trump presidency
The reputational damage the Trump presidency has suffered through one infantile action after another is incalculable, with expletive-laden execrable language in public discourse by the president making matters worse. The much touted Western values too have taken a knock as a consequence, to say nothing of American culture.
Fortunately, the strikes carried out by the US on Iran's nuclear sites did no serious damage. And it is noteworthy that there was no spread of radiation. That in fact confirms that Trump was on to a lie from the start and he knew it. This was a true copy of the way the US perpetrated a massive international lie in 2003 that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as a pretext to launch an invasion whose debilitating effects can be seen to this day.
Trump's show-boating as the author of the ceasefire between Israel and Iran is likely to impress no one. Israel did not have its own fire power to hit Iran's nuclear power research and development sites, so it led Trump by the nose to finish the job for it. Iran has responded with a missile hit at the US base in Qatar, which is the regional HQ of its Central Command. This was by way of symbolism – a show of resolve, not one of capability.
Also Read: Operation Sindoor and Supernatural Times Under the Modi Regime
But Iranian missiles have rained on Israel for close to a fortnight, ruining the very small-sized country where people have no way to run and even the underground shelters have become overcrowded like Indian railway platforms where an accident can happen at any time.
With Iran giving Israel hot chase, Israelis are reported to be fleeing the country in their thousands. A very large proportion of them are foreign passport holders anyway. So long as their country could attack neighbouring Arab lands, especially what remains of Occupied Palestine (which includes all of Israel), without fear of retaliation, Israel appeared the neighbourhood bully to look up to and do deals with, not least because it enjoyed American benediction.
Under Netanyahu's leadership Israel's great military power lay in its ability to fire from tanks at crowds of Gaza women, children and the elderly waiting at relief trucks for food and water. Faustus comes to mind, with Trump playing Lucifer.
It is telling that major nations – including some US allies – have denounced Trump's unprovoked bombing raids on Iran which had the great potential for escalation, though that fortunately seems not to have happened. These include Russia and China and other BRICS nations. India alas does not even bring up the rear. It was once a prominent political leader of the non-Western world.
In the Modi regime, India has got into the habit of not supporting UN resolutions on a ceasefire in Gaza. On Iran too, it was pusillanimous. Its leader kept up form to phone the Iranians to express the wish that normality would soon return. Its keenness to go to any lengths to please Netanyahu and Trump seems intense and logic- defying. Let Modi not lose heart. He has won a great strategic prize with Cyprus.
Anand K. Sahay is a veteran journalist.
The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.