(Dobbs) President Trump, You Can Kiss That Prize GoodbyeIt’s not the first time he has threatened Iran with an apocalypse.
“Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?” Delivering a line like that about Iran yesterday at the United Nations, which was as much an ultimatum as a question, Donald Trump isn’t exactly a pushover for the Nobel Peace Prize. Especially at the United Nations, whose founding charter in 1945, on the heels of two world wars, begins with the words, “We the people of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war….” Trump isn’t showing much determination to save those future generations. In his speech he declared, “I have a big decision to make. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?” It’s not the first time he has threatened Iran with an apocalypse. On Easter Sunday, just two months into his war, he threatened, with the kind of low-life language that no previous president publicly has stooped to, “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell.” Two days later he posted online, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” When he threatens to annihilate Iran, he’s talking about wiping out a population of 93 million people. There is nothing analogous in modern history. It’s not analogous to dropping two A-bombs on Japan in World War II to bring them to heel. Japan had started a war against the United States and was aggressively attacking American ships and planes and military installations in the Pacific. But this war? Iran didn’t start it, Trump did. And Iran’s attacks on American bases and American allies don’t begin to approach the scale of Japan’s. Since Trump says Iran’s already crippled nuclear program is at the heart of his war, there is an easier and much more humanitarian way to control it. He could put lipstick on a pig and negotiate his way back to something resembling the nuclear control deal known as the JCPOA— Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action— that President Obama signed eleven years ago along with China, Russia, France, Germany, the U.K., and the European Union. Under its terms, the western international community was able to keep an eye on Iran and oversee limits to its enrichment of uranium. Midway through his first term, by executive order, Trump blew that up. But evidently he thinks he has achieved enough peace in other parts of the world to still have a lock on the Nobel Peace Prize. In his U.N. speech yesterday he repeated his oft-said foundationless claim: “Since I took office, it has been my great honor to settle eight wars.” But he hasn’t. One of the eight he brags about is between Egypt and Ethiopia but it was only a diplomatic dispute, not a war. Likewise his lie about ending war between Serbia and Kosovo because their war ended at the start of this century. He says he mediated an end to fighting between India and Pakistan, but India says he had nothing to do with it. He did mediate between Armenia and Azerbaijan, but the fighting already had stopped before he intervened. He includes the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda but they’re still at war. And Israel and Hamas? It’s on his list of phony claims, but no one can credibly say that war is over. Of course he doesn’t claim to have ended the current war between Yemen’s Houthis and Saudi Arabia— he can’t. Over the weekend the Houthis attacked the kingdom with missiles and drones, setting off air raid sirens in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. He can’t claim he has ended that conflict because as an outgrowth of his war with Iran, he started it. And let’s not forget: he promised he could end the war in Ukraine “on Day One” in office. That was 20 months ago. The terms in Alfred Nobel’s will, dictating the qualifications to win the peace prize, say it will go to someone who “shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” President Trump, you can kiss that prize goodbye. Share The outgoing U.N. secretary general said in his own speech yesterday, “The fault lines in our world are widening. Cracks have become canyons.” And who do we have to thank for that? Donald J. Trump. |