"One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do. . .
'No' is the saddest experience you'll ever know"
Henry Nilsson, "One is the Loneliest Number,"made popular by Three Dog Night, 1969
President Trump posted: "WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!"
Trump -- and the U.S. -- are getting the logical consequences of braggy, bullying behavior. We chose Trump. A great many Americans enjoyed his devil-may-care swashbuckling, kick-ass bravado. It isn't just Trump in trouble. The USA is in trouble.
Trump decommissioned minesweepers and moved them from the region earlier this year. His mass firings removed the very people in the State Department who tracked the movement of oil tankers. The reasonable presumption for Americans is that our military is highly competent in planning operations, but the evidence playing out is that our attack plan focused on the first move -- our bombing Iran -- not their likely countermeasures and subsequent steps. That is why we are backtracking, asking for help from people we intentionally estranged.
The message from our former allies is that the U.S. and Israel chose this on their own and can get out of it on their own. French President Emmanuel Macron said they "are not a party to this conflict" and therefore “will never take part in operations to open or liberate the Strait of Hormuz in the current context.”
Canada's foreign minister Anita Anand noted that Canada "was not consulted prior to the offensive operation" and "has no intention of participating in it."
Trump lectured the world that the rules-based order was a sham, that might made right, and that the strong do whatever they want. By "they," he meant "we." International law defines shipping choke points that are international waterways, through which all ships of all countries could pass. The Strait of Hormuz was one.The U.S. undermined the legal and moral basis for claiming that free passage through the strait was a public good, something to be defended on principle by the world's navies, regardless of the interests of belligerents. Now we want our allies to defend principle.
We tariffed the world, we insulted the world, we belittled and undermined our allies, and we abandoned the principle of international law. Now we are asking for help.
I search for metaphors and real-world situations to understand Trump. I reflect on a sign that I saw posted prominently in a print shop where customers place orders requesting a rush job. I understand the "That's your problem" sentiment.
Yesterday I likened Trump to a spoiled child, and entitled rich-boy who never learned to respect the feelings and interests of others. My brother, a prison psychologist, said Trump makes the decisions of a man who avoided consequences as a child. A political pundit observed that Trump's long Truth Social post sounds like the complaint of a jilted lover. The indignant, petulant whine would be amusing if this didn't risk a region-wide war, or escalation into a worldwide exchange of nuclear-armed missiles. 
It is déjà vu all over again for me. At the beginning of my adult life, amid the Vietnam War, I wrote my college honors thesis on Randolph Bourne, who warned that "war is the health of the state." By "state," he meant the military and coercive elements of the government, as contrasted with the country's people and culture. War empowers executive coercion. Now, age 76, I am seeing this again, in Trump generally, and in accelerated form in the face of Trump's ambitions regarding Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and more. The departments of government demand conformity, insisting the media describe the war in "patriotic" ways or lose access to information, or even their broadcast license. Militarized police are rounding up and removing aliens. Trump posits taking over the states' elections. The president imposed tariffs on his own authority. He ignores trade and military treaties. He condemns the courts as crooked and unpatriotic. Bourne warned that in wartime, Americans let this happen. It did in 1918 and again now.
Wars centralize power in the executive. That is exactly what Donald Trump wants.
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7 comments:
The title of an article I didn’t bother to read was A bully asks for help in the straits of Hormuz. I hope the 90% of Republicans who still support him understand being a bully has consequences.
Good post. You got me thinking about all of our “acquisitions” throughout US history: Louisiana Purchase and Manifest Destiny, Texas, Alaska, Hawaii, Samoa, Puerto Rico, Guam, USVA, Panama Canal Zone. Then there are all the US military bases all over the world (name another country that is allowed to have their bases in sovereign nations?). According to Google the US has over 750 bases in 80 counties -or owns 75% of the military bases in the world. Why? Because we were seen as the “good guys”. the trusted ones. The ones who subscribed to “Just War” principles (at least in theory). And it was built on supposedly strong alliances that it turns out are more flimsy than we thought.
Oh wait - I forgot to mention the world economic system pegged to the dollar and US banking system. Talk about global hegemony. This was all built before Trump of course. But he believes this is his personal kingdom, and his right to do whatever he pleases. And to think a system that allowed just few million ignorant, deceived or discontent and selfish (“what’s in it for me”) voters in a few red districts the US to tip the scales and hand him that kind of global power is still beyond my comprehension.
The famous quip came to mind (true or not) by Rockefeller about how much is enough? “Just a bit more”. For people like Trump or Putin, Musk or Zuckerberg, there is never “enough” and too bad for the poor people who are collateral damage while these guys build their “storied” empires. Until they meet the limits of their power that is. Those limits are being tested.
Trump was undoubtedly just asking for help to give the countries he's been calling stupid names an opportunity to bask in his glory. Of course, he and Hogseth know exactly what they're doing, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. And all those media that report facts to the contrary are liable to lose their licenses.
I just heard today how Larijani was targeted: ordinary Iranian citizens tracked his movements and told the Mossad where to find him.
We and the Israelis have total air dominance. There are now reports that missile-armed drones are firing at small checkpoints set up by the regime in an attempt to control the population. This means that the anti-regime forces now have an air force and air cover.
In 2018, Israeli agents in Tehran stole the entire Iranian nuclear document archive and drove it out of the country in trucks. Those same trucks could now be bringing in infantry weapons (assault rifles, helmets, body armor, grenades, night vision goggles, etc) for the Iranian people to use against the regime.
The Iranian regime is fragmented and crumbling. They killed around 35,000 Iranians to put down the most recent demonstrations. According to the most recent survey, 80% of the people are against the regime. An outraged, armed populace backed up by air power has an excellent chance of overthrowing the ayatollahs.
We should never underestimate the power of propaganda. We are told that the United States has been achieving its aims against Iran; President Trump says we're winning. But no one seems able to explain exactly why the Strait of Hormuz is still closed, or why the United States, with the world's most powerful navy, can't just unilaterally open up that strait. We are told that Israel's war against Hamas has destroyed Hamas, and yet Hamas is still operating in Gaza--calling shots there, even. We're told that Iran is responsible for Hamas, but we're also told that Iran's leadership has been killed off and Iran is no longer a threat. Maybe we can solve this conundrum by applying "might does make right," so that we, the United States, should just release our full might. If it takes the United States to clean up this mess, let's face up to that and quit expecting France, Israel, or China to "help." They are weak but we are strong. (I'm paraphrasing the children's hymn, "Yes, Jesus Loves Me," in case you missed that.) Does Lindsay Graham have a point?
What concerns me is destruction he is causing without regard to the harm he is inflicting on our country, the world, senselessly by a tweet or whime, using the power vested in the US Presidency!
A couple of days ago I heard, on the PBS NewsHour, a retired US admiral explain why we have not yet opened the Strait of Hormuz. Our military assets that would be used to open it are currently engaged in destroying Iranian military capabilities. The plan, written and updated over decades by the US military, is to first destroy the Iranian military and then reopen the strait.
We are only 2 1/2 weeks into the war. It is way too early to declare defeat.
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