Casual threats of annihilation from Trump are not reality TV stunts
The spectacle is as grotesque as it is predictable. Here we have a man whose entire career is built on graft and bluster, a conman who has spent decades swindling contractors, stiffing workers, and peddling conspiracy theories, now playing at empire with the lives of millions.
READ MORE: Donald Trump on whether US will strike Iran: 'I may do it'
His rhetoric – equal parts mob boss and megalomaniac –would be laughable if it weren't so dangerous. When he boasts of 'complete and total control of the skies over Iran' and casually threatens to assassinate the country's supreme leader, one half-expects him to segue into a plug for Trump Steaks or a rant about 'fake news.'
But this is no reality TV stunt. The consequences of Trump's bloodlust are horrifyingly real. The US military, that vast engine of imperial violence, is surging bombers, warships, and God knows what else into the region, while Trump all but dares Tehran to retaliate so he can justify an even greater bloodbath. His demand that Tehran's citizens 'evacuate' carries the unmistakable whiff of nuclear menace – a threat as reckless as it is depraved.
READ MORE: Angela Rayner does not rule out following US into war with Iran
Of course, the usual suspects are lining up to cheer this madness. The G7, that club of imperialist powers, has dutifully parroted the lie that Iran – not the nuclear-armed Israel, not the US with its endless regime-change wars – is the 'principal source of regional instability'. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party, ever eager to prove its bipartisan commitment to militarism, has offered its full-throated support. Adam Schiff, that perennial windbag of the liberal establishment, has already greenlit further aggression, proving once again that when it comes to war, there is no opposition party in America.
The truth is, this war is not about nukes, or terrorism, or any of the other threadbare pretexts trotted out by Washington. It is about oil, about empire, about the desperate flailing of a capitalist system in terminal decay. Trump, that bloated avatar of American decline, is hurtling toward catastrophe because he – like the oligarchs he serves – has no other cards left to play.
Alan Hinnrichs
Dundee
IRAN doesn't want nukes to destroy Israel, it wants nukes to deter the West from doing to Iran what it has done to the rest of the Middle East.
Who can blame Iran? Iran is one of the world's oldest countries, and whether they have proxies in other countries or do bad things to their people, the fact is that Iran has had one war in the last 200 years and it was started by Saddam's Iraq.
Google how many wars the USA has had in its 320 or so years, then google how many military bases the USA has around the planet.
READ MORE: Kelly Given: Israel's aggression makes mockery of self defence claims
The fact is, it's the West that is the warmongering terrorist.
Israel attacks Iran out of hate, the USA helps due to its liking for other countries' oil.
The UK tags along trying to look like a continent, but like Trump, ends up looking incontinent.
Scotland AND England need independence from these warmongering British nationalists who keep power and who have sold their souls to the donor at the expense of the voter.
They can't feed or heat pensioners, who already have the worst pensions in the developed world, but here we are fighting two proxy wars against Russia and Iran.
British nationalism and its unaffordable world stage must go.
The UK must return to being independent countries.
The days of England's huge Westminster majority controlling everything must be brought to an end. British nationalism is a disease, and there is a cure. Independence.
Bill Robertson
via email
THE US-Israel war against Iran (Trump using 'we' on Tuesday confirms this) is reminiscent of the Iraq war, where the smokescreen of imaginary weapons of mass destruction was really about regime change. Deja vu!
Trump and his administration lack the diplomatic nous to prevent wars and genocide. Trump declared there would have been no Ukraine invasion if he had been in power, bravado chest-beating but he has failed to stop it or reign in Israel's war in Iran and genocide in Palestine, so it is unlikely he would have stopped the Ukraine war – not until his good friend Putin had achieved his objectives, just like now.
A Wilson
Stirlingshire
I AM writing in response to Peter Thomson's letter in Wednesday's National. I made no comment on Peter's letter of the 16th in my letter, my comments referred to Leah Gunn Barrett's from the 16th.
Norman Robertson
via email
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