Trump’s International Malevolence Is Entirely Counterproductive
Trump Washington continues its selective aggression against other governments that fail to toe the line of deference and economic submissiveness to what Trump calls “the Greatest Country in the world.” Its relentless hostility and commercial sanctions are intended to exert pressure on the citizens of these countries and cause so much deprivation, discomfort and distress that they will try to overthrow their governments by force. The fact that such an outcome will inevitably result in massive slaughter is disregarded by the military-industrial cabal that is ascendant in the land which believes that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The Constitution of the United States holds that a government that “becomes destructive of these ends” should be replaced and that “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
But the Constitution doesn’t say anything about the United States having the right to encourage the people of other countries to abolish their governments.
In addition to open enmity towards China and Russia, Washington’s ‘Axis of Evil’ nations are mainly Cuba, Venezuela and Iran, and one of the speakers at the Republican National Convention made it clear that Republican policy is that “The same socialist policies which destroyed places like Cuba and Venezuela must not take root in our cities and our schools.” Uncomfortable facts are ignored of course, such as that Cuba has 67 medical doctors for every thousand citizens, while the U.S. has 3. With a population of 11 million Cuba had 80 Covid-18 deaths as at August 25 — that is roughly eight deaths in each million people. The U.S. Covid death rate is 546 per million, totalling some 180,000.
And although Venezuela is indubitably in the hands of an incompetent nutter, its policemen don’t go round firing seven bullets into the back of an unarmed man in front of his small children, maiming him and then chaining him, paralysed, to his hospital bed. There isn’t much evidence of Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness in the U.S. at the moment, given the rage, despair and protests sweeping across the country, but this doesn’t prevent the Pentagon and the State Department pursuing merciless vendettas against nations that in some fashion offend the greatest country.
But sometimes there’s a well-deserved smack-back.
Washington’s latest humiliation on the world stage took place on August 13 when Secretary of State Pompeo went to New York to demand that the United Nations Security Council reinforce sanctions on Iran for supposedly violating some terms of the nuclear deal that had been working so well until Trump and his acolytes decided on unilateral repudiation. This was effected because Resolution 2231 (the ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action’ or JCPOA) had been agreed in 2015, during the Obama Presidency, the very thought of which is anathema to the House of Trump. (The immature petulance of the present White House Administration is without precedent and almost beggars belief.)
The New York Times observed that “The nuclear agreement with Iran was envisaged as a diplomatic and security measure that would curb Tehran’s nuclear threat across the Middle East and thaw decades of tensions with the West”, and indeed it had begun to have these effects — but such is the paranoia of the Trump circle concerning anything to do with Iran, there was never any possibility that a Trump administration would countenance diplomacy and compromise that might lead to lasting tranquillity.
The level of Washington’s obsession with Iran can be gauged from its reaction to the UN Security Council’s rejection of the U.S. demand concerning sanctions. No matter that in 2018 it was announced by President Trump that he was unilaterally “terminating United States participation” in Resolution 2231, it is insisted by Secretary of State Pompeo that the U.S. is still a “participant” in the accord, and therefore has authority to make decisions about it.
Most members of the Council disagree profoundly with this arrogant misinterpretation and the foreign ministers of France, German and Britain (the E-3) issued a statement informing the real world that “. . . the U.S. ceased to be a participant to the JCPOA following their withdrawal from the deal on 8 May, 2018 . . . We cannot therefore support this action which is incompatible with our current efforts to support the JCPOA . . . We call on all UNSC members to refrain from any action that would only deepen divisions in the Security Council or that would have serious adverse consequences on its work.”
The only country in the Security Council to support Pompeo was the Dominican Republic whose economy is highly dependant on the U.S., and there is no need to elaborate, other than to say that if the Dominican government had dared to disagree with Washington it would have been subjected to the international equivalent of seven bullets in the back.
Then Pompeo enlarged on his feelings about the E-3’s statement in his usual fashion, by declaring that these three European nations, these most important allies of the United States, had “chosen to side with the ayatollahs.”
The childish malevolence of that insult is standard behaviour on the part of Trump and his minions, and resulted in yet more sighing contempt around the world (except for Israel), but it is nevertheless disquieting that it emanated from the person listed as “the third-highest official of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States, after the president and vice president.” The remorselessly aggressive policy of the Trump-Pompeo axis concerning Iran is entirely counter-productive, because not only does it alienate Washington’s increasingly frustrated allies, it binds together the citizens of the country whose leaders they wish to destroy.
Iran’s ayatollahs are a bunch of Shia clerics who are largely bigoted, intolerant and ignorant, and as evidenced by nationwide demonstrations in 2019 there are very many Iranians who detest them and would like to have them vanish — not, to be sure, to be replaced by a CIA-selected Washington toady, but by a democratically elected leadership. But Trump Washington is incapable of devising a peaceful means of assisting the Iranian people to rid themselves of the nutty despots who make their lives so disagreeable.
All that Trump and his people want to do is inflict pain on innocents with the aim of having them rise up against their governing authoritarians. Further to this, they insist that other countries join them unconditionally in their mayhem-spreading confrontations round the globe. And those who question the sanity of the Trump axis are roundly abused and further alienated. Trump’s international malevolence is entirely counterproductive and will result in further isolation of the United States.
