DONNIE JOHNSTON: On War with Iran
"I, like many others, have no idea what we are trying to accomplish in Iran."
By Donnie Johnston
COLUMNIST
You get up and wonder, “What’s he gonna do today?”
Since day one of Donald Trump’s second presidency, there has been nothing but craziness. From his insensitive and racist handling of the Potomac helicopter crash, to his April tariffs, to putting the National Guard troops on the streets of major cities, to his ICE fiasco in Minnesota, to his threats to invade Greenland, to the invasion of Venezuela, to the war in Iran, there has been nothing but chaos for the past 15 months.
And yes, Cuba is on Trump’s horizons. He has already said so. Cuba, which this country long ago pledged never to invade, is supposedly his next target. America’s word under Trump’s presidency means nothing.
None of the American deaths sustained in the past 15 months needed to happen, not the National Guard member in D.C. who was shot, not the two protestors in Minneapolis, and not those who have died in Iran. It was all senseless, the work of a vindictive old man who is obsessed with himself and power.
Well, here we are in Iran, firing thousands of Tomahawk missiles at every site we perceive as even remotely being a military target, including an elementary school where 150 little girls, whose only crime was that they went to class, were blown to bits. Trump and his GOP following are now responsible for the greatest school shooting on record.
And we’re not even sure why we are attacking Iran. According to Trump, he destroyed that country’s nuclear program during an attack months ago. Regime change? That hasn’t happened. To get our hands on Iran’s oil reserves? The president says no. Why then? Maybe Trump just wanted to flex his muscle after his Greenland plan blew up. Killing people always makes the weak feel strong.
Where do we go from here? How do we get out of Iran? Trump says that we go when he says he’s had enough. We bomb the country to hell and back and then just walk away? We did that in Iraq – killing some 200,000 civilians – and two decades later that country is still a mess.
One thing Trump has accomplished is to let Vladimir Putin off the hook. Because of the oil supply disruption caused by our Iran operation, we have eased sanctions on Russian oil, which has helped Putin keep pressure on Ukraine.
And the fact that Russia has reportedly (and Trump’s cabinet doesn’t deny it) been helping Iran pinpoint American targets apparently makes no difference to our president. Putin is playing both ends against the middle and Trump can’t see it.
Then there is China, which is dependent on oil from both Venezuela and Iran. You have to wonder how they are feeling about this oil disruption. China, with 1.4 billion people. China, who can put more troops in the field than America’s entire population. China, who has a nuclear arsenal that may be equal to our own.
Trump has already turned many of our European allies against us. Canada no longer trusts America under Trump. In closing our southern border, we have shut down dollars going into Mexico from migrant workers, so we are not loved there.
In other words, we are on the verge of being alone in the world and at some point down the road our former allies may not just turn away from us, they may turn against us. And we can’t fight the world and win.
America before Trump was predictable, reliable and trustworthy, and much of the world followed our lead. Now, in a little more than a year, that trust is gone and once lost, it is hard to win back.
Again, I, like many others, have no idea what we are trying to accomplish in Iran. Are we trying to turn a Muslim population into a fundamentalist Southern Baptists congregation? Are we determined to westernize a nation whose people do not want our way of life? Or do we just want to play with our Tomahawk missiles until we feel we have killed enough?
When top military officers tell their troops that this is a holy war started by Trump under orders from God to fulfill the Book of Revelations and bring about Armageddon, this country is in trouble.
But you know what? They could be right, at least the Armageddon part. This could end up in a a full-scale nuclear war. It probably won’t. We pray it won’t. But remember that World War I began with the assassination of one leader and ended up costing some 22 million lives.
What gets me is the way Trump’s followers make excuses for everything he does, including his war on Iran. He could rub his feces on their faces, and they would praise him for fertilizing their beards. It is that bad.
What do they see in him? Maybe they see Trump as a reflection of themselves, perhaps in the same way they saw themselves in Archie Bunker 50 years ago. If someone on TV or in power can lie, hate, be unashamedly racist and call people names, then its okay for me to do it.
Maybe Trump has doomed us to Armageddon. If so, then, as in the fulfillment of Revelations, he may well be the Antichrist.
Then again, maybe he’s just a vindictive old man who is obsessed with power.
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