US President Donald Trump and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu had the Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killed in January, together with several senior military leaders thereafter.
Image: Chip Somodevilla | AFP
THERE was no serious and imminent nuclear threat from Iran, and after all the relevant authoritative tests were done repeatedly, no material evidence was found that it was technically capable of waging a nuclear war.
The current ever-growing and multifaceted crisis in the Middle East, as a direct result of the unlawful and illegitimate war the United States and Israel have been waging against Iran, has placed the whole world on an unprecedented knife-edge.
That knife-edge is based on the unprecedented threat US President Donald Trump has made about destroying Iran and its ancient and great civilisation.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry, earlier this week, argued that “the Iran war did not have to take place”. Several other former US military leaders have voiced their shock and disapproval of Trump’s recent actions, especially his bizarre attempts to blockade the Iranian Strait of Hormuz.
Trump and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu had the Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killed in January, together with several senior military leaders thereafter. What this has done is to grossly deepen and worsen a global economic crisis which has been unfolding for several years.
But the worst current fears, around the world, are not even the impacts of the current socioeconomic crisis on the already terribly high cost of living. No, we are all at grave risk of the outbreak of nuclear war as a direct result of the actions of Trump.
This dire risk of a nuclear conflagration is increased by the indisputable fact that Trump seriously appears to lack a vitally important sense of proportion and diplomacy in global affairs. His temperament is extremely volatile and haphazard, especially as the leader of the most powerful military the world has ever seen.
Iran has very close relations with China. Is Trump not concerned that his unprovoked and unlawful war with Iran could draw in China and Russia, and does that realistic prospect and the wider crisis in the Middle East not carry an inherent threat of a nuclear conflagration? Apparently not to Trump.
Is this not arguably the most reckless and dangerous threat of nuclear war, by direct and indirect implications, ever made by the most powerful man in the world?
It is by any logical analysis, especially since it was the persistent but mistaken belief that Iran is secretly harvesting uranium for purposes of nuclear war capability, even after the Nuclear Energy Commission found no evidence of it.
Furthermore, how does one even begin to fathom his shocking tariff increases, especially when it is abundantly clear that combined with current oil, petrol, fertiliser, and all other food price increases, it will inevitably worsen the already biggest cost-of-living crisis globally in living memory?
In addition, to threaten the destruction of Iran and with it the end of an ancient and powerful civilisation in it was totally incredible. No previous American president, even at the most tense and crucial conjunctures in relations with other states, has ever made such a dire threat.
News agencies around the world, academics, commentators, authors, analysts and historians earlier this week expressed shock at those threats. But a key and critical question we must ask is how Trump is going to make America great again, whatever that is supposed to mean, when he and America have become the pariahs of the world.
He has also made threats to other countries, such as Canada, and has turned Gaza, which has already been reduced to rubble, into a tourist mecca. How can the president of the most powerful country and military in the world, in fact, make such brutally insensitive and callous remarks?
In early January, Trump authorised a military invasion of Caracas, Venezuela, and the abduction, capture and imprisonment of its president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife. Can you believe that?
Does Trump perhaps also lack an elementary sense of compassion and empathy? In fact, I recall reading somewhere last year that he appeared to lack a sense of compassion and empathy and, in fact, appeared sociopathic and very narcissistic. I might be mistaken, but I think this was the opinion of some psychologists.
Don’t forget that Trump authorised the war against Iran at a moment when it was widely reported that diplomats were making discernible progress in reaching a settlement, to avoid what was very clearly going to be a devastating war, which could easily escalate into a regional and, in fact, global one.
This was very clearly evident in reports immediately after the military attacks against Iran, by the US and Israel began.
However, there is something else which is inextricably linked to the stark dangers posed by both the US and Israel, and that is their combined total disregard for the global rules-based order. But this has been happening for a very long time.
The United Nations resolutions are often flagrantly violated by both countries. But what is most important and worrying is that these regular violations are done with flagrant impunity. Nothing happens. There are no consequences for these violations, which is more nakedly evident with military aggression and wars, which both these states have waged for decades in the Middle East.
This unmistakably tells the world that the UN is completely toothless when it comes to these heinous violations, other than issuing media statements which condemn them. These imperialist violations pose the biggest and gravest threat to global justice, peace and progress.
But it is not only UN rules and resolutions which are often violated with impunity. Trump authorised the declaration and waging of war against Iran, which is a blatant violation of US laws, which prescribe that only a congressional decision and ratification are required to take such serious decisions.
A key problem is that the Maga movement and Trump in particular refuse to acknowledge the undeniable fact that US imperialist strength and hegemony have been for a long time on the stark decline, which is precisely why he appears so desperate to change and reverse global power relations.
However, there is a crucially important political fact which is arguably the most important to consider in addressing all the problems this article has raised. And that is to question the origins of Trump’s power.
Whether we like it or not, it lies squarely with the white voters in the US who voted Trump into office, again, in 2024. We will recall that he was the US president from 2016 to 2020.
This is a more clear-cut political expression of the irrefutable fact that race and class, which are linked as they are in South Africa, are still very much evident in the US. But basically, the majority of white voters believed that Trump would take better care of their material interests than would a leader of the Democratic Party. A majority of white voters also voted for him in 2016.
But has that belief been borne out by the huge tariff increases Trump authorised since he took office, especially for imports which those voters buy or are reliant on?
That is why the Maga movement requires a critical analysis with accurate statistics available, because it could be a bitter and distinctly counterproductive irony.
Besides, under his presidency, America has become the pariah of the world, as a combined result of the outrageously increased tariffs and the war in the Middle East.
Trump refuses to acknowledge the indisputable fact that the awesome American empire has long been on a precipitous economic decline.
Increasingly, people around the world are becoming concerned with his distinct lack of circumspection. He has even alienated traditional allies, such as the European Union (EU), China, Russia and just about the entire Middle East and Third World.
But if you thought that Trump is very bizarre in many of his actions, I am sure nobody expected him to post on his social media platform an AI-generated image of himself as an incarnation of Jesus Christ a few days ago, after he clashed with Pope Leo XIV over his actions in the Middle East. If that was not blasphemy, I don’t know what is.
To crown it all, it was reported this week that his former chief of staff, John Kelly, stated that he was mentally ill after he defended that image of him as Jesus Christ but later withdrew it.
* Dr Ebrahim Harvey is a political writer, analyst and commentator.
** The views expressed here do not reflect those of the Sunday Independent, Independent Media, or IOL.