If Iran’s allowed to rebuild, they could “create a far greater country” than they’ve ever had before, Donald Trump mused, from the UN General Assembly rostrum on Tuesday. “Maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East. Or even the world.”
Trump’s remarks betrayed a laughable ignorance of history. We’re talking, after all, about the successor nation to the Persian Empire. It’s not exactly as if Iran was never “great.”
Certainly, Iran has room to improve its lot relative to the nation’s recent history. But making Iran “far greater than it ever was before” will be a decidedly tall task. At one point — let’s call it 500 BCE — the Persians governed nearly half the world’s population. (Eat your heart out, Adolf.)
Anyway, Trump said Tuesday the fate of Iran’s in his hands. “I have a decision to make,” the Nobel Peace Prize hopeful told the Assembly. “Will a deal be made or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic?” he wondered, with a casual shrug. “Do I drive them into hell, with no chance of survival and no hope for future generations?”
The tentative answer to that latter question appears to be “no.” “I believe we’ll make a deal,” Trump declared, on the way to suggesting the IRGC’s miscalculating by holding out for November’s congressional ballot. “They’re waiting to see how I do in the mid-term election,” he said. “What they don’t realize is that I’m not running. I did that already. I’ll be here for two and a half years.”
As ever, it’s difficult (read: impossible) to suppress a chuckle. Trump’s disregard for decorum has morphed over the years into something like vindictive disdain for propriety. It’s as though seemliness itself wronged him at some juncture and he resolved to spend the rest of his life avenging the slight. (Some would say that’s precisely what happened. And that the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner was the fateful moment.)
Trump was adamant Tuesday that the mid-terms won’t impact his decision-making with regard to ending the war. That’s nails on a chalkboard to some Republicans for whom soaring pump prices (and particularly record-high diesel) are an albatross.
A few minutes after his address, which was at turns abrasive and asinine, Trump attended a signing ceremony for his security “deal” with Greenland. “If we let ourselves be divided as allies, then we do our foes a favor,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said at the signing.
There’s a “with friends like these” joke to be had. I’ll let readers write it themselves.
Depending on how the midterms go, Trump may lose the ability to continue the war. Which is probably acceptable to him. Since he cannot win the war he started, next best is to blame others for forcing him to end it.