Four Crazy Old Coots with Delusions of Grandeur, Wrecking their Nations and the World
President Trump aspires to a Nobel Peace prize, seeks to take over Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal, wants to settle the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. He just attacked Iran on Netanyahu’s behalf, then declared a ceasefire to the air war between these two mortal enemies. He wants to resettle the Palestinians residing in their bombed out homes in Gaza into other Arab countries and develop Gaza into a new Riviera. He wants both an insular America with high tariffs and few immigrants (primarily from Northern Europe) and a muscular America with parades and massive defense spending. He has begun to systematically oppress his domestic opponents, using the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and most recently the National Guard and Marines. Women, immigrants, and ethnic minorities are particularly the targets of his policies.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei wants to develop a nuclear bomb, destroy Israel, become the pre-eminent power in the Middle East. He supports Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, and has supported the overthrow of Sunni Arab oil monarchs, like Saudi Arabia. His regime tortures, beats and kills his domestic opponents. Women are particularly oppressed by the Iranian religious police. He has alienated most of his neighbors and much of Iran’s citizenry although there is temporary unity in the face of Israel and the US bombing.
President Putin wants to take over the nation of Ukraine and then the other independent nations that used to be a part of the Soviet Union but declared their independence in the wake of the dissolution of the USSR. Many are now in NATO, so he seeks to disband and weaken NATO. He has persuaded Trump to reduce US support for Ukraine and NATO. He aspires to become the pre-eminent power in Europe. His regime poisons, tortures, beats, defenestrates, and kills its domestic opposition. His troops have been particularly brutal in their invasion and bombing of Ukrainian civilians. Ukraine needs America’s support, not Trump’s backhand.
Prime Minister Netanyahu wants to control Gaza, the West Bank, parts of Syria and Lebanon that are Israel adjacent. He has made remarkable progress over the last year and a half of nearly endless warfare. He persuaded Trump to bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities on his behalf. His successful bombing attacks on Iran have united his domestic opposition in support of him. His regime has killed Palestinians living in Gaza in large numbers, and more selectively he has quashed his opposition in the West Bank. His near constant military aggression in Gaza is losing Israel’s good will with its European allies and wasting Israel’s opportunity to improve and build relations with the Arab states of the Middle East. Just as President Bush squandered the world’s sympathies after 9/11 by his misguided attack on Iraq; Netanyahu may be squandering the world’s sympathies after 10/7 by his policies in starving, bombing, and shooting Gazan civilians. There is impossible tension between his cabinet’s desire to create “Greater Israel”, and the need to create a Palestinian state that is fully committed to peace with its neighbor, Israel.
This reminds me of the aftermath of World War I and World War II. After WW I, England and France resolved that Germany would never threaten them again, and the Versailles Peace Treaty and its aftermath was designed to assure that; it did not work out so well, and we next had WW II. After that war and the full disclosure of the horrors of the Holocaust, Hitler’s minions (or at least some of them) were justly caught, imprisoned, tried, and punished, but the US invested in building a peaceful Europe (including part of Germany) and Japan, and it has actually worked.
The Middle East is at a crossroads; Ukraine is at a crossroads, and there are wise choices that need to be made. It’s on all of us.