The other day, President Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear agreement. And now I read that Israel has launched strikes on the Iranian military installations in ruined, embattled Syria - something just short of an out-and-out attack on Iran itself. Both actions are assaults on international peace and security, on Western credibility, and on human decency. Both events are scurrilous blows to all the diplomats, leaders and activists who toiled for years to forge an anti-nuclear agreement with Iran, one that mitigated a great international threat without the firing of a single shot. Both events simply hasten World War III, in my opinion, accelerating the current world-wide descent into barbarism, resulting in the suffering of further millions.
No statesman would have done this, in effect putting Iran back on the road to a nuclear confrontation and certainly setting back Iran's entrance into the civilized world of diplomacy; no decent individual would have gone back on America's word, backed out of our own promise, unilaterally tore up the contract; only an arrogant, giddy villain like Trump, dastardly, violent, and provocative, would have done this. It is easier to understand Netanyahu's policy of endless violence - Israel lives under a shadow of Muslim and Arabic race and religious hatred - but Trump has no excuse.
But then, he didn't need one. Because the Republican Party's answer to everything is always war and more war. He and his adherents already despised the Deal, ignoring that it had succeeded in restraining Iran from direct development of nuclear weapons. They and Trump all harbor a primary contempt for diplomacy and a primary hunger for war. And - of course - their obsession with destroying any of President Obama's substantial accomplishments.
This decision will alienate European allies; it will morally empower Iran to begin once more to develop nuclear weapons. And, plainly, it served as a red flag to Netanyahu's Israel, signalling them to go ahead and begin undeclared war in Syria. And so the USA joins not only the company of backward warlord-states like Russia, but also joins Al-Qaeda and such supra-national terrorist bands, all dedicated to a future of barbarism and carnage.
