As another Iran catastrophe looms, one question matters more than any other: how to stop it before it’s too late?
asserted
it → loom → it
Whatever the eventual outcome of Israel’s election and next week’s US midterm polls, Donald Trump, playing the Lone Ranger, and Benjamin Netanyahu, his badass Tonto, appear hell-bent on resuming the illegal war of choice they began in June last year and expanded in February.
asserted
they → play → February
Like a Shakespearean tragedy moving inexorably to a bloody denouement, the worst is yet to come.
asserted
worst → move → denouement
And yet three things seem certain: the US and Israel will again fail to totally destroy Iran’s largely hypothetical nuclear capabilities; its regime will survive; and millions of ordinary people, there and around the world, will pay the price for this unjustified, reckless aggression.
asserted
millions → seem → aggression
Ducking and weaving, Trump is desperate to dodge the blame for the Republicans’ anticipated midterm meltdown, largely triggered by war-related fuel and consumer price inflation.
asserted
Trump → duck → inflation
He claimed Ukraine’s attacks on Russian refineries were responsible, but that didn’t wash.
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that → claim → refineries
He cut a treacherous diesel deal with Vladimir Putin but, as usual, Russia’s smirking mafioso conned him.
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mafioso → cut → him
He urged US allies to tap their strategic reserves but, unsurprisingly, vilified and sidelined European leaders, who view his war as an unmitigated disaster and declined to bail him out.
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who → urge → him
Trump also reportedly rebuffed last-gasp, electorally driven pressure from Netanyahu to hit Iran this month, fearful it would unleash a Democratic tsunami.
uncertain
it → rebuff → tsunami
Yet once the midterm polls close, and whatever the results, all these considerations fall away. What voters think will no longer matter to Trump.
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think → close → Trump
At that point, he can do more or less what he wants, in foreign and defence policy, for his final two years.
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he → do → years
And what he wants has little to do with imaginary Iranian nukes, a democratic uprising in Tehran, or any of his other bogus justifications for waging war.
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wants → want → war
Trump will be free to do what he does best: vendetta politics.
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he → do → politics
Iran’s greatest sin is to have defied the imperial will.
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sin → defy → will
He wanted an easy Venezuela-style, regime-altering victory (and sweetheart oil deals).
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He → want → victory
What he got was a middle digit, burnt fingers and a forever war.
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got → get → What
Just as he vengefully pursues opponents at home, so he now victimises Iranians.
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he → pursue → Iranians
It’s not rational or ideological.
asserted
It → ’ → ?
Like everything with Trump, ultimately it’s personal.
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it → ’ → Trump
Netanyahu’s reasons for wanting another bash are thoroughly dishonourable too, but in a different way.
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reasons → want → way
Given his myriad, chronic failures before and after the 2023 Hamas massacres, his trashing of Israel’s international reputation by his criminal actions in Gaza and Lebanon, and his Trump-ish slide into bigoted, ultra-nationalist authoritarianism, Netanyahu is fighting for his job and, potentially, his freedom.
asserted
Netanyahu → give → job
He insists, despite his record, that only he can ensure Israel’s security.
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he → insist → security
He suggests, outrageously, that opposition victory could pave the way for Israel’s destruction in a second, nuclear Holocaust.
uncertain
victory → suggest → Holocaust
Israel’s military chiefs suspect he may restart the Iran war in order to dominate and manipulate the inevitable post-election coalition talks – hoping to stay in power and out of jail.
uncertain
he → suspect → jail
The likely, mortifying consequences of a renewed US-Israel onslaught after 3 November should be fully understood.
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consequences → renew → November
For starters, the price of oil will spike again, perhaps to unprecedented levels, negatively affecting people all around the world.
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price → spike → world
Pentagon officials, possibly peddling disinformation, suggest Iran is preparing to retaliate with missile and drone attacks against Saudi and other Gulf oil refineries, infrastructure and underwater internet cables, while reinforcing blockades of the strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea’s Bab al-Mandab strait.
uncertain
Iran → peddle → Hormuz
Trump reportedly plans a shock-and-awe, time-limited assault – primarily on the mountain complex where Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is supposedly stored, plus its missile bases and energy grid.
uncertain
stockpile → plan → uranium
If this sounds familiar, it is.
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it → sound → ?
Trump’s chief gunslinger, Pete Hegseth, and his air-force cowboys claim to have destroyed many of these targets already, some more than once.
uncertain
some → claim → targets
Total success will probably elude them again.
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success → elude → them
What’s more likely is that the war’s duration will lengthen, and more Iranian civilians will suffer the fate of over 100 schoolgirls killed in a Tomahawk missile strike in Minab in February.
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civilians → ’ → February
For that atrocity and others, Trump and Hegseth have never admitted responsibility.
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Trump → admit → responsibility
Other foreseeable consequences include: the spread of related conflicts, involving Iranian allies and proxy militias, to Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Lebanon; attacks on US embassies and personnel from Jordan to Kuwait; intensified, opportunistic settler violence and land grabs in the West Bank; stepped-up Iranian freelance assassination and sabotage operations in Europe; further undermining of US and Israeli democracy from deliberate obstruction of war-zone accountability, official cover-ups and blatant lying, and restrictions on independent media reporting; another hugely damaging split between Washington and its reluctant European allies; and another geopolitical free lunch for the west’s anti-democratic challengers, Russia and China.
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consequences → include → challengers
By what right does the US, in particular, presume to behave in this way?
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US → presume → way
Forget, if you can, Trump and Netanyahu.
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you → forget → Trump
What does the American public (or at least, those who vote Republican) say?
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who → vote → Republican
Have they not learned by now, after so many disastrous interventions that the world does not want, and does not need, to be saved by the US?
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world → learn → US
In the age of Maga, this vulgar exceptionalism has surely had its day.
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exceptionalism → have → day
Second, reformulated question: how may this looming catastrophe be prevented?
uncertain
catastrophe → reformulate → ?
…and 13 more, not listed.
The Aporia
