Once insanity has been normalised what next?

Imbecilic policies have brought us to the point where finding common sense is like searching for truth in a Trump monologue.

Today marks the beginning of a strategic decision to write shorter, more concise articles with an in-depth article each weekend. I’m more than aware that people are time poor, and not everybody can listen to these pieces in-app. I’m going to give it a try throughout April and see how it goes. Feedback is most welcome. Monday to Friday will be limited to a 5-6 minute read, with Saturday and Sunday reserved for longer, more in-depth pieces.

The first of the longer pieces will drop this coming Saturday and Sunday, when I’ll be posting a two-part piece on The Greater Israel Project. This new approach will hopefully help me as I finally prepare to launch the Political Truth Portal next week (Tuesday, 14th April, if all goes to plan). The first episode of the Political Truth Portal podcast will air on April 18th, while the first of my weekly political news magazine show on YouTube, called ‘The Political Truth will launch on 26th April. It’s taken what feels like an eternity to get to this point; now it’s time to fire the engine up and see where it takes us. If you would like to support this project directly, simply click the button below.

Meanwhile, back to the madness. Where do we begin on the day of Trump’s potential war crimes event? It’s always difficult to know where to begin when it comes to decoding the ever-changing objectives of Mad King Don. In most military conflicts, leaders avoid arrogance war monger rhetoric for good reason. Time and again, military spokespeople are forced to walk back lies or deliberate misdirection.

With his illegal war, Trump has followed the age-old Republican tradition of taking the US into expensive wars that have cost trillions of dollars. and failed time and time again to deliver a positive outcome. The only people who suffer are innocent civilians and the American people, whose taxpayer dollars are wasted on failed geopolitical adventures. You would think that after being defeated in every major conflict since World War II, someone somewhere would have learned a lesson.

Image - NDTV

Nobody with any modicum of intelligence could have listened to Trump’s unhinged, 90-minute self-promotion fairytale broadcast to the world without concluding that he is becoming ever more mentally challenged. He presented a tapestry of lies sprinkled with the smallest grains of truth, in a failed attempt to portray himself as a no-compromise crusader determined to prevail over a Goldless Islamic enemy. It would be pointless to spend time discussing the disgusting language he uses time and time again in an effort to look like ‘the big man’. It would be comedic were it not so tragic.

I’ve spoken before about his inability to comprehend the cultural differences between Iran and the US. These are cultures that are worlds apart, not just culturally but also in the ages of their civilisations. If you would like a good, easy-to-read potted history, I highly recommend visiting the History Extra site. Trump would have you believe that Iran is one of those ‘shithole’ countries, as he likes to describe countries he knows nothing of. The US has long advocated for democracy around the world, but this is one of the greatest historical acts of deception in history.

America didn’t gain its geopolitical power by playing nice. Over the years, it has been one of the greatest examples of gunboat diplomacy. It became a global apex predator as a result of two world wars that left the British Empire on its knees, buried in debt. As a nation physically untouched by global conflict, it became the world's manufacturing capital. As a result of selling supplies and hardware to allied nations during the war, it accumulated 70% of the world’s gold. With these gold holdings in place, the US signed the Bretton Woods Agreement, which established a gold-backed, US-dollar-centric system.

The British Empire was no more, and the US dollar became the world’s reserve currency. From there, the only way was up, but the key to maintaining control lay in dominating commodity trades, the largest of which was, of course, oil. The rest is history, as we have seen endless moves by the US to protect what has become known as the ‘petro-dollar’ after ditching the gold standard.

Unfortunately, Iran, like many other oil-rich nations, became the target of the protecting US economic dominance. History shows that democracy has become the enemy in the perpetual US economic protection racket. Nobody suffered more as a result than Iran. In 1951, Mohammad Mossadegh led the first ever democratically elected government of Iran. You would think that Western powers would be jubilant; this was exactly what they were seeking outwardly to promote.

Democracy was all well and good until the newly elected Prime Minister decided to carry out the will of the people and address the massive social inequality that had resulted from years of dictatorship under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran. As part of Mohammad Mossadegh’s social reform programme, he decided to nationalise Iran’s oil, and that right there was when advocacy by the US and the UK for democracy got in the way of profit.

The British had gone to President Harry Truman to suggest a coup, but he refused. However, when Dwight Eisenhower took over the White House, he was all in, and the CIA organised a plot to overthrow the government and reinstall the Shah, who would once again lead a dictatorship that served himself and US and UK oil interests. That was, until he himself was overthrown in the Islamic revolution of 1979.

Image - Michael Lipchitz (AP)

The important point is that the US finds itself in its current position as a direct result of its own failed foreign policy. It has a long history of ill-thought-through regime change born of an unwillingness to share the profits from its often ill-got gains in sovereign states. It was their own installation of the Shah that not only resulted in the subjugation of the Iranian people, but also kept them in line with purchases of US arms. Pahlavi’s retrenchment of royal autocracy led to a rise in Islamic religious fundamentalism, culminating in the Islamic Revolution of 1979, which saw Ayatollah Khomeini come to power. The rest is history.

For all the nonsense, Trump vomited in his barely cohesive monologue, the key takeaways were just a few lines that are at the very heart of his open, unashamed attempt to steal Iran’s oil. The key lines were:

“We may even get involved with helping them rebuild their nation”

When asked about a comment he made earlier in the day about simply taking Iranian oil, he replied:

If I had my choice -- if I had my choice, yeah, because I'm a businessman first.

In an incoherent addition when speaking of ‘taking’ Iran’s oil, he went on to say:

You know the old days to the victims, OK? You know that to the, uh, to the winner belong the spoils -- go the spoils and I've said, why don't we use it to the victor go the spoils and we don't have that.

I’ve left his words unedited, but he appears to be saying that because he’s declared victory, the oil belongs to HIM. The insanity is off the charts, I’m afraid. The same goes for his suggestion that the US should be charging a toll for ships to pass. In a normal world, there would be men in white coats escorting him from the podium in a straitjacket, but in this new world of political sycophancy, the media sanitises it in this sort of media reframing autocorrect they have adopted for fear of retribution.

Trump sees this as a simple two-phase process.

• Take control of the oil, which he’s prepared to do by working with a puppet, as has occurred in Venezuela

• Destroy as much of the Iranian infrastructure so he can profit from rebuilding following the end of the conflict.

He is focused on NOTHING else, and he’s prepared to sacrifice as many Americans as it takes. He still believes he can secure a win from this. However, tragically, I believe he’s totally miscalculated the outcome, and that’s going to get a lot of innocent people killed. As I conclude this piece, the US has today commenced strikes on Kargh Island, which absolutely plays into its intention of seizing Iranian oil. If you had any doubt about the insanity at play, here’s today’s threat.

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A TIME WHEN SUPPORTING INDEPENDENT REPORTING HAS BEEN MORE IMPORTANT. If you appreciate my work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help offset some of the ever-increasing costs of research and analysis. It really does make a big difference.