Dear Editor,
U.S. President Donald Trump planned well, convinced he had the right plot. The outcomes have not bowed to his will, as he had imagined. The main characters were not cooperating, going along with his script. Follow me.
He had visions of a repeat of Desert Storm and the Battle for Baghdad, a neatly fought CNN-type war to be beamed into American living rooms. Smooth and lush with power. Fireworks lighting up the skies, and those great, big explosions thousands of miles away. In such circumstances, everyone is a war lover. Everyone except those on the receiving end, the mangled victims. The choices were sharp, short, and stark: surrender or die. The Persians chose to die as a matter of pride, history, and religion, and a strange thing happened. Like a centipede, they live on. No matter how many blows they take; how many drumrolls of thunder batter their existence. It was Don Trump’s first hiccup. One of those wracking, convulsive kinds.
In no time, the second wave came. Houthis in Yemen and allies of Iran made their presence felt. They laid low, bided their time, listened to all the bellicose rhetoric, then launched their offensive. Bab al-Mandab is set to replace the Strait of Hormuz as the most scrutinized, most-watched piece of maritime real estate in the world. Living up to its ominous name: Gate of Grief. In short, the always less than settled Middle East cauldron is warming up and heating up towards incendiary degrees. Then came the missiles, as if set to some timer. From Iraq to add a new dimension to the Trump adventure around Mesopotamia. Ancient or modern, it has always been a hotbed of intrigue, slaughter, and regret. The bottom line is that Trump is in trouble and it is only he that doesn’t realize the depth of the creek in which he finds himself. In fact, it is more accurate to say that he created for himself. He knows now what it is to be like Russia’s strongman, Vladimir Putin, and India’s Holy Warrior, Narendra Modi: all these nukes, and they are as good as nonexistent.
Worse still, the man who dragged him into war with Iran, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu has retreated to his kibbutz to seek solace. To refine his expansive strategies that failed. Trump is now a man alone. The Houthis make themselves into a long-term nuisance, and more than Saudis are going to scream bloody murder, when those missiles keep coming. When those straits are arrested. Americans will scream, and their voices are the loudest. Get the hell out of there. Instead of locked and loaded. It must be detach-and-desist going forward. In other words, retreat. Retreat is not surrender; it’s just mopping up.
Poor Trump! he is caught in a vise. He looks right and there is a mass of enemies waiting to take him on. He looks left and there is Gog and Magog stirring to life. He wanted to see for himself the Antichrist. He got his wish. He looks straight ahead, and there is nowhere to go. The only place left for him is to the rear. Retreat, it is. Even his staunchest allies, America’s Christian Evangelicals proved to be false prophets, all but useless to Mr. Trump’s gamble. It’s not the end times; it’s the end of Trump time.
I think this is termed overstretch. And overestimating one’s own strengths, while waving off those of enemies. The mistake that Trump made was that he picked the wrong enemy. Teheran is not Toronto. In the West, battles are waged with words. In the East, war is a badge of honour, the hour of martyrdom. Check the history of Old Persia going back to Xerxes and Artaxerxes, Darius and Cyrus, for a primer. Then check the self-flagellations of the Shiites, the followers of Ali. These people don’t deal in body bags. Too civilized and too sanitized. They deal in head counts. Especially when they are mounted on a pike and lined up along the side of a highway. I feel sorry for Donald Trump. He’s in deep stuff, and he knows it. I’m sorry for an America now diminished.