I find myself suddenly in the unique and somewhat uncomfortable position of agreeing with Donald J Trump. He of the world’s largest signature, most flamboyant combover and (usually) the most moronic comments. But this was no tweeted soundbyte. This was no twice-repeated and thus thrice-meaningless phrase. This was a speech. With whole words and sentences in joined-up writing. And what he said was, when distilled down to its true and inner meaning: “I don’t fucking trust Eye-rannn!!” And thus he scuppered ‘the deal’. A word I’m growing to hate more with every day of his presidency.

The ‘deal’ hatched by Obama and a few Euro-nations involved promises from Iran about the extent and uses of its nuclear stockpile. Which had to be closely monitored. To ensure that it was used for powering the nation’s tvs and plug-in cars, and emphatically NOT for nuclear weapons. And if Iran promised this then the rest of the world would lift trade sanctions on that country. Which translates as ‘buying its oil once more’. Which we now do. Shit-loads of it. 8 times more than we did before the sanctions were lifted.

So Iran gets its nuclear POWER, and it gets to earn lots of money in exported oil. And what do we get? Ahhhhh, according to nobel-winner Barak Obama, we get ‘world peace’. Nothing more noble than that. Because if Iran has no nuclear weapons then we all sleep better at night. Oh, and cheaper oil, which is of massive benefit to any and all post-industrial nations.

But the inspectors in the Iranian nuclear facilities haven’t been able to inspect as they’d like. They’re only allowed in certain places. Not the ones where they make the warheads- ooops!!! Where they make nuclear power stuff that’s a bit more secret than the usual ‘plug-and-play’ type, so you’re not allowed in there.

But world peace is indeed the highest aspiration. And we must look at how Iran is now passionately involved in its pursuit. By running a 5-year proxy war in Yemen with the Saudis, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Yemenis. That’s fairly peaceful. Then there’s Syria where Iran’s airforce and military support Assad in his systematic murder of anyone and everyone who looks like they might be a ‘rebel’. Iran sends its Shia Militias everywhere to fight. Then it sponsors Hamas and Hezbollah with both arms and finances, that they might both attack Israel with greater potency, the nation Iran has sworn to ‘destroy’. And then there’s the possibility that if it is shown that Iran is nuclear then its most hated enemies in Saudi Arabia will go the same route. That’ll be peaceful.

So the question comes down to: do you trust Iran? Its simple. Trump doesn’t. I doesn’t(?) No-one really doesn’t. Thus Trump is… errrr… (this is hard)… Trump is… RIGHT!

Peaceful Wednesday

A xxxx