Attack on Iran shows Trump's incredible weakness

Trump’s reckless strike on Iran has unleashed chaos, emboldened Israel, and brought the world closer to a catastrophic new war, writes George Grundy.

THE IDEA THAT Iran was or is close to achieving a nuclear weapon is as laughable as claiming that the moon is made of cheese. There are readily available social media compilations of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu making claims of the threat's immediacy dating back over 30 years.

Remember Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction? This is the same transparent bullshit. It's incredible that people are still taken in.

This is a crisis very much of America's making. President Donald Trump pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) Iran nuclear deal in his first term solely because he hated the colour of Barack Obama's skin and wanted to tear down everything Obama did, no matter the destruction.

The JCPOA was a brilliant plan, implemented and working for both sides. Iranian uranium enrichment had dropped close to zero. Obama warned that tearing it up would eventually give the world the “losing choice between a nuclear-armed Iran or another war in the Middle East”. And here we are. As ever, Trump is a political arsonist, claiming credit for putting out a fire he started.

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Israel has started a war with Iran while continuing its onslaught in Gaza and the U.S. is turning on its own citizens, but our PM didn't get to meet the U.S. despot, so that's just "abject failure".

Go take a look at Iran on a map. It’s nearly four times the size of Iraq, with double the population, aligned, backed and sponsored by Russia (and China). Iraq was on its knees in 2003 and still became a nightmarish quagmire for America. Iran's geopolitical and military power is on so many more orders of magnitude to that conflict that it's not even worth a comparison. This may quickly become a second front in the West’s ongoing struggle against Russia, currently contained to Ukraine.

Third, this is Bibi's war. Israel has been attacking its neighbours on at least five fronts — in Syria, Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Yemen. Now there's a sixth. An attack on Turkey has not been ruled out by Ankara. It's hard to overstate how vigorously Israel has threatened and attacked nearly all of its regional neighbours. The country is an international pariah, led by a genuine maniac.

What irony that the nation formed as a result of the horrors of WWII is now the protagonist in potentially launching a third global conflict. Poll after poll shows Israelis overwhelmingly support the attack on Iran, even as residents of Tel Aviv scramble for the bomb shelters each night. Israel has lost its mind and for reasons too complex to explain here, the world has to reconsider its reflexive defence of what is so laughably called Israel’s “right to defend itself”.

What this exposes, as if it were not already obvious, is Donald Trump's incredible weakness on the global stage. There was never a chance that Trump would stand up to Netanyahu. Trump reveres – almost worships – so-called “strongmen” and the wielding of power, both political and military.

Bibi has demanded American obeisance from two presidents in a row and now that the American bombs have fallen, there is little hope that Trump will summon the courage to demand peace instead of more conflict.

There is the chance that Iranians will rise up against their theocratic gerontocracy, but it's more likely that the population will react as you would were your capital city bombed by an adversary — indignation, outrage and demands for a response.

Nukes don't stop war, they just raise the stakes

From Vietnam to Ukraine, the real-world record of nuclear deterrence suggests it’s better at fuelling arms races than preventing bloodshed.

Iran has many means of responding, in ways that will hurt Israel and the United States. Until now, Iranian missiles have for the most part spared Israeli civilians (the civilian death toll to date is 24 Israelis to 430 Iranians). Their hypersonic weapons could target civilian infrastructure (as Israel has done so relentlessly in Gaza) or even Israel's undeclared nuclear weapons arsenal.

Iran could attack American bases across the Middle East, most notably in Iraq, right next door. Iran could attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz in no time at all, crippling up to 20 per cent of the world's oil supplies and causing an oil shock that would send tremors across every economy on Earth.

International terrorism and other under-the-counter mischief could destabilise the West’s fragile democracies. Iran has the means and the wherewithal to cause chaos across the region and beyond.

Longer term, what this undoubtedly will do is strengthen Iranian nuclear ambitions. Were Iran to ever acquire a nuke, the bomb would ensure that today's events could never happen again. No one messes with you when you have a nuclear weapon. What lesson do you think being bombed out of the blue teaches the Iranian regime?

What remains genuinely interesting is the domestic reaction in the United States. Trump campaigned vigorously on avoiding getting America embroiled in more ruinous wars in the Middle East. Now, less than 200 days after taking office, his planes are dropping bombs in the region yet again. It remains very much to be seen whether the Democrat Party and its representatives fall in line, as the American political class has always done in a “time of war”.

What is noticeably different this time is the absence of a catalysing event, which 9/11 still provided in 2003. Much of the American public, including a sizeable portion of those who voted for Trump, is weary of the cost in blood and treasure of America's seemingly endless Middle Eastern bloodlust.

Former President George W Bush had a 90 per cent approval rating after 9/11 and polls on the eve of the 2003 Iraq invasion suggested at least a plurality of Americans supported the war. That's unlikely to be the case this time and it's possible to imagine that this rash move by Trump further rips at the fabric of American society, already in shreds as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents kidnap people from the streets each day.

This is terrible, terrible news. The Shia Crescent across the Middle East will be inflamed, Israel is now completely out of control and their chief benefactor is led by a moronic weakling who will never summon the strength to rein them in. If you were born after 1962, the threat of global calamity has never been higher.