What we are witnessing is Trump at his lowest point, writes Martin Jay.
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Congress needs to work together to get Trump impeached before it’s too late – as there won’t be any credibility around the world soon for the U.S., just unpaid checks.
For Donald Trump, August 28th will pass just like any other day. It’s unlikely that one of his closest aides might point out that it’s the six-month anniversary of when he announced that he was about to start an “incursion” with Iran, which should only last a matter of a “few days”. Six months later, respected analysts in D.C. are announcing on podcasts that it is common knowledge that Trump has in fact backed down – and even scrapped any idea he might have had of some sort of a ramped-up war with Iran, possibly using land forces. Trump simply ran out of three things. Firstly, the required minimum amount of weaponry – missiles – which were used so recklessly in the first couple of weeks that now the U.S. is running dangerously low on some key types, which has seriously taken the sting out of the scorpion’s tail when it comes to bullying your way around the world as a pseudo-superpower. Secondly, realistic military options, given that bombardment of Iran simply by missiles alone – usually by air – has proved beyond any doubt to be nowhere near enough in terms of trying to get close to harming the country’s infrastructure to the point where the regime might consider talks. And thirdly, credibility – as this would have been critical in recent weeks in trying to seek an off-ramp, given that it would have involved talks with the Iranians, but they have long given up on this method as they simply have no confidence in him keeping his word on anything.
Of course, the credibility factor also plays with key allies, and perhaps this was the most damning blow to this defeat: that in the end, he looked around at all the normal sycophants – EU leaders, in other words – and didn’t see any who were really there for him. How could they have his back when they haven’t even got their own, and Britain, France and Germany are all careering towards the abyss of far-right governments in the next three years?
What lessons could Americans learn, though, on this six-month anniversary? When it comes to Iran, the mystery has completely gone. The mystery – or the unknown element – which was usually in America’s advantage of how their arsenal and armed forces would measure up against Iran’s is now truly gone, which means an edge has gone with it. Probably neither side can quite believe the realities, but that extraordinary hit list of missiles which were dropped on Iran didn’t do much to Iran’s missile-producing capabilities – and Tehran’s strategy for decades to keep on producing missiles of all grades, so that most of them at the beginning of the war were simply fodder to draw out America’s better interceptors, was comic genius. Basically, all of Iran’s older missiles were very useful in attracting Israel’s and America’s interceptors. And this is still going on even today, as the U.S. uses a $4 million USD missile against drones which cost as little as $15,000 USD – proving that in the end, it was advanced, cheaper technology which proved to deal the crushing blow against the U.S.
On the floor but still breathing, Trump is undefeated, though, in his mind. Like an out-of-shape boxer, he believes he still has moves, and yet he is unable to see how the games he plays with allies and frenemies always make his credibility sink even lower – which, presumably, makes it harder for the U.S. to borrow more money around the world. The recent news that the U.S. has hit $40 trillion USD in debt is of course nonsense, as most economists know this figure is wildly underestimated – as the calculus used by the Americans overlooks a number of key factors which places debt well over $100 trillion USD. Well over, to the point that there are even some economists who predict it’s closer to $250 trillion USD when all is taken into account.
But no matter. In the meantime, what we are witnessing is Trump at his lowest point – looking like a fighter who should never have been allowed to leave the old people’s home, let alone enter a boxing ring. His presidency is so embarrassing that it needs to make threats to Japan to try and get the country to leave the ICC, as Trump is under constant pressure from Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu to get him off the hook with regards to the international arrest warrant in his name. Desperate measures. But perhaps not as desperate as sending the CIA chief to Moscow to beg the Russians to stop hitting civilian infrastructure in Ukraine – as, if we are to believe some experts, Ukraine has virtually no air defence systems left and little energy, and so is careering towards defeat, likely to come in winter. True, Ukraine sometimes hits Russian assets within Russia which certainly impacts the economy, but it’s hard to see how much longer the country can hold on when power and heating is being destroyed in Kiev. The war racket led by Zelensky is like an old Soviet factory which has outdated, rattling, knackered machines that need not only expensive fuel but constantly fixing up just to stay active – producing a product which can’t be sold as no one wants it. The only important thing is the boss’s role in the centre of the cash flow, skimming off what’s coming in, paying off his cabal of loyal goons around him, while keeping a straight face for the factory workers themselves, who know that the whole operation is going to pack up one day soon. Most close to Zelensky know that there is no hope for victory, and that all that is happening now is a desperate attempt to keep the money-laundering racket going for a few more months – or weeks – before everyone scrambles towards their private jets in the middle of the night. How would Trump cope with such a seismic defeat like that after Iran? His friends at Blackrock and JP Morgan would lose a lot of their clients’ money pinned to murky ‘never-never’ deals which bought up a lot of infrastructure that were the spoils of war – but Trump himself will look increasingly irrelevant and a lightweight international player whom his own MAGA supporters can no longer take seriously, as the prospect of losing both houses increases by the day.
