Photo from original at Unz.com, no credit displayed, image originated at Guardian.
The past week has seen the usual mixture of developments flowing from the United States government that make one either want to laugh or cry. On the humor side, though with more than a bit of extreme disgust, there are the latest moves by the megalomaniac-in-chief in the White House to slap his name and picture all across the nation and even on maps depicting the rest of the world. His latest foray was to drop into an otherwise innocuous speech a suggestion that he might be renaming the much-in-the-news Strait of Hormuz after himself, suggesting he might be calling it the Strait of Trump after the US takes it away from the Iranians. This, of course, comes on top of the renaming of the US Institute of Peace and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to include his name and anticipated impending renamings of places like Virginia’s Dulles International Airport. There is also the soon-to-start construction of the huge Arch’ De’Trump outside Arlington National Cemetery. One might also assume that the destruction of formerly integral parts of the White House and the construction of a monstrous gilded ballroom will also ultimately bear the name of Trump.
What makes renaming Hormuz particularly of note, like the planned Riviera Resort Trump on the ruins of Gaza, is that it is not geographically within or next to the United States. But it must be observed that The Donald, who runs foreign policy based on his “feelings, might not see that as a problem after he unleashes the 82nd Airborne to invade Iran as early as next week. It is somewhat akin to his renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America by executive order with an eye to invading Venezuela and, coming up soon, Cuba. Even though the Gulf of Mexico renaming lacks the glamor of the Trump label, that can certainly be changed through another executive order.
Also last week the Treasury Department announced that henceforth all US dollar denominated banknotes will bear the signature of our esteemed leader, replacing that of the Secretary of the Treasury that has appeared on such documents for the past 165 years. A comment on the New York Times opinion page nailed the appropriate response, observing how “No president has ever signed US Treasury bank notes before Donald Trump decided to add his signature. By imposing his signature on users of US dollar bills, something never done by any previous sitting president, Donald Trump again offends basic decency. I, for one, will donate every dollar bill that is handed to me and carries his signature to organizations that challenge him and his politics. I encourage others to do the same. This is the best way to ensure that his indecent action backfires on him.” The new banknotes will be appearing together with the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States gold commemorative coins that will be out soon featuring Trump scowling and leaning on his tiny bunched fists. Trump only had one suggestion for the coins and that was that they should be as large as possible, which they will be, measuring three inches across.
Enough of what passes for wanting to laugh. And then there is the stuff coming out of the White House that makes one want to cry! One might reasonably assume that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, if he is still alive, looks at all the Trumpean nonsense with a grin even as he manipulates the president, somewhat like when he handed Trump a gold-plated pager such as was used to clandestinely kill and injure more than 5,000 Lebanese in 2024. Presumably he was sending a message that even Trump would understand, which was that Israel is capable of doing something quite nasty to make sure that Washington toes the line. One might suggest that could include a false flag attack on US forces stationed in the Middle East carried out by Israel and blamed on Iran or even the Israeli use of a tactical nuclear weapon on Iran if the situation on the ground becomes too dicey, which the US will be forced to endorse.
The bottom line is that it is increasingly becoming understood in the United States that the Zionist entity owns Donald J Trump and controls him, either directly through blackmail or indirectly through the vast sums of money that the billionaires running the Israel Lobby use to corrupt American elections and buy up the media so it avoids telling it like it really is regarding the Jewish state. Trump’s consistent acting on behalf of a foreign country that harbors no benign interest towards the United States might be considered treason by many Americans.
This destructive relationship has become even clearer in the wake of the resignation letter by Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent as well as from commentary by leading conservative journalist Tucker Carlson that the Israeli government, directly assisted by Israel’s powerful and wealthy US Lobby, played a major role in the United States going to war against Iran. Kent provided two principal reasons for acting as he did, making him the most senior government official to object in that fashion against any of the post 9/11 wars. First, he declared that the war against Iran claim by the White House and its supporters that Iran posed an “imminent threat” against the United States was a lie and secondly, that the war was being fought for Israel, not in support of any identifiable American national or security interest.
Kent, who concludes “We cannot make this mistake again!” was right in every detail, observing how “high ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media” worked hard on what was a disinformation campaign to bring about a war against Iran, to the benefit of Tel Aviv and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And both they and Trump and his staff have been persistent liars about the conflict, even going so far as describing it as an “excursion” rather than a “war” to sell it to the public. Trump even lied about the US bombing on the first day of the war that killed 170 Iranian schoolgirls, falsely claiming that Iran had carried out the attack.
A majority of Americans now believes that the Iran war benefits Israel more than the United States. Kent’s letter and reporting by Tucker Carlson and others reveal a major gap opening up between conservative Republicans who support the war based on government pronouncements and those who reject the explanations being offered as politically motivated. Indeed, the number of dissidents is growing as the war drags on without any real objective in sight even as the impact on the world’s economy continues to escalate due to Iran’s partial blocking of the Strait of Hormuz in its normal role as the key transit channel through the Middle East’s major oil and gas producing regions.
The confusion over Iran is not helped by the fact that President Trump has often contradicted himself on what the objectives are, most recently suggesting that he is considering ‘winding down’ Iran war while at the same time boasting that “We are knocking the crap out of Iran!” Trump has also said the war will be over “when I feel it — when I feel it in my bones.” But he is also sending numerous aircraft, the 82nd Airborne Division, and more than 5,000 marines and amphibious assault naval units to the war zone, possibly to stage a land invasion “boots on the ground” directed against Kharg Island, home of Iran’s major oil terminal. Some have called the initiative a “suicide mission” as US forces will be heavily outnumbered by Iranian Revolutionary Guard Forces that are already in place and well dug into difficult to engage prepared positions. War Secretary Pete Hegseth has also called for Congress to provide $200 billion to fund the continuation of the war, which rather suggests that no end is in sight. Admittedly Trump’s musing relating to ending the war is based on his questionable contention that US and Israeli forces have largely destroyed Iran’s offensive and defensive military capabilities, which is a lie being promoted by the Israeli government to keep the US in the fight. It leaves the White House with the options to either press its advantage or alternatively save face by abandoning what objectives drove the war in the first place, but Israel is doing everything to increase the American engagement.
But there is a bigger problem in terms of where does one go from here and that is that Israel was the driver of the conflict but since it started, Tel Aviv and Washington are now partners in the fighting though without any shared view of what the end game might be. If Trump is looking for an off-ramp from the war due to its general unpopularity and upcoming midterm elections Israel is moreso committed to using American help to bring about the destruction of Iran as a competitor nation in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Iran is playing hard ball not only because it appears to have the upper hand but also because it recognizes that Israel and the US will keep coming back until it is destroyed as a nation.
So one might argue that the war against Iran being waged by the United States and Israel is going somewhere but what exactly that means depends very much on the divergent objectives of the three belligerents. The United States might well want to extricate itself from the conflict but is struggling to find a simple and politically rewarding way to do so. Meanwhile Iran and Israel are in for the fight because they both recognize that the consequences for them are more serious and complicated. But one thing that is for sure is that the vacillation on goals and methods cannot endure for too long before Donald Trump, confronting elections, will either have to choose to double down or pick up his cards and go home. Naming everything in the United States after himself will not change that reality and will only serve to make him an even bigger object of ridicule worldwide.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org