This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

In a single weekend, the President has given us three different scenarios on Iran. It’s all over! We win! Yeah! Well almost! We’re gonna patrol all thirty or forty miles of the strait, with our own ships! By god we’ll do it all by ourselves, damn it! You’d better open that strait right now, mister, or else, POW!

Which is it? Face meets brick wall. Idle threat dad. “If you kids don’t stop. I’ll turn this car around and we won’t go to grandma’s! I’ll patrol! I’ll blow the place up! You had better stop it!” [stomps foot] The burgeoning discovery that it’s all going wrong. Rule number one: pay no attention to Mr.Trump brain droppings, except for comic shock value. We know nothing because they do everything privately. Government in the shadows, never mind what we’re doing. Eat your gruel and make your widgets! We know which countries have offered to mediate this crisis. We know of the countries and the offers to mediate rebuffed. You remember, those cowardly, lazy, stupid countries.

Any actual negotiations are being held in secret, if they are being held at all. It leaves King Midas Muffler out front in public, dancing in his crazy suit like a sign spinner. You know, the more he talks, the more he says things. Loose lips sink economies. In his desperate flailing verbal attacks, Mr. Trump shows us his frustration at his powerlessness. “Why won’t they surrender? We’ve destroyed their air force and their navy! Then they surrender! Come on, surrender already!”

The number and variety of administration plans imply that they’re off the map here and out of ideas. Lifting sanctions on Russian and Iranian oil. Any idea is a good one, if it’s the only one you have.  A cover- up bigger than the war itself. Trying to sell this war as something it’s not. Trying to tell us that they meant it, when it’s obvious they didn’t. They’re fumbling their way through. Since when does the President of the United States make idle threats? Figure it out first, before engaging speech function.

The president makes multiple statements, making him look befuddled and confused. Can you win a war like that? The Iranians answer, whatever you do to us, we will do to the Gulf States. Back off, or we will destroy your economy. It’s a simple geographic gambit. Iran can indeed bomb the world’s economy. So King Midas Muffler threatens to attack Iran’s civilian infrastructure. Creating a mass humanitarian nightmare. “Give me what I want, or I’ll make it worse for us both.’ Plus, it’s a war crime. But who pays attention to details like that these days?

Surprise, surprise! Dow futures jumped 1,000 points on the news that the US will refrain from catastrophic attacks on Iran. Oh, thank god! It was just another idle threat by the President of the United States! Gosh, we’re all so glad they didn’t do anything really stupid. What about Mr. Trump’s next deadline? What does the word of the President even mean? Wall Street, like children of abusive parents, smiles. Good news! We don’t get beaten up today! Daddy’s in a good mood! Up 1,000 points on “It could be a lot worse.” We could be in a real shooting war.

When Donald Trump used the words “unconditional surrender,” he doomed himself. Sure, it means nothing to Trump. Just a few careless syllables among the multitudes off of his salubrious tongue. But “unconditional surrender” means you give up everything. The government, the courts, the police, the money, and the economy. You literally give up everything, and deliver yourself into the hands of your enemy, at their mercy.

If you are Iran, you have to assume that Trump meant it when he said it. So Iran will never surrender. Mr. Trump wants to pick their religious leader. Imagine Trump appointing Pope Steve Witkoff or Dalai Lama Jared Kushner. Iran will never surrender to that.

Trump will continue with his idle threats, and the world waits and hopes nothing goes wrong while juggling hand grenades. But if someone fucks-up. Pfff, gone in a flash. Each side trying to up the ante without going over the line. It all seemed so simple. Just like Venezuela! Mighty convenient how Mr. Trump starts off Monday morning with such good news. I wonder if there is any truth to it? Or is it just something they say to keep the markets from bleeding down again?

Their dream of lower interest rates, gone. Zero job growth and 5% inflation are what they bought. Venezuela was too easy and convinced them that their beginners luck was actually consummate skill. It really was just a matter of time before the amateurs stumbled into a morass. Someone is going to have to eat a shit sandwich. Is that even possible for the Trump administration? To admit that they were wrong?

It’s a war crime to assassinate a head of state. It’s a war crime to start an aggressive war. There is no doubt who started this war. An Aesop’s fable about the little boy who reached for more than his little hand could hold and so, got none. Now we have an angry little boy to deal with. Because he had been lied to as well. They told him this would be easy, a pushover. Anyone seen Popgun Pete and Marco big shoes? No, the king is angry. Best to stay hidden until he calms down some.

The king has only two choices. Escalate or climb down off the war machine. Back down, eat crow, lose the midterms, or fight a great patriotic war to achieve nothing? Send the world economy to hell to preserve his own fragile ego? Who will Trump listen to at this point? Who could convince Mr. Trump to give up his super-heated ego for the sake of the world economy? Who could convince Trump to eat the shit sandwich for the sake of the world?

If Trump gives in all is lost, but if he endeavors on this course there is still a chance for him to win. Fight on or accept defeat for the sake of the world. Accept the truth or remain in the fantasy?

“The enemy is anybody who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he is on.”
― Joseph Heller

“I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.”
― Malcolm X