FLASH
Shkruar nga Christian Rocca
The inexperienced White House leader is unsure how to resolve the conflict in the Middle East and is thinking about the consequences for the November elections. To imagine that he could be inspired by Putin's subversive repertoire is not alarmism, but realism.
Donald Trump's war against Iran, launched on behalf of Bibi Netanyahu and Mohammed bin Salman, changes objectives every day, often within the same speech or social media post, making fun of those who see sophisticated strategic plans in Trumpian folly.
Trump declares a final, but temporary, victory. He threatens the Apocalypse, loses his temper, and warns that he is ready to commit war crimes, while easing sanctions on Iranian oil.
Then he talks about “very productive” negotiations that in reality do not exist, and then he declares that he can conquer all of Iran overnight, while proclaiming himself the most popular man in Venezuela, where he thinks he can be elected president without much effort.
Welcome to the tragic world of Trump, that of a madman with a pasta strainer on his head who plays the role of petty dictator of the planet's greatest superpower. And welcome to the politics of post-falsehood, engineered by Artificial Intelligence algorithms, which is nothing more than the degenerative acceleration of time that until yesterday seemed ruled by post-truth.
How nostalgic! From politics that ignored facts, we have moved on to nonsense that doesn't even try to seem credible. Today, the main objective of the war against Iran is the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, which was closed precisely because of this war.
But perhaps another objective has begun to grind in Trump's head. In recent days, Trump has said that the war with Iran is over, that it is about to end, that it is over at all, but also that it will last another three weeks, long enough to return Iran to the Stone Age.
Hence the threats to bomb “every Iranian power plant and bridge” if Hormuz is not opened within a few hours, a deadline that is set to expire tonight, even though we are already at the third semi-ultimatum.
Behind all this behavior, as is evident, there is no strategic thought, much less a military plan. Even if there was, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth would have already distributed it in the chat group.
Yesterday Trump said that the plan exists, but out of anger the “teenage president” decided not to reveal it to anyone. Officially, this war was launched to neutralize the Iranian nuclear threat, even though Trump had previously declared that he had permanently destroyed the Ayatollahs’ nuclear capacity with the bombings of May and June 2025.
It wasn't true then and it's not true today. Then the goal became stopping Iranian missiles that could hit the US. Then aid to the opposition, overthrowing the regime, opening the strait, getting oil. Post-falsehoods!
The truth is that Trump was led to believe that a few hours of bombing and the assassination of religious leaders were enough to incite a popular revolt in Iran or to produce an alternative leadership willing to accept Washington's dictates.
None of this happened. And it is not the first time that Americans have made a serious mistake in Iran. On New Year’s Day 1977, Jimmy Carter called Iran “an island of stability” and congratulated the Shah “for the love he receives from his people.”
A week later, popular protests began that led to the hated dictator’s escape. In 1978, American diplomats in Tehran described Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as someone who could become Iran’s “Gandhi,” “a kind of saint.”
Every time Washington thinks it is weakening Iran, it actually strengthens it, Nicholas Kristof wrote in the New York Times. One should also remember the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the nuclear deal of the Obama years.
But with Trump we have reached unprecedented levels, also because the war has expanded into the Arab world, has consequences for global energy supplies, and has further alienated the US from the Europeans, to the point of the repeated American threat to withdraw from NATO, to the delight of Vladimir Putin.
Trump has also begun to tease South Korea and Japan, praising his "friend," the crazy dictator of North Korea, hinting that he may withdraw military support for Seoul and Tokyo because they did not send ships to liberate the Strait of Hormuz.
So, after the gift for Putin, another gift for Xi Jinping. As usual, the question is whether Trump does it on purpose or doesn't understand. I tend to believe the latter, that Trump is ignorant and inept, a first-class fool.
But I wouldn't rule out either alternative, or even a combination of the two. Today, for the inexperienced political trader who runs the White House, the war is becoming increasingly uncontrollable, so he continues to vacillate between ultimatums and overtures, between apocalyptic escalations and imaginary negotiations.
This is where Timothy Snyder's reading of the situation comes in. According to the American historian, for years one of the most lucid Western intellectuals of our time, it is possible that at this point Trump is no longer improvising on Iran: on the contrary, he is following a clear logic.
Snyder recently wrote that one of the objectives of Trump's constant threats against Iran could be to provoke a terrorist attack in the US, which would give Trump the pretext to cancel, postpone, or take control of the elections, allowing him to govern in a democratic state of emergency.
Trump's model is Putin, the ideal political reference, who at various times has consolidated power precisely by exploiting external escalation, internal threats, national emergencies caused by fabricated assassinations, and the suspension of democratic normality.
Excluding the possibility that Trump will try to exploit the war to change the outcome of the election is very dangerous, given that he has already tried it once, in 2020-2021, with repeated attempts at manipulation and with the violent attack on Congress, and that he is now in a weak position that he will try to overcome by doubling down on the risk.
Another coup d'état is not at all unthinkable in America. The elements are all there, visible and often openly announced by Trump himself. Alarmism is never taken seriously, even though the analyses of those who have sounded the sirens so far have proven to be accurate, and even often wrong simply because of excessive caution. /Adapted from "Pamfleti" by "L'Inchiesta"
E keqja eshte te vete Amerikanet e partia e vet qe zgjodhen dhe e vune ne krye. Dita dites popujt po idiotesohen nga media, aresimi kokeposhte duke bere gabime qe po i kushtojne planetit. Ndoshta ua bllokon trurin ushqimi, veshja e jeta plastike ne teresi. "Kombet e Bashkuara" pse nuk marrin vendim qe Trump-Putin te bllokohen e te mos levizin te lire ne te gjitha shtetet. Pse narcistizmin e dy low life do te vuaje njererzimi? Perverte te martuar disa here, te akuzuar si paedofile, deshtake ne biznes e lista nuk mbaron te tallen me boten!? Morali i njeriut fillon qe te jeta personale e familja e jo te kapardisja si kokosh kokebosh. Problemi qe sakatimi i mendjes so popujve nga yjet Hollywooiane e celebritite qe shumica nuk kane lene reng e turpe pa bere simpatizohen nga turmat trushpelara. Sa bukur, eh, c'ke me jeten personale te tjetrit ti, shihe si politikan e inteligjent. Wow, wow, wow! Enderron gomari te gjykoje gjithe boten si reffere me birbil i shkreti. Amerika ka pasur presidente dinjitoze e kompetente me te mirat e metat e tyre, por nje lolo qe ate qe dhjet ne mengjes ne uturak e ha ne darke me luge, nuk e ka pasur kurre e nuk do ta kete pervec ketij kokeboshit qe i kane futur nje berdhame caraci ne koke e ben vetem brrr. Eshte per te ardhur keq qe Amerika, lokomotiva e njerezimit, me kete kaqol do na marre ne qafe te gjitheve. Po nuk e ngritem zerin zot do e vuajme neser.