I see you all wrapped up in your festive jumper, a hand-knitted affair tastefully decorated with baubles and barrels of oil. I see you sipping your hot chocolate, logs crackling gently in the fire. ’Tis the season, isn’t it? Christmas may have come and gone but you’ve been a good little Neocon and Santa’s bought you the conflict you’ve always wanted. Your moustache is now entirely erect, quivering with anticipation on your chickenhawk’s face. You’re a real patriot, aren’t you? A proper strongman who fears nothing. Apart from testifying in front of Congress, obviously.
Trump may be wildly unpredictable but his motives for targeting Qassem Suleimani are myriad and transparent. It makes him look big and tough rather than like a boulder of cheddar slowly collapsing in on itself. Challenging the decision gives him the sweeping criticism that ‘The Left’ – now defined as anyone who thinks he isn’t Christ incarnate – are sympathising with terrorists that endanger America. It makes impeachment even more partisan as Republicans seek to wrap themselves up in a flag in a hostile diplomatic environment and it provides Trump with a narrative that the House are more concerned with removing him than protecting America’s interests. It’s his patriotic duty to bypass Congress and act unilaterally in defending the States! How else can he keep the soldiers out of those endless wars he’s so critical of, if not by doing all he can to start the biggest one yet?
Brinkmanship implies some vague understanding of where the brink actually is. Trump blunders over the edge of it, a great wobbling carcass bloated on his own self-importance, bellowing his supremacy and assuming that carrying the biggest stick in the tiniest hands is enough to keep the world kneeling before the imperialists.
His is a presidency so obsessed with aesthetics and legacy that any diplomatic nuance is mindlessly dismissed as weakness. Suleimani threatened American lives and pursued a campaign of aggressive escalation, ergo bombing his knackers off is the only possible solution. Never mind that his death will do nothing to save lives, instead endangering yet more of them. That whole ‘death to America’ thing is kicking off like a Corbyn chant at Glastonbury, John Bolton, and it looks like a big chunk of Iran isn’t too keen on your ‘regime change’ idea. I can’t think why, given what a resounding success they’ve seen it be for all their neighbours.
It’s throwing gasoline on a tinderbox for no other reason than the hope that there are enough Maga hats in the crowd to cheer the fireworks before heading to the ballot box. The lies are already pouring forth, with Pence correlating Suleimani with 9/11 despite the fact he despised the Saudis and Sunnis that carried it out and the official commission found no link between Iran and the attack. This is our new reality – the shameless pushing of nonsensical conspiracy theory to justify military action. It worked so well in Iraq, so why not try it again?
You’d love to be a part of it, wouldn’t you, John Bolton? This is all you ever wanted but you’re no longer playing with the big boys, relegated instead to the sidelines, just another warmonger of the murderous old guard who assumed he’d always have a seat at the chessboard. Trump’s ploughing his own disastrous furrow and you didn’t play by his toddler’s rules, trying instead to nudge the pawns around even as he dropped his trousers and defecated on the table.
I see you gaze out of the window, the edges of the frame rimmed with hoarfrost, watching the fires burn in the distance. I see you raise your mug to your lips, your hands dripping with blood. I hear the explosions in the distance and I see a single tear roll down your cheek, not for the lives yet to be lost but for the fact your name doesn’t even get to be a part of it.
It’s a brave new world, John Bolton, same as the old one. Drowned in oil and drenched in blood, all in the name of a modern Crusade that seeks to sweep aside all who refuse to bow before the onslaught.
Still, at least they’re owning the libs, right?
I see you, John Bolton. I fucking see you.
