Dear Friends,                        Why is Iran the supreme danger to the world?

I just watched a media conversation on a reputedly progressive program in which a retired Major General, nice guy, moderate, said: “That Iran can continue to exist as a threat to its neighbors is unacceptable.” (Minor inaccuracies, probably, I’m a terrible stenographer.) And the nice, progressive commentator nodded in agreement. Behind this the so general feeling: we are at war with Iran (though we don’t know why), therefore we must defeat them.

We are at war – except it’s not a war – America is at war, we are Americans, we must support the war. Why? What’s it for? Who knows? Certainly not the current occupants of the executive branch. The executive branch folks are the ones who are supposed to know. If they don’t maybe we shouldn’t support the war …

So let’s get a little more into the res (as Jeeves would say) of the matter, what the hell it’s all about. To start with, something that this same media show reported:

Twenty-two nations oppose Iran’s blocking of the Strait of Hormuz! Wow, Iran must be doing something real bad if twenty-two nations oppose it.

How many nations have opposed the unprovoked and indiscriminate bombing of Iran by the US and Israel, and of Lebanon by Israel?

Israel and the US began bombing without warning, without any serious reason – as always, the Iran is one week (sometimes two) away from a world destroying nuclear device is rubbish. Netanyahu knows it’s rubbish, he also knows that Trump is so stupid that he can be manipulated into thinking it’s for real, or at least pretending it’s for real is a good strategy. He knows he can play Trump and bring him along, launching the bombers. Declaration of war is an obsolete concept.

Everybody knows that the Israeli and American attacks had nothing to do with the imminent threat of an Iranian nuclear device, they aimed at regime change. Regimes don’t usually want to be changed, the Iranian regime certainly doesn’t. So what’s it going to do? Fight back. This has nothing to do with evaluation of the regimes involved – US, Israeli, Iranian – just what any regime would do.

So what does a regime do that is attacked by overwhelmingly superior forces? If it’s lucky enough to have one, it deploys the condition, the entity, the place, that is just there, immutable – Generals January and February for Russia in 1812; the Strait of Hormuz for Iran in 2026. The enemies of the Iranian regime aim to destroy it. Why on earth is anyone surprised that that they’re deploying their best weapon?

But … but … but please your great Ayatollahship, have you considered that you are disrupting the global economy in its entirety simply for your own narrow national interests? I’ll leave it up to all of you to find an answer to this question: I imagine it being posed by most of those twenty-two nations.

All of this is apart from any consideration of the relative merit, shall we say, of the powers involved: Iran, Israel, the United States first, but Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states as well.

And then there’s regime change. Regime change from outside doesn’t have a good record; the US has been the main contributor to this record. When any new opportunity arises it has also been foremost in ignoring its past record.

Here are we, selflessly fighting for the oppressed people of another country, oppressed by their own dictatorial government. But how are we to do it? Fight for another people against their own government? Usually we end up bombing the entire country, so the people we’re trying to defend and whatever dictatorial agents who happen to be under the bombs – and the people are far more numerous than the agents of dictatorship. And this is exactly what’s happening in Iran. The war to prevent the Iranian regime from developing nuclear weapons, the war to overthrow that dictatorial regime, to liberate the people of Iran from dictatorship is carried out in the same way as all contemporary wars, by the bombing of civilians, the bombing of the people of a nation, in this case the people of Iran. Trump’s grotesque threat to destroy the entire civilian infrastructure of Iran if the Iranian government won’t submit to his demands and open the Strait of Hormuz, apart from being a threat to commit war crimes on a very large scale, is an accurate designation of the enemy, the people of Iran.

So what about the Strait of Hormuz? Until February 28, when Israel and the United States began their unprovoked bombardment of Iran, the Strait of Hormuz simply sat there as it always has wishing bon voyage to all those ships carrying 20% of the world’s oil supply, and even more of its fertilizer supply. After February 28, Iran, in the most predictable move at least since … took control of the Strait and began to interdict shipping. Big trouble for the world economy, how could they do such a thing?

How can “we” open the Strait? Well, we could go in with all guns blazing, invade Kharg Island, and then … what then, will all those blazing guns actually open the Strait or just clog it up even more?

Here’s an idea. The Strait is effectively closed for most shipping because Israel and the United States are bombing Iran. If they stop bombing Iran, bombing the Iranian people, if they just go away, the Strait will re-open. 

Trump’s absolutely astonishingly dull address to the nation might indicate some such plan: declare victory, then scarper (an English term more suitable for family readers than the obvious one). It might just as well indicate that he’s planning to build a new Trump hotel, or maybe casino, in downtown Tehran – lots of newly cleared land there. Who knows?

In the meantime, here’s another nice, liberal former ambassador (not to Iran), telling us that Iran cannot be allowed to control the Strait of Hormuz! The number of things Iran cannot be allowed to do is multiplying: no nukes, no being a threat to its neighbors, no controlling the Strait of Hormuz! Look at the map, why shouldn’t Iran control the Strait, what would the US do? More important, how can it be stopped from doing so?

One way, sometimes suggested by the Trump people, enthusiastically espoused by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), is to bomb Iran back into the Stone Age. This would be a huge war crime, and we must hope that the generals – who seem to be the only people in the room with even the slightest idea of what is happening – will find a way to stop it.

But the very idea perfectly shows the … what to call it? … the incoherence, the hypocrisy, the lies, the inhumanity, the cruelty, the lust for death … of the Trump administration – and remember, it’s not just Trump.

They’ve put forward many reasons for launching this (illegal) war. Two are sort of bookends for the others: First, Iran is just two weeks away from, well, take your pick, the capacity to make a nuclear weapon, making a nuclear weapon, a nuclear weapon and a ballistic missile to carry it, etc. Whichever you choose, these are all lies. Second, the Iranian regime is a monstruous dictatorship always willing to kill its own people, and has killed 30,000 or more of its own in the last months. This is not a lie. But there is a lie here.

The lie is that the current US administration has any concern for the people of Iran, any desire for the overthrow of the current regime so that the Iranian people may begin the creation of a democratic society. This was clear from the beginning, it is demonstrated for all to see by the gloating tone of all the threats to the Iranian government should they refuse to open the Strait of Hormuz, whether by Graham or by Trump: we’ll bomb you back to the Stone Age (where you belong), or as Trump proclaimed on Sunday, Easter Sunday as it happens, in an expletive-ridden post, if they did not open the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday he would ensure that Iran will be “living in hell”, specifically mentioning bridges and power-plants, but emphasizing that the whole of Iran can be destroyed in one day. It’s important to read the actual words, this one message demands the 25^th Amendment all on its own. So look it up if you haven’t, read it, the whole thing.

Who will be living in hell? The entire Iranian people.

Opening the Strait of Hormuz is worth the destruction of the entire social infrastructure of Iran, killing an untold number of Iranians along the way.

Everyone, and even he, knows that he is announcing war crimes on a vast scale.

But the Strait is only closed because of the unprovoked, illegal attack on Iran by the Israelis and the Americans. If they stop the bombing, if they just go away, the Strait will reopen.

In the last 24 hours things have changed and changed again, Trump announced: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back.” Then a bit later said the death of a civilization would be postponed for the (canonical) two weeks.

Ok, this is the standard Trump TACO procedure. But don’t take it for granted. Trump likes killing people, as long as he can just watch it on tv. There is no one around him with the courage to challenge his murderous impulses. Refusing to obey illegal orders is no longer abstract, it’s right here now.

Yes, it’s easy for us, who have never served in the military to say this. But this is the law, and its time is now. Above all, it is for officers to act, the higher the better. To put the weight on ordinary service men and women is grotesque. Will the officers do it?

Love and solidarity,

            Bobby

The Federal government no longer exists.