04/09/26

In the movie version of To Kill a Mockingbird, attorney Atticus Finch’s young daughter Scout says to a schoolmate of hers at dinner, “What in the Sam Hill are you doing?” It’s the same question more and more people are asking President Trump about his war on Iran. It’s an appropriate and necessary question.

Trump originally stated that Iran’s nuclear capability needed to be destroyed, including its enriched uranium stockpile and missile delivery system. Then the people of Iran needed to be liberated from their brutal theocratic regime. And then Israel needed to be free of attacks fomented on that nation and its neighbors by Iran itself and its proxy allies like Hamas and Hezbollah. And then the Strait of Hormuz needed to be kept open for oil tankers. And for some of Trump’s conservative Christian appointees, it’s a justified crusade against an evil Muslim power.

On February 28 when Trump initiated his first military attacks, he said the war would be over in four or five weeks. That changed a few days later to four to six weeks. Later he stated he would end it when it felt right to do so. It’s now approaching six weeks, and unless current negotiations produce an immediate cease-fire, his predictions once again fall short.

The President says he loves the Iranian people and wants to help them, but American bombs and drones have already killed thousands of Iranian civilians. Trump threatens to destroy Iran’s energy infrastructure and other installations essential to decent living conditions, and bomb the country “into the Stone Ages.” Remember the supposed Vietnam quote that “we had to destroy the village in order to save it?” 

In 1949 the U.S. signed the four Geneva Conventions, which include a ban on targeting civilians and their necessary infrastructure during war. It’s impossible to reconcile that requirement with Trump’s threat to bomb Iran back to the Stone Ages. It’s one more signal that the President is perfectly willing to treat signed agreements with impunity when he decides it’s in his interest to do so.

Last week Trump suggested on his Truth Social website that the United States could defeat Iran, “take the oil,” and make “a fortune.” In his address this past Monday he said that the U.S., after it wins the war, could charge tolls for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, then in the next sentence he advocated free passage through the strait.

Is that what it’s all about? Does the President view Iran like another Venezuela? Is seizing other nations’ resources, like Greenland’s rare earth minerals, a keystone of the Trump foreign policy? When did that become an American principle?

Trump is a negotiator and dealmaker. He’s doing Israel’s bidding in weakening Iran’s military abilities. He and some of his family have openly talked about acquiring American development rights in Gaza after Israel takes complete control of the enclave and moves Gaza Palestinians out. It frankly looks suspicious. If that’s not a quid pro quo—a toothless Iran in return for American/Trump Family development in Gaza and American access to Iranian oil—Trump should say so.

Another worrying sign pointing toward American exploitation: Trump has said often that America doesn’t need Europe and NATO, at the same time that he’s forging closer military and economic relationships with Israel and Middle Eastern Arab powers, like Saudi Arabia. The overall appearance is that he’s swiveling U.S. foreign policy away from its 80-year Western Europe alliance toward the Middle East for financial reasons. 

Where is Congress while all this is going on? Most Republicans, and a few Democrats, seem at best quiescent and at worst complicit in Trump’s foreign policy initiatives. The meekness of elected Senators and Representatives betrays cowardice—fear of retribution from the President and/or their most rapid party constituents. It’s not a time for that.

Zoroastrianism, a religion more than 2,500 years old, took root in ancient Persia (now Iran). It has only one or two hundred thousand adherents worldwide today, mostly in India but with some also in Iran and North America. Its recognized defining hallmark belief is that there’s an ongoing battle between good and evil in the world.

Zoroastrians today have reason to identify with their theology. For them It must be hard to spot the good guys in the Iran War. It’s pretty tough for some of the rest of us too.