Enough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of power! Enough of war! Let paths of dialogue be reopened!
Pope Leo XIV, on Trump and his War on Iran
A reproach can only hurt if it hits the mark. Whoever knows that he does not deserve a reproach can treat it with contempt.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Trump is still attacking Pope Leo XIV for daring to disagree with his policy of conducting an unnecessary war.
Trump seems not to realize that his war on Iran has achieved nothing. After spending around $29 billion on a number of quick bombings and the declaration an immediate cease fire, Trump agreed to use an Iranian 10-point peace plan as a “workable basis” for talks. The plan gave so much to Iran that Trump started insisting that the actual plan serving as the basis for talks was not the one being publicly discussed by Iranian officials.
Regardless, a 10-point plan from Iran clearly served as the initial “workable basis” for peace talks between the U.S. and Iran. It was certainly a more comprehensive, long-term peace deal than what Iran offered in February, and – whatever its incarnation – it appeared to offer more to Iran than the proposal the country submitted to Trump in January.
All of which shows Trump’s entire military misadventure to be a useless enterprise. And the pope knows it.
It’s clear that the Trump’s misadventure has created economic chaos, and has also destabilized nations throughout the Persian Gulf.
He has uselessly placed the lives of U.S. troops, its citizens and a large number of Iranian citizens in potential jeopardy. Want an example? Trump’s bombing of nuclear facilities thought to possess Highly-Enriched Uranium (HEU) could well have released dangerous radiation around the bombed sites, greatly harming anyone in the nearby area and making retrieval a hazardous enterprise.
And to top it off? Recent reports suggest that much of the HEU may have been moved by Iran to unknown, decentralized locations – making Trump’s bombings of the sites a dangerous waste of money and time, and perhaps making the Iranian bargaining power stronger with the HEU now kept at hidden sites.
Trump was pressed on why he bombed Iran when it was promising to provide international nuclear inspectors a full access to all sites, and promised to reduce all HEU to a low-enriched equivalent unsuitable for weapons use. Trump claimed the country refused two further, potentially illegal demands:
1.) That Iran give up all attempts to influence other nations in the Middle East region (essentially demanding that Iran cease all diplomacy and interaction with all other nations in its own region of the world), and that
2.) It completely ceases all uranium enrichment, even though International law declares they have a right to pursue peaceful nuclear programs as they wish, provided they follow the conditions set by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and give a full access to weapons inspectors.
“Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty,” declares Article IV of the NPT.
In short, Article I prohibits any member state from sending an atomic bomb to a state that does not have one, or of trying to convince that bomb-free state to obtain one. Article II prohibits those of a member state from actively receiving help on the creation of such a bomb, or assuming ownership of an atom bomb.
The Spark provides a deeper look into this matter, in a previous article.
There’s only one claim in this potentially illegal couple of demands that – at first glance – might seem to make sense. It’s buried within the otherwise bizarre demand to stop all meaningful local interaction with other Middle East nations. Trump wants Iran to end its support of all groups he decides are improperly “militant.”
The clear problem is that one man’s “militant” may be another person’s “freedom fighter.” It’s a value-laden definition, coming from someone who has a clear problem with values.
Remember how this man gave out presidential pardons and commutations of sentences for those involved in the highly illegal political violence and insurrection of January 6th, 2021, as if he was giving out candy? But then called a murdered U.S. citizen – Renee Nicole Good of Minneapolis, MN – a “terrorist” for simply watching and noting the actions of ICE agents in her city? She was turning away from an agent at the moment of her assassination.
Now, when a self-proclaimed ‘great negotiator’ was already offered all he had a right to demand from another nation, but declines the offer for reasons that only make sense to him, and then begins a war on that nation citing a series of ever-shifting, contradictory reasons, he may not be a great negotiator after all.
But if he then immediately calls for a ceasefire and proclaims that he’s already achieved ‘70% of his military goals’ even though he’s utterly failed his primary goals of ending Iran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities or of securing its highly-enriched uranium, which is now God knows where because it was all moved to secret locations before he started bombing – it’s clear he doesn’t know what he’s doing.
That’s why Trump can’t stand Pope Leo. The pope is Trump’s greatest fear – a highly intelligent, well-informed, moral person who’s been paying attention. He treated Greta Thunberg the same way, for the same reason. He hates anyone he can’t lie to or control – and he especially despises those who can easily point out, with facts and with clear language and common sense, precisely why Trump the fraud, is a fraud.
Trump once again proves that, if critiques are arrows, the only arrows that wound are the ones that hit the mark.
