As was apparent from the post I made here yesterday about seeing a bittern at the WWT Welney bird reserve, near where I live, I did take time off during the bank holiday. In fact, I continue to do so during the rest of the day, but as my wife often complains, even when I appear to be taking time off and relaxing, she is aware that what she calls my “second brain” continues to function, and that my thinking process continues to go on. She has got used to it; I live with it and know no other way of living. What I reflected on yesterday, whilst taking time out, was just what is going on in the war in the Middle East.
It would be easy to argue that Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu started this war to distract attention from the domestic problems that both have, including the prospect that both could be prosecuted for actions they have taken while they have been in office, and that both desperately need a victory to reduce the prospect of such prosecutions taking place. That would be easy, and might appear to be a justification for these hostilities in the first instance, but it now looks seriously displaced. Doing such a thing might have provided Netanyahu with a fig leaf in Gaza, but although many of the methods and the toll in civilian terms of casualties appear similar in the case of the war in Iran, the willingness to inflict human suffering by both countries appears to have reached new, intolerable limits, and new war crimes appear to happen by the day. Such a simplistic explanation, then, no longer seems to work.
What is more, given that no one, including US government defence experts, thinks there was a self-defence justification for starting this war, looking to that explanation also makes no sense.
In addition, trying to make any sense of what Trump has said is, in general, a fruitless task. The kindest possible thing to say about Donald Trump is that he is utterly incoherent and totally inconsistent in the announcements that he makes, whilst Netanyahu simply falls back on Zionist claptrap to justify his actions in Gaza, in Lebanon, and in Iran.
To discern a pattern in this is a task that many future authors and students of international politics and military history will take on in innumerable publications and PhD theses, and I do not envy them when they do so. Making sense of the incomprehensible is hard. However, let me seek to do just that by offering a simple, yet I think comprehensive, explanation of what is happening in the Middle East.
On 1 April, Trump gave a 19-minute speech that created widespread bewilderment. It was broadcast on prime-time television because it was deemed so significant and because it was suggested that it might provide an explanation for the war and for what might happen next in that conflict. Trump's claim was, in the first instance, that:
We are on track to complete all of America's military objectives shortly, very shortly.
He then continued, saying:
We're going to hit them extremely hard over the next 2 to 3 weeks. We're going to bring them back to the Stone Age, where they belong.
The first statement was typically Trump. No one had the slightest clue as to what it meant. Contrast that with the second claim he made. A threat was issued, and a consequence explained, with an underpinning sentiment that sought, by implication, to justify the action. That sentiment was clear: Trump suggested that the people of Iran belong in the Stone Age.
When this war began, one of the many excuses Trump used for the aggression was that he was seeking to enable the people of Iran to overthrow their theocratic government. Those wanting to sympathise with Trump's position might have, in that claim, identified that regime change, to supposedly deliver a new and more sympathetic form of government in Iran, was the implicit goal of what he was doing. If it were, the random attacks on civilians, and many other comments he has made since, have shattered that myth. Instead, what we can now see is that what underpins this war is something best described as hatred.
Trump, and no doubt Netanyahu, appear to think that most people in the Middle East, and it would appear Muslims by definition, are lesser beings, and he has now summarised that sentiment in his claim that they belong in the Stone Age.
We are not, then, seeing a war that has rational and militarily justified aims. What we are seeing is fascism unleashed. Fascists always seek to identify an “other” group whom they might vilify, and use as the focus of their hate to distract a population whilst they accumulate gains for themselves, something which it appears that the Trump regime has been assiduous in doing throughout the period of this conflict. I think we can now presume that this is exactly what is going on here.
What we are seeing is a deeply toxic, hate-driven, cynical, and ultimately fascist war being perpetrated by Israel and the USA against people whom they have decided to categorise as subhuman, to make them the “other” or enemy whom they vilify, so that the leaders of those countries, and their entourages, can support their own positions, politically and economically. The casualties incurred, directly and indirectly, around the world, and there may ultimately be millions of them, are a matter of indifference to them. These people have so debased their own humanity, and have themselves, and through the media they control, so debased the understanding of the humanity of others, that they can no longer see those they call their enemies as human.
It is on that basis that Trump can suggest that the people of Iran belong in the Stone Age. He quite literally sees them as “other”. In all this, the media's role is crucial. By taking, amplifying, and persistently repeating such messages in any way they can, they create the environment in which this toxic message is received, believed, and understood.
We can see this happening in the UK just as readily as it is in the USA. Look at the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail, GB News, and other similar outlets. If they ever existed to disseminate news, their purpose now is to spread misinformation to promote the politics of hate. The unfortunate fact is that they are good at this. The evidence is all around us: between 25% and 30% of the UK population have bought into this idea that there are people who have the goal of undermining consensual society as we might have known it, or at least desire it, when in fact the people in question have no greater goal than that which most of us share, which is to live in harmony, to coexist with our neighbours, and to survive with sufficient material well-being to be free from fear.
These people are not our enemies; they are our neighbours, but a fascist media, as intent on exploiting fear as are political leaders like Trump, Netanyahu, Farage, and even Badenoch, share in the culpability for the corruption of our society that is being created as a consequence.
This war, then, is nothing more than an extension of this programme of vilification designed to divide and ultimately destroy, because once it has eliminated one enemy, you can be sure that it will create another to perpetuate the control of those who seek to maintain their grip on power, as both Trump and Netanyahu do.
What should we, then, be doing now? We should be calling out this war for what it is. As has been apparent from the start, it is not defensive, nor is it strategic in the way that term has conventionally been used in both military and political narratives. It is instead opportunistic and fascist. There is no more to it than that. If there is such a thing as evil, and I think there is, then this war is a representation of it, and that is precisely why it is so dangerous.
Some governments have had the wisdom to recognise that fact. Ours has not. We will ultimately pay a heavy price in the form of a penance for that error of judgment on the part of Keir Starmer. It is, as a result, beholden on others to do what he has not done, and that is to condemn the USA and its actions in this war. Nothing less will do when the only possible explanation for this war is hatred, fascist intent, and the pursuit of personal gain by a few at the cost of most of the world's population.
And, if we do understand that, we need to reconsider the whole structure of our society, after the USA, which we emulate, has stooped to this depth of depravity.
My final thought is this: when will that reconsideration begin?
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[…] could it be that they wanted a more compliant general in place before they issued the order to reduce Iran to the Stone Age, which Trump has announced to be his […]
What will be interesting is what will happen in less than a month, if or more likely when, fuel shortages occur. Will the British public tolerate a situation where they are having their daily lives severely restricted and holidays cancelled only to discover that a huge amount of our aviation fuel is still being hoovered up by that massive flying gas station in Suffolk. Bombing a country into the stone age will be tricky without those tankers.
It offends me enormously that some of those US planes fly over my home.
“It offends me enormously that some of those US planes fly over my home.”
Heard it all now..remember they saved us all from the Nazi’s
Stop being a total idiot
They are the fascists now
You can’t spot that? Are you a fascist?
Me too! I live near Fairford and see both B52 and B1 bombers leave most days. With them flying directly over my small town of Royal Wootton Bassett. We welcomed back fallen British servicemen for quite some time with humble respect long before the media heard of it. And now this war seems so detached from any humanity.
This war is evil. Our government should say so – and refuse all military support including US and Israel access to airspace – and especially airports in the UK, Cyprus and anywhere else. Financial support for Israel is now certainly wrong.
Totally agree that we need to set ourselves apart from the United States for a start. I love their guitars and amplifiers for example but never thought much of their economics and politics. It’s a country full of bright, clever, decent people who never seem to get a look in any more. Therefore it is a failed state we should not emulate.
Britain – despite the gullible Guardian telling us that Starmer is being told that the relationship with the U.S. has reached a new low and will not recover – HAS helped the U.S. and Israel in this illegal and unnecessary war. Our prime minister – who still lives in a world that is long gone – has put us and our loved ones at risk because of that. Starmer has put the U.S. first.
Remember this moment because its not Starmer’s relationship with Trump that is ‘at risk’ – its Starmer’s relationship with the British voter and his reprehensible behaviour that may well help to bring in an unholy alliance of the far right into power. Starmer is ‘Blair II’ as far as I am concerned. No lessons have been applied – except how to manipulate perceptions which New Labour excelled at. Cynical beyond belief.
Simon Tisdall, in The Guardian today, agrees with you As Team Trump wage unceasing war on Iran, evangelical nationalists are destroying any moral world order we once had | Simon Tisdall | The Guardian
Thanks
Might we be seeing, and will be suffering from, a war which is based on contemporary attitudes that dehumanises people by treating them as inherently lesser and/or lessening/removing their fellow-human status and the accelerated conclusion of a long term econo-military policy of the U. S. A to keep/gain world dominance by controlling the distribution of oil and retaining/gaining much of its financial power??
https://www.google.com/search?q=to+what+extent+is+the+attack+of+the+usa+on+iran+based+upon+untermensch+attitudes%3F&oq=to+what+extent+is+the+attack+of+the+usa+on+iran+based+upon+untermensch+attitudes%3F&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCjY5MzY3ajBqMTWoAgiwAgHxBZ7rpVnXuo21&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
https://www.google.com/search?q=michael+hudson%27s+views+on+usa+reasons+for+attacking+iran&oq=michael+hudson%27s+views+on+usa+reasons+for+attacking+iran&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIJCAEQIRgKGKABMgcIAhAhGI8CMgcIAxAhGI8C0gEKNDQ1MzNqMGoxNagCCLACAfEFrgLzPtZN_kE&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
P. S. Might it lessen the appeal of Mr. Farage etc. if the mainstream media were to make it clear that some 30% of U.K dentists were qualified overseas?
https://www.google.com/search?q=proportion+of+uk+dentists+were+qualified+overseas&oq=proportion+of+uk+dentists+were+qualified+overseas&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRifBdIBCjUyMzUwajBqMTWoAgiwAgHxBRUI4xeugQ9y8QUVCOMXroEPcg&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
I have not given much thought to the concept of evil except in the last twelve months. I agree. There is such a thing.
All you say is correct. Remember though that the US is energy independent by starting this war the US have effectively crippled UK/EU industry ; it’s called bombing upstream. Trump/MAGA perhaps calculate that industry will relocate to the US where they will not only have all the energy they need and workers who , mostly , are on vastly inferior terms than their EU/UK counterparts . Three things seem obvious: it might work , strategic planners in EU/UK may further accelerate the drive to hydrocarbon free energy expenditure whilst at the same time reversing any moratorium on fracking and the extraction of hydrocarbons generally.
Agree wholeheartedly with your comments Richard and those comments of others here, the current conflict against Iran is nothing more than a fascistic foray to undermine the Middle East’s grip on crude oil extraction/refining and to bolster Netanyahus push for the toxic Zionists wet dream of a “Greater Israel”.
And the usual UK right wing biased media apologists together with the BBC continue their toxic framing of this war as being in the interests of our decaying Western neoliberal economic and political culture.
There was a recent really good take-down of Starmers and by extension the UK position on the conflict on the Naked Capitalism website categorising it quite aptly as his Schrödinger’s War here for those interested:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/04/keir-starmers-schrodingers-war.html
As PSR has noted, Starmer is just Blair 2.0
Not so sure its down to an ‘error of judgement’ by Keir Starmer. Recent reading has made me realise that the options Starmer has presented to him by the system will be entirely constrained inside the spiders web of the US and Israel ‘military-intelligence complex’.<p>
Starmer seems to have got away with ‘this is not our war’ , pretending he has denied ‘offensive’ use of ‘British’ RAF/US airbases, while planes based in Lakenheath are being shot down in Iran and 2000lb bombs are flown from Fairford to flatten vaccine factories and schools in Tehran. Media are not really questioning this self contradictory stance.<p>
Richard, you say we ‘ should reconsider the whole structure of our society ‘ – but the deep structure – the diplomatic, military, intelligence and swathes of the economy and media are embedded in and maybe controlled by US/Israeli / CIA/Mossad who will impose whatever narrative will most persuade us not to ‘reconsider’.<p>
The first step in a ‘reconsideration’ would be for us to begin to understand how far from a real democracy we actually are – and where the power structures are.
Much to agree with
A great piece Richard. I cannot tell you how often I have been saying the same thing – and for how long – in my debates with my politically-inclined pals. The proximate goal of Israel – Israel is running the show and pulling the strings – is the establishment of another broken country in its neighbourhood, but the longer term-goal is absolute domination over the entire region of the ME. That goal is based precisely on what you say – the view of certain other human beings as non-human.
I have just finished Jonathan Littell’s novel The Kindly Ones, in which the central, narrating character is an SS officer living the atrocities of the Eastern Front and then the closing battle for Berlin during WW2. The parallels between the Nazi view of the Jew expressed in the novel and contemporary Israeli views of the Arab are chilling and exact. The Israeli project mirrors the Nazi project in so many ways – Anschluss, Lebensraum, Untermenschen. That we are going along with it is a measure of how far we have fallen since the sacrifices we made during WW2 and the human decency of the post-war social policies we established from 1945 to the 1970s. After nearly 50 years of craven submission to an increasingly fascist-adjacent USA it no longer matters if it’s Starmer or some other hack of an empty suit in Downing St (who would behave in exactly the same way); these days, I read the news and am ashamed to be British.
Thanks.
I agree with everything you say about the psychopathic pair, Trump and Netanyahu. The reconsideration you would like to see cannot take place until the majority in our societies recognise what is actually going on. The public are not helped by our gov and the media to recognise the evil in plain sight, instead being sycophantic, frozen with the fear of upsetting a megalomaniac who doesn’t give a toss about them.
In the UK, only the Greens, Libdems, and SNP have been openly critical of Trump and Netanyahu. In the media, the Mail, Express, and Telegraph are openly supportive of fascism, the Mail in particular having a long history of it.
The positive in all this is the British public, who have cultural memories of the evils of fascism and are very likely to oppose politicians who express any support for it.
But, as you say, they have to recognise it when they see it.
The ‘rationale’is US primacy, wrecking the global economy, starting with the ME (the US has the oil it needs).
The ‘plan’ is the US to ruin it for everyone, and whilst it will make it difficult for the US too, they believe they will still emerge stronger than the remainders.
And the vassal ‘western states’ are just going along with it.
It then makes sense to me looking through that lens.
The victory of Citizens United in 2010 combined with the entrenched two party system in the USA have played a significant rôle in bringing us to this calamity. Unimaginable greed seems to be accepted, and it would seem that hatred too – with Trump “glad” that public servants and veterans are dead. Perhaps they are sides of the same coin. A system that wants trillions to be spent on destruction, colonisation & deportation paid for by cuts in medicine, care, education and daily human needs. Aided and abetted by AI and embodied in robots, this is a fascism that could kill us all.
Iranian response to USA’s threat to bomb them back to the Stone Age.
“In response to Pete Hogsbreaths tweet saying he’d bomb Iran back to the Stone Age, their SA embassy just replied:
“Stone Age?
At a time when you were still in caves searching for fire, we were inscribing human rights on the Cyrus Cylinder.
We endured the storm of Alexander and the Mongol invasions and remained; because Iran is not just a country, it is a civilization.”
Well said, I’d say.
Starmer is a fascist but I think that most Labour voters don’t recognise that fact, They may well be disillusioned with his policies but do not recognise the threat of fascism or what it really means. In Wales we can avoid the taint of Starmarism i.e. fascism by voting Plaid Cymru in order to defeat Reform. The worry is what will happen in England with more limited options to vote in order to defeat the fascist party which calls itself Reform. The worry is that this myth of the so called Special Relationship which I think is so damaging to the Uk in that is provides little benefit apart from giving the delusion that the UK really matters to the US. and has some influence. The influence that the UK has with the US is a delusion. Most people don’t recognise fascism or the fascism that exists in the ‘mainstream’ partisan the UK . What is happening now is very reminiscent of the thirties and the rise of fascism in Europe which led to the Spanish Civil War a precursor to World War 11..
An article in the i Paper today by the former chief of staff of homeland security in the previous Trump administration says the president revealed revulsion for and a desire to harm migrants from South America, which was held in check to a fair degree by advisors. He observed that the war crimes Trump is claiming he will carry out against civilians in Iran are consistent with Trump’s views, but that there are less restraining influences around him now. It looks as if he has people egging him on, for various reasons including extreme religion, hatred and greed.
Division, destruction, who is next… your’e right, we need to look at what our country is doing, at who we are. Our government is giving succour to two governments perpetrating evil; it has to stop. It is hard to imagine building a more benign and peaceful future, where the Geneva Convention is just part of the rule-book, while this terrible war goes on. But we have to bend our minds to it, as you are doing. The current rulebook is being torched; it is imperfect, but no rule-book is disaster. People and principles need defending, and Westminster is standing blindly and mutely by the open stable doors.
A war justification of freeing the Iranian people via destabilizing Iran’s internal security, replacing a potential threat on US allies and the global economy with a potentially democratic government (Even if the majority of the protest massacres happened before the strikes) would at least make some sense. But it’s all on the framing of “America First”, an ignorance of the global hegemony America has on the world and obligations it should fulfill. Even with the precision bombings, Hegseth’s saying there would be “no stupid rules of engagement,” “no politically correct wars,” and “no nation-building quagmire.” (The last one means no plans of long term stabilization…ya, this is going to suck) shows just how illogical the Defense Secretary ‘s opinion on war is, not a continuation of policy but as a spectacle of power divorced from strategy.
The war should not be supported at all, it’s one with no long-term plans, no defined political end state, no post-conflict stabilization plan, no credible coalition backing.
War, if it is to be justified at all, requires clarity of purpose, legitimacy, and a plan for the peace that follows. This isn’t one. This is, as you’ve said, a war of hate, and of spectacle.
I agree with the analysis of dehumanisation. Much of this seems to be racism – hatred of people from different countries (xenophobia) or islamophobia or anti semitism ( in the case of killing Palestinians, a semitic people). Wars in the Middle East waged by the US et al are not new nor these racist ideas making it easier to justify killing people from certain groups and destroying en mass. I think more analysis of racism is useful especially as it can change its form in different situations e.g. from S Africa’s apartheid regime to to Israel’s apartheid regime to various genocides and its currrent misinformation challenged. We are dealing with facism and racism and they work together.