One of the many enduring paradoxes of American democracy is that a businessman-president—soon to return to his real estate empire and million-dollar book deals—can very much bend the world to serve the interests of another state. And not just in defiance of most of his own people’s will, but in betrayal of the no-more-wars promise he made to them.

All because that other state has mastered the art of controlling the purse strings that keep the most powerful people in the most powerful country firmly in office and nicely in line.

So it’s no surprise that Donald Trump has now issued his UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER ultimatum—an effort to bring to life what Israeli journalist Gideon Levy bluntly, and rightly, called Netanyahu’s wet dream. The phrase, crude as it is, couldn’t be more apt. It captures the disturbing reality that war with Iran isn’t some regrettable last resort—it’s a fantasy long incubated in Tel Aviv and eagerly underwritten in Washington.

And now that fantasy is being realised in real time, with all the grotesque theatre that comes with it. Israel pounds Tehran with airstrikes. Iran retaliates. American bombers reposition. Oil spikes.

Traders flinch. Civilians flee. The choreography is familiar because the instinct behind it is rehearsed—manufacture escalation, provoke the........

© Business Recorder