“IRAN militarily is effectively over,” the US president declared on Monday following talks with the Qatari prime minister. “We’re just keeping it the status quo … at the behest” of Iran’s neighbours. The Gulf states include some of Donald Trump’s biggest benefactors, and they have borne the brunt of Iranian military retaliation. Trump has also acknowledged that the domestic unpopularity of the US-Israeli war on Iran contributed to the comprehensive thrashing his Republican Party received in last week’s midterm elections, yet insisted he had no regrets because the goal of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon remained paramount. That’s an absurd premise in a variety of ways; besides, Iran is unlikely to consider the conflict over as long as it is militarily menaced by a superpower or its regional proxies.

What’s notable, though, is that unlike most US aggressions against faraway nations, the majority opinion opposed the assault on Iran from the outset. The co-belligerent’s bloodlust presumably put the kibosh on jingoistic impulses. In a CBS interview on Sunday, Trump admitted that one reason for the midterm drubbing was that “there’s a great dislike, incredibly, for Israel”. There’s nothing ‘incredible’........

© Dawn