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It is not clear if US president Donald Trump intended to lie and knowingly depart from the truth in his formal primetime address to the nation last Wednesday (April 1) in America – his first in over a month since he launched a military assault on Iran in dubious Israel’s company.

All the same, in an effort to catalogue his adversary Iran’s supposed crimes unto the US, the president has been glaringly unfaithful to known and acknowledged facts. The foremost among these is the sinking of the US guided-missile destroyer the USS Cole. This was attributed to Iran by the president. However, an investigation by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) concluded at the time that it was al-Qaeda, with which Iran’s Shia theocracy has in fact always been at odds, that hit the US warship anchored in Aden (Yemen) for refuelling in October 2000.

The president’s 20-minute address also dwelt on the question of why the US was attacking Iran in the first place when it was not a question of oil since he boasted that his country had greater oil and gas reserves than Russia and Saudi Arabia taken together – and if recently captured Venezuela was thrown into the equation then the US is veritably the Croesus of hydrocarbons.

For its ridiculousness, Trump’s answer to the question he poses is for the ages. He said he decided to launch a military assault on Iran for the sake of his “friends”, suggesting that this was entirely altruistic in nature – not for US’s sake.

In this connection he mentioned Israel and the Gulf Arab monarchies, naming each of them, in order to assure them that America’s protective umbrella was always available. Such reassurance, doubtful or not, is certainly overdue after Trump’s rank failure to give them any protection at all against Iranian missile and drone attacks as these countries host American military bases.

More to the point – the American military has been posted in West Asia almost throughout since the end of the Second World War. In the 1940s, naval presence was commenced in Bahrain in the 1940s. However, significant troop deployment began in 1958 under the Eisenhower doctrine which extended military and economic assistance to any country in West Asia (the Middle East of western nomenclature) that resisted Soviet overtures. It was the Cold War era.

Such a manoeuvre also sought to fill the power vacuum left after the Suez crisis in 1956 with a view to thwarting any Soviet moves. The US 5th fleet has in fact also been headquartered in Bahrain since 1995. This was long after the end of the Cold War. According to the US Council on Foreign Relations, there are 19 permanent and temporary US military bases in West Asia with some 40-50 thousand troops available.

What Trump coyly referred to as “friends” in his address to the US public – namely Israel and the Gulf monarchies – have been central to the US regional strategy in West Asia as an imperialist power, ie. a state that seeks to exert overarching power and hegemony worldwide, with no permissions asked.

Ironically, in his Wednesday speech Trump asserted that he would ensure that Tehran must not aspire to radiate power beyond its borders. In contrast, Israel, America’s principal agent in West Asia, does so routinely as it went about militarily subduing Palestinians in West Bank, Gaza, Jordan and Lebanon, besides attacking Iran and Yemen to punish the for opposing Israel.

In fact, it is evident that the state of Israel was planted in the region to keep an eye on US’s strategic and political interests in a heavy oil-bearing region. Yet, mendaciously Trump sought to invoke October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel as a key justification for limiting Iran’s capabilities. In fact, it is the historical Palestine question, besides the petroleum owned by the Gulf Arabs, which has been at the heart of US’ imperial strategy in West Asia.

This question has been live practically since the founding of Israel in 1949 simply by renaming the old territory of Palestine, and establishing a Jewish Zionist state there comprising Jews brought from Europe through the aegis of Britain and the United States.

In the post-Soviet era, after dealing body blows to Moscow’s former friends Libya, Iraq and Syria, and introducing al-Qaeda factions in those countries, the US attention has turned exclusively to punishing Iran which, unlike the Gulf Arab monarchies, has been a sharp antagonist of Israel and a protagonist of Palestinian sovereignty and human rights.

These are the issues from history that have led to the US having a permanent military presence in West Asia – and not a sudden rush of altruism to help “friends” against Iran. Or seen realistically, that’s an absolutely truthful reason Trump proffers since USA’s “friends” are the regional pillars of its imperialist or neo-colonial policy. Alas, for the first time in its history, under prime minister Narendra Modi, India has taken America’s regional lackeys to her bosom and herself become a servitor.

Given the fantasies and factual inexactitude that mark Trump’s national address, the questions will arise who prepared the speech. It is unlikely to have been a State Department job, particularly on the question of USS Cole. The effort has been so shoddy, and so shorn of any real meaning, it fits perfectly with Trump’s inconsistencies and lack of direction.

The wider region which includes India, and the world, need to be prepared for any contingency, considering the whole American enterprise seems to have been overtaken by a dangerous megalomaniac who seems beyond untrustworthy.

Anand K. Sahay is a veteran journalist.

© The Wire