Today, The World Careens Into An Era Where Nuclear Nations Are Destined To Die

I Was Wrong - At Best, Trump Is Worse Than Useless

Early in 2025, I hoped I might abandon this blog.

The US had imposed a ceasefire in Gaza, President Trump had bawled out President Zelensky in the White House and - incredibly - proposed we all halve military spending.

In the run-up to Spring, there was a sliver of optimism.

This summer, though, “The Worst Years Ever” remains the best-named politics site on Substack.

It’s true that Trump may have been bounced into boasting over Israel’s Friday the 13th strikes on Iran because he doesn’t want to admit that Prime Minister Netanyahu drives events.

“We knew everything,” Trump told Reuters. In constrast, he said on Truth Social, Iranian leaders “didn’t know what was about to happen… they are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse!”

It is likely that Trump wanted US-Iran negotiations to go ahead today - hence him saying after the strikes that they were still on - but he was powerless to stop his Israeli counterpart from lighting the touchpaper.

Trump says he wants Israel to stop bombing - but I think it’s far too little, far too late. At least some US logistics were surely needed to facilitate Israel’s attack, which entailed the use of 200 jets, but it could well be that Trump himself was sidelined.

Either way, Trump has utterly failed as the much-touted “Peace President” and, in his attempt to save face this weekend, he has done more damage - no one will engage in diplomacy with the US anymore because, at best, it seems to celebrate its deceit and helps its side to murder the other’s negotiators.

Netanyahu has promised to hit “every target of the Ayatollah”. Most analysts thought Israel’s October 2023 assault on Gaza would last a few weeks, but it has persisted two years. With Netanyahu smelling blood after Gaza, Operation Grim Beeper, and the toppling of Syria’s Assad, the Israel-Iran war will also be protracted.

In response, Iran will surely now decide to build a nuclear weapon. They might even try to use it. Either way, I’d bet one or both belligerents will wind up eradicated, just like Gaza.

Tucker Carlson, long-scorned as a dog-whistling right-wing block-head, puts it perfectly:-

“The real divide isn’t between people who support Israel and people who support Iran or the Palestinians. The real divide is between those who casually encourage violence, and those who seek to prevent it — between warmongers and peacemakers. Who are the warmongers? … Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Rupert Murdoch, Ike Perlmutter and Miriam Adelson. At some point they will all have to answer for this.”

Maybe Tucker has mellowed in middle-age. Maybe he was always just smeared by liberal lunatics. Maybe a bit of both.

Meanwhile, the situation in both Gaza and Ukraine continues to worsen.

The retired diplomat Chas Freeman recently commented in his somber drawl:- “Some of us find it difficult to sleep at night knowing that our governments are involved in basically constructing ‘Auschwitz on the Mediterranean’… but Israel manages the showers where the gas comes out. And, by the way, have a slice of pizza on your way in”, alluding to the US President’s delusional vision for Gaza as a holiday resort.

From the national security establishment, there is not even the wisp of understanding. NATO boss Mark Rutte last week warned to Britons that we all “better learn to speak Russian” unless we double military spending. I once bunked off French with Malcolm Brimmicombe but even I'd have learned a language if it'd saved us fifty billion quid. Not our Rutto. Yeh f*ck school, mate - you're an absolute ledge.

There were off-ramps in both wars, you know?

Iran would probably have reduced uranium enrichment - maybe even imported electricity - in exchange for sanctions relief. Or Trump could have simply supported calls for Netanyahu’s arrest - either for domestic or foreign crimes.

Earlier this year, Trump pulled intelligence support from Ukraine. Had he kept it that way, there wouldn’t have been an MI6/Zelensky strike on Russia’s nuclear infrastructure. That would’ve forced the conflict to a close.

Instead, Putin will now expand the war across the Dnipro River in an effort to bulldozer the government in Kiev.

Trump has proved himself a catastrophe just as he was the last hope. He clearly still wants that peace prize, but he has no plan, no people, and no persuasive power.

We have now entered an era where nuclear nations are destined to die.