In our current state of affairs, I cannot help but note that the knee-jerk reaction to our first Black president was the election of Donald Trump. When we elected Joe Biden in 2020, Trump had a fit and denied that he lost the election. After he incited a large number of his supporters to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump was elected again in 2024 after a campaign based on retribution and revenge.
If we truly value the freedoms of our democracy, we would be wise to remember that we are in the land of the free, because of the brave.
Today, we have witnessed the reckless decision to start an ill-advised, unprovoked and illegal war with Iran by President Trump — without congressional approval. The Iranians considered his “bone spur” evasion of military service and his “taco tactics” with his tariff policies and they doubted his ability to carry out a successful war. They withstood the aerial bombardment Trump orchestrated and, in doing so, they negotiated a “memorandum of understanding” in which they got:
Sanctions relief to sell oil, $300 billion in reparations, and license to charge fees for passage through the Strait of Hormuz by the new, younger and more hardline regime, backed by a more aggressive IRGC.
The United States only got the reaffirmation of no plans for Iran to develop nuclear weapons (nothing new). And we have no idea about the location of half a ton of 60% weapons grade material they had before the war.
In 2018, when Trump tore up the JCPOA, it was a rebuke of the Obama plan, which ensured Iran’s compliance with the nuclear restrictions by U.N. inspectors. Obama’s plan was negotiated without dropping a single bomb and the Strait of Hormuz was never closed.
To this day, Trump calls Obama, stupid. Trump’s vow for no new wars in the Middle East has turned out to be the least terrible of all bad options and it cost billions of dollars and the loss of many lives. And it isn’t over yet.
Don Hiddleson, Salt Lake City