The “War” on Iran and the Extraordinary, Overreaching Hubris of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu
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When Ancient Greek thinkers first began analyzing and categorizing the world around them, the role human beings play in it, and the workings of the human body and the human mind, one enduring concept they came up with was hubris, conceived as a dangerous revolt against the natural order, whereby those who became so caught up in their own sense of self-importance — via “extreme or excessive pride or dangerous overconfidence and complacency, often in combination with arrogance” — would be punished by the gods.
Last October, in a post on Medium, Manfred Kets de Vries, a Dutch psychoanalyst, described how, for the Greeks, hubris “wasn’t just poor judgment. It was a serious moral failing, a kind of arrogant blindness that led people to overstep human boundaries. Those caught in the grip of hubris begin to believe that the world should conform to their view of it. They overestimate what they can do, ignore the consequences, and often reject criticism entirely. Even when things go wrong, they remain convinced they were right all along.”
As the world reels from the decision by the United States and the State of Israel to launch an illegal and unprovoked “war” on Iran on Saturday, everything about the attacks screams ”hubris” at the highest amplification imaginable.
Trump Isolated as His Illegal and Unprovoked “War” on Iran Backfires
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On day three of Donald Trump’s cataclysmically stupid decision to indulge Benjamin Netanyahu in his malignant 40-year dream of destroying Iran, it’s starting to look as though it will backfire on him spectacularly.
Today, it’s been reported that Pentagon officials told Congressional staff yesterday that “Iran was not planning to strike US forces or bases in the Middle East unless Israel attacked Iran first”, undercutting Trump’s fatuous claims, as “Operation Epic Fury” was launched, that the US’s attacks on Iran, in conjunction with Israel, were aimed at “eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.”
It was already screamingly apparent that Trump’s claims of legitimacy were tenuous, because he had, typically, refused to seek approval from Congress, even though only Congress can approve US military action, and had also failed to seek approval from the UN Security Council.
The Hubris of Dead Men Walking, as Trump and Netanyahu Launch Deranged and Grotesquely Illegal Attacks on Iran
Please click on either of the ‘Donate’ or ‘Buy’ buttons below (via PayPal or Stripe) to make a donation towards the $2,500 (£2,000) I’m trying to raise to support my work as a reader-funded investigative journalist, commentator and activist over the next three months. To get links to all my work in your inbox, please also consider taking out a free or paid subscription to my new Substack newsletter.
Beware the sick old men with hate in their hearts. As their earthly virility fades, they may well decide to take the whole world down with them.
As Israel and the US this morning launched massive and entirely unprovoked attacks on Iran, which has already led to retaliation against both the aggressors, and which may well destabilize the whole of the Middle East, both Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump — sick, old and full of perpetual rage against the dying of the light — may well have decided that, as their power fades, they will take vengeance on life itself.
23 years ago, it took many long months for George W. Bush and Tony Blair to manufacture a false case for the illegal invasion of Iraq. Dodgy dossiers were compiled, and Congress and the UN Security Council had to be convinced to approve an illegal war on the fictional basis that Iraq posed an existential threat to the west.
in the new world order of Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, however, none of these complicated webs of lies and deception are even needed anymore.
Who's still at Guantánamo?
