Known known Donald Rumsfeld was US secretary of defense under two administrations. From 1975 to 1977 for Gerald Ford (remember him?); and for George Dubya from 2001 to 2006. One of his unknown knowns was his ability to construct giant shit sandwiches with a side serving of word salad. He thought his cocksure, cryptic speaking style proved cognitive depth to his tactics and decisions.
All it did was make him look like Mister Magoo with glasses and unnerving attitude. Think Pete Hegseth, scrubbed of tattoos, dialled down on the stupid, and aged; deviousness, deception and delusions intact.
Rumsfeld was essentially good at one thing: bureaucratic and political manipulation. He understood the system well, and knew how to get his own way. When he hadn’t gamed it well enough, he just stymied whatever was going on – like delaying military commissions for terror detainees for a whole five years.
The most consequential events in modern American history occurred during his last stint as the indefensible secretary of defense: the invasion of Afghanistan, and the “shock and awe” campaign on Iraq. Certainly, it wasn’t single-handedly. He was aided and abetted by baby Bush, and VP Dick Cheney – who followed his Cabinet colleague slinging off the mud of this mortal coil, four years after Rumsfeld finally found out what the unknown unknown actually is.
The Bush Jnr. administration was a messy time of mad and malevolent justification and the strangling of syntax and grammar.
9/11 and claims of weapons of mass destruction shored up reasons to attack Iraq. The UK, Australia, Poland and Denmark gave troop participation; another 30-plus nations provided support of one kind or another.
That WMDs were never found, leaves the true motivation wide open to controlling its vast oil reserves, and maintaining the US dollar as the global reserve currency.
The wanton destruction of the Middle East, the amorphous War on Terror and Rumsfeld’s Magooish mismanagement permanently changed our world for the worse, taking millions of lives then, and still now.
The US spent $US2 trillion over 20 years in its nation-building failure of Afghanistan. It gave Cheney the means for a vile legacy of war profiteering and torture advocacy; all Rums-swatted away with “stuff happens”.
“It’s untidy,” he said, “and freedom’s untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.” As fitting as it was a mea culpa, it was instead his response to the devastating looting of Baghdad as a result of his failure to secure the city, post-conflict.
It was an ugly time. Fed on fulminating fiction and propelled by ugly people with ill-intent. If you think that was bad, two decades later its echoes seem loudly trumpeted by another Donald.
Holding a higher position, equally unapologetic, unpredictable and self-aggrandising, the P.T. Barnum of the White House declared Iran an imminent threat to the United States. His respective war of choice is based on a nuclear weapon “just weeks away”, despite bragging that Operation Midnight Hammer in mid-2025 had “obliterated” three of its nuclear facilities, taking with it any warhead “capability or ambition”.
In building a case for military intervention from the playbook of political fearmongering, the strategy appears to be just say anything – no matter how unsubstantiated or inconsistent. In the first month of Trump starting these Iran strike threats, it was because Tehran was killing protestors. Then it changed. Pressing his press secretary for clarification, she offered up that, “There are many reasons and arguments that one could make for a strike against Iran.”
Just one will do. One legitimate, rational, verifiable one. Otherwise, pushing for unreasonable influence in the Middle East, manipulating oil prices and the stock market, and making a desperate political gamble for the midterm elections – and any combination thereof – seem decent contenders.
When it’s not clear that Trump actually has any plan at all, there’s no void; there’s conjecture.
Certainly, there was a decision to strike. There were Trump noises about having two or three people in mind to head the regime. However, there was no policy identifying these core unicorn people and working with them; he himself said that all leading candidates were killed in the initial strikes. There was the idea that Iranians would rise up and overthrow their government as the “USA” white-capped president encouraged them to do.
Nauseating symbolism and ignorance of history aside, Trump seems to believe that senior figures of the regime would take power and somehow make a deal with America. Much like Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez recently did. Following the removal of dictator Nicolás Maduro, Trump assured her that, “if she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price.”
That counts as gentle persuasion with Hegseth proudly stating, “We negotiate with bombs”, dontcha know.
Misguided assumptions, misjudgments and bad plans have plagued US war defeats since the Battle of Wabash in 1791. The Battle of Kasserine Pass; the Bay of Pigs Invasion; the Korean, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq wars have us quite accustomed to the failings of the US military. There is a history of hubris, poor intelligence, and enormous logistic and objective inadequacies – despite being considered the most powerful defence force in the world with an $895 billion budget, advanced technology and an unequalled network of global alliances.
Which is probably what lets it pick fights for little or no reason.
Like a toddler, Trump’s behaviour indicates that it’s not up to him to know about the world, it’s up to the world to know about him. The work that needs to go into planning outcomes, building coalitions, and understanding consequences are either beneath him, above him or cut into his Filet-O-Fish, Quarter Pounder and Big Mac time.
Whichever it is, he acts and the world reacts.
The issue at hand involves three countries with very different ideologies, influence and grand narratives: the US, Israel and Iran. To say it’s complicated understates the dynamic and severity of a situation that makes string theory seem positively basic.
The US was brought to a state of high paranoia about Soviet influence during the Cold War. Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh nationalised the country’s oil in 1951, effectively stripping the UK of the control it had over it. Churchill was incandescent, accused Mosaddegh of being an “elderly lunatic” and implemented strict embargoes.
When that failed, he convinced Eisenhower to join the CIA with MI6 and a coup d’état was effected in 1953.
Done to ensure Western access to Iranian oil, Shah Pahlavi was installed as absolute monarch.
His authoritarian regime was in full swing by 1975 and overthrown during the 1979 Islamic Revolution, spearheaded by the Ayatollah Khomeini. After 14 years in exile, he became Supreme Leader of the theocratic Islamic Republic.
In 1980, the same year Hegseth was born and Hussein’s Iraq invaded Iran, the violent takeover of the US Embassy was one of the first acts of the Iranian regime. Fifty-two Americans were held hostage for 444 days; released six months after the death of the Shah and the signing of the Algiers Accords. With the US backing Iraq, it lit the Iranian fire of intense resentment against the US that has continued to burn like the mutual hatred between Israel and Iran since the ousting of the Shah.
They used to be close, you know.
It was an horrendously dark, and difficult period for Iran.
Profoundly unstable, internationally isolated and on economic collapse, the country was on its knees when it began its ballistic missile program. Pivotal to its national identity is its modern history of foreign intervention, and upheaval.
And oil.
Global economies have been highly dependant on oil since the beginning of the 20th century. For transport, technology, energy, chemicals, household items and pretty much everything in between.
With the Second World War leaving more than a dozen countries near-total destruction, America emerged with sound economy and manufacturing. The world was reset. Forty-four allied countries attended the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference to devise a new global financial system. In order to prevent the economic aggression of the 1930s that largely contributed to the outbreak of the war, it was to be managed by an international body. Supranational currency was an option.
The Roosevelt administration was very anti-colonialist. With strong objection to the protectionist mechanism of imperial preference, it was determined to force the dismantling of the British Empire. It viewed Britain as much more of a rival than Russia or China.
So much so, the mole for Soviet intelligence was US Treasury official Harry Dexter White, who designed the system that enthroned the US dollar as the unrivalled international currency. Whether a supranational currency was the superior choice or not, it was a tremendous shift that absolutely required the co-operation of the United States – which it clearly was not going to get.
The negotiated decision was that the US dollar be exchangeable for gold at a fixed rate of $US35 an ounce, tying other currencies to it. Further agreements made over those crucial 22 days eventually lead the violent and rapid downfall of the British Empire, while Americans enjoyed enormous prosperity throughout the ’50s and ’60s.
The unwitting outcome of Bretton Woods was its unsustainable framework.
It did, however, provide two decades of stability that allowed much of the rebuilding of Western Europe. It established the International Money Fund (IMF), and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) – which evolved into the World Bank Group. Both remain, despite the monetary system behind Bretton Woods collapsing on a Sunday night in 1971, just before Bonanza.
In a shock address, President Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon announced a 90-day wage-price freeze – something that had never been done in peacetime. A 10% import tariff and decoupling the US economy from the gold standard, was an economic package that sent markets abroad into chaos.
While Little Joe Cartwright was showing his quick draw prowess, Nixon held a gun to the head of every country.
In an unforeseen and unilateral act, the world was instantly transitioned to fiat currency: government-issued money not backed by a physical commodity.
By the time of Nixon’s inauguration in 1969, the global economy was so immense, there were four times as many dollars in circulation as gold in reserves. Although many world transactions were already in US dollars, making the greenback the reserve currency remade the global monetary system. Economies were immediately disrupted, and remained so for more than a decade.
Then came the OAPEC oil crisis in 1973.
Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel during its holiest day, Yom Kippur, in an effort to regain territories captured by Israel six years before. For political leverage, the Arab oil producing nations refused to sell to Israeli supporters – which included the US. This fourth Arab-Israeli war lasted 19 days.
Non-Arab OPEC members also dramatically increased costs. Oil prices quadrupled. Western economies suffered crippling fuel shortages, enormous industrial disruption and economic turmoil was worldwide.
After five months of stagflation, along with fuel price hikes and rationing in a country used to paying under 40c a gallon for decades, the US negotiated an agreement with Saudi Arabia.
It guaranteed advanced arms sales, military aid, training and protection in return for oil being sold only in US dollars. This petrodollar currency created a de facto supranational system that secured stability in the region, and poured oil revenue back into America’s economy.
It’s a deal that stayed in place until 2024; which may or may not be a clue to Trump’s current highly aggressive action toward Iran. One minute it’s “winding down”; the next, given a 48-hour ultimatum as the worst president in American history swans around Mar-A-Lago under a carapace of pink cat hair.
Iran sniggered at his schoolboy tactics and the deadline was extended. Trump trumpeted that the two sides met “major points of agreement” in talks; a claim utterly denied by Iran’s foreign ministry.
Meanwhile, it escalates.
To paraphrase Lord Palmerston’s 1848 observation of geopolitics, there are no permanent allies, no eternal enemies, just perpetual interests.
Six months ago, Trump strong-armed Netanyahu into a ceasefire with Gaza involving a humiliating phone call to the Qataris to apologise. Complete with White House pictures for Trump bragging rights. Their transactional relationship is reminiscent of the mutual limerence with (heart-eyes!) avowed Special K agent, Elon Musk. We all know how that ended; and already reports are circulating of a rift between the two leaders.
Maybe they’re the Sid and Nancy of politics.
Indisputably, this is the worst disruption of global energy markets in history. If oil barrels exceed the current price of $US120 by just two standard President Degenerate Tramp’s Macca’s orders, the tipping point for a severe global recession is met.
This whole catastrophe is so much more than the interruption of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.
It’s about Doge eliminating State Department staff whose job was to assess the oil and gas industry and the effect of global upheaval, just days before the war crime invasion.
It’s about the unqualified, extreme MAGA loyalist and director of the FBI, Kash Patel firing twelve counterintelligence agents whose specialty was Iran, and who also happened to work on the classified Mar-a-Lago documents.
It’s about $US1.45 billion added to the personal wealth of a felon holding office in the first year of his second term; and the tsunami of investigations and lawsuits in propagation.
It’s about a cobbler cult of Lexington Florsheim shoes; amounting to free worldwide publicity for the brand, right when its parent company is suing the White House for a tariff refund of $16 million.
It’s about the autoimmune disorder that is the Trump administration: attacking all that makes the US function as a competent federal government in international relations, rule of law, immigration, human rights, public health, administrative procedure and any other portfolio you might want to mention.
It’s about lifting Russian oil sanctions with Russia making money from this war, while at the same time assisting Iran in targeting Americans; which it claims it will stop doing if the US quits giving intelligence to the Ukraine.
It’s about US attacks on eight countries in six months, all in violation of international law, kicking the door open for other nations like a 1950s Western; and it’s about what plans Trump holds for Cuba and Greenland.
It’s about a corrupt president with a fixation for payback who pulls the levers of government to settle personal scores, advance the obscene wealth of his family and instil insufferably bad taste into the very walls of the White House.
It’s about how cataclysmic environmental, humanitarian, and economic destruction can happen on the indefensible actions of two highly paranoid geriatrics of debatable mental stability. Poster boys for solipsism and malignant narcissism, both have extensive histories of demagoguery and retaining power at all costs.
It’s a gun to everyone’s head, and a price the planet simply cannot pay.
