Trump’s attack on Iran: message to Vladimir Putin
This note will be brief insofar as the news from the Middle East is still sparse. The Israeli-US attack on Iran resulted in destruction of the offices of the Ayatollah and of buildings of security forces in Tehran and in other cities, though reports are only preliminary. As for the Iranian counter-attack on Israel and on US military bases in the Gulf, information is still sketchier.
However, my purpose is not to provide military intelligence but to offer political intelligence that is highly relevant to the prime interest of this Community – the war in Ukraine and how/whether attempts at brokering a peace by Trump still have any credibility.
The answer to that question is a resounding ‘no.’ U.S. diplomacy with Iran has now for the second time in less than a year been used only as a cover and a side-show while a vicious act of aggression against Iran was being planned. U.S. diplomacy is an exercise in treachery, nothing more.
This truth was widely discussed on Russian state television on the leading news and commentary shows in the past few weeks. Presumably it was discussed within the Kremlin as well, but it is not at all clear that Vladimir Putin is ready to take the measures that the latest developments in Iran point to, namely: to break off all negotiations with Witkoff-Kushner and the Ukrainians; bomb the hell out of Kiev right now to put an end to Ukraine’s war-making potential on the front-lines and free brains and resources for Russia’s entry into the Middle East as co-defender of Iran alongside China.
I mention in passing that Trump’s speech to the nation announcing the start of U.S. military operations against Iran for the sake of degrading its military forces and promoting regime change was a vile collection of untruths and outright fabrications. Trump smashed any hopes we may have had that he could play a constructive role in international relations.
Yesterday, in my analysis of how the European Institutions have become smotherers of freedom of expression, of how the Commission exercises monarchical absolutism typical of the ancient regime, I said that they have to be put on a new footing, with cancellation of parliamentary democracy in favor of U.S. style Separation of Powers. Nota bene, checks and balances do not work every time, but they are our only hope for there to be public space open to debate on foreign and domestic policy with no holds barred. Trump’s action yesterday was immediately denounced by a member of Congress as violating the Constitution by opening war on Iran without authorization of Congress. We will see how far this censure goes, but it is a good start towards curbing autocracy in the Oval Office.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026
If we are talking about Checks & Balances, we have to note where the US Constitution has fallen short -- it lies in the total & utter worthlessness of the US Congress, which long ago shuffled off its role to unelected bureaucrats while the self-serving politicians in Congress focused on self-enrichment. Instead of "representative" democracy, we have a very unrepresentative Permanent Political Class.
Of course, the utterly worthless EU has its own thoroughly useless European Parliament, with its own Permanent Political Class. Human societies have yet to implement any effective way to ensure truly representative democracy -- although perhaps the Ancient Greek city states came closest. Of course, those city states did not last either!
the speech was unhinged, fairy-tales, lies. The ferocity of it suggests he knows he made a mistake.