The world is on fire, and the fire brigade has just had its budget slashed. Reuters informs us that Donald Trump, the man with the complexion of a neglected beach ball and the strategic nous of a concussed badger, has unilaterally gutted a $1.8bn fund designed to counter Iran’s weaponisation. This fund was the West’s only credible deterrent against the ayatollahs’ nuclear ambitions, a fact that seems to have bounced off the 45th president’s skull like a damp pea.
Let us be clear, dear reader: this fund was not a luxury. It was a prophylactic against armageddon, a sober-minded investment in survival. And Trump, in his infinite wisdom, has decided that the most pressing use for $1.8bn is not to keep ballistic missiles out of the hands of religious extremists, but rather to line the pockets of his golf resorts or perhaps to erect a giant golden statue of himself on the Jersey Shore. The man’s approach to foreign policy is akin to a toddler with a loaded firearm – one moment he’s pointing it at the enemy, the next he’s trying to shove it up his own nostril.
The fund was established after the JCPOA debacle, that flimsy accord that was always more about prestige than practicality. But even a broken clock is right twice a day, and the anti-weaponisation fund was the one sensible outcome of that rancid deal. It funded counter-proliferation efforts, intelligence sharing, and covert operations to disrupt Iran’s atomic jamboree. It was, in short, the only thing standing between us and a theocracy with a death wish and a centrifuge.
Now it is gone. Vanished. Poof. And who is to blame? The triumvirate of idiocy: Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and the ever-luminous Steve Bannon. These three men, whose combined foreign policy experience could be inscribed on a postage stamp with room to spare, have decided that the best way to deter Iran is to wave a big stick while simultaneously handing them the means to arm it. It is like disarming your own soldiers in the middle of a battle because you fancy a nice chat with the enemy.
The consequences are predictable. Iran, emboldened by this act of self-sabotage, will accelerate its nuclear programme with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. The Saudis, trembling in their thobes, will seek their own bomb. Israel, that plucky little country that survives on a diet of hummus and supreme paranoia, will launch pre-emptive strikes. And Europe? Europe will wring its hands, impose sanctions, and tut loudly while the world burns.
But let us not mince words. This is not a failure of policy; it is a failure of intellect. Trump does not understand deterrence because Trump does not understand anything that does not involve a mirror. He sees the world as a zero-sum game where strength is measured in bluster and bombast, not in quiet, sustained investment. He is a man who thinks a tweet is a form of diplomacy, a man who believes that calling Kim Jong-un ‘Rocket Man’ is the same as negotiating a disarmament treaty.
We are now in a world where the deterrent to Iran’s weaponisation has been withdrawn because the man in charge thought it was too expensive. $1.8bn. That is less than the cost of a single aircraft carrier, less than the amount of money lost in the Iraq war under George W. Bush, less than what Trump’s own administration spent on border security theatre. But to the Don, it was a bridge too far. Why spend money on stopping a nuclear Iran when you can spend it on a wall that Mexico will not pay for?
The tragedy is that this is not an aberration; it is a pattern. Trump’s entire foreign policy is an exercise in serial self-harm. He has alienated allies, embraced dictators, and now he is dismantling the very mechanisms that keep us safe. It is as if he is deliberately trying to create a world where the only thing between us and chaos is a man who believes that windmills cause cancer.
So raise a glass, readers. Drink a toast to the death of sanity, the triumph of ego, and the coming era of Iranian nukes. Because thanks to Donald J. Trump, we are now living in a world where the most powerful nation on Earth has decided that deterrence is an optional extra. And the bill? That will come due in fire and ash.
