A Voice with a Smile of Democracy

[...] the voice-with-a-smile of democracy

announces night & day

"all poor little peoples that want to be free

just trust in the u s a"—

So wrote E.E. Cummings bitterly in 1956—after the U.S. had first encouraged Hungary to rise up and throw off its Soviet overlords—and then had ignobly abandoned the country to destruction at the hands of Soviet tanks. 

Sixty years later, it's hard to escape the impression that this is exactly what Trump has done to the people of Iran. 

He was that "voice with a smile of democracy" when he told the Iranian people to "take over your government" at the start of his February war—

Or when he promised that "Help is on its way," when Iranian protesters were being gunned down by the hundreds at the hands of their own government. Just trust in the u s a.

Now, unlike Bret Stephens, I have opposed Trump's illegal war of aggression in Iran from day one. 

Nonetheless, I agree entirely with Bret Stephens when he notes that Trump's words to the Iranian people earlier this year constituted a promise, and he has since betrayed it ignominiously.

Nor can I disagree with Stephens when he observes that this is perhaps "not odd for a president whose very essence is betrayal of everyone and everything, his own words not least."

I don't think that more bombing would have helped—or have been lawful or morally tolerable. Killing Iranian civilians in saturation bombing campaigns is not setting them free or helping to build democracy. 

But to encourage them to rise up against their government, promise U.S. aid, then leave that same government more empowered,  and not so much as mention the civilian protesters' fate in subsequent negotiations, is the worst of all worlds. 

Trump has managed to outdo the neocons in war-mongering, while also making clear that he does not give a pig's fart about the democratic ideals that supposedly motivated various neocon interventions. 

Far from caring about Iranian civilians in the end, Trump has bombed them, and strengthened and emboldened the government that represses them. 

He has even deported Iranian asylum-seekers and dissidents to a Russian-aligned war-zone in Africa, where they face the credible threat of removal back to the hands of the very regime that has tortured and persecuted them. 

If that's not a betrayal of the Iranian people, the word has lost all meaning. 

As Cummings concluded:

so rah-rah-rah democracy

let's all be as thankful as hell

and bury the statue of liberty

(because it begins to smell)