As an American who is fairly politically-informed, it’s shocking to watch how the dealings with Iran have evolved in the past days. Trump’s vascilations aside for the moment, tensions with Iran have been stoked in this country for decades. Events since Oct 7th exposed the depth of corruption in our government, particularly of the kind caused and exploited by Israel. Political commentary focuses on America’s crumbling empire so regularly that it’s difficult and strange to imagine the admin making a rational choice, on this and increasingly any subject.
Nonetheless we have a memorandum of understanding and political messaging that contradicts the propaganda against Iran and paves the way for an exit, no matter how humiliating, from a conflict that only costs us while benefitting a country that has thoroughly corrupted and misled our admin and entire political class. Believing that we’ll follow through on what this new direction requires may be much too credulous (this is the same admin that killed negotiators with bombs the day before negotiations), but considering the form up until now, it’s promising as a start.
Western democracies seem to be deteriorating as a whole, much has been made of Trump/populism being a symptom of that decline. Liberty and popular coercion of the political class, as indicators of democracy, certainly support that assessment. I wouldn’t be writing this or considering political events if I were as cynical of government as many on Nostr tend to be, so I suppose this post is meant as a marker of a moment where the trend inflected just a bit.
