Diary

The news arrives, as it so often does now, in a form that makes one long for the relative sobriety of a George W. Bush press conference. The President of the United States announces he is “not at all” concerned about committing possible war crimes, and frames this as a matter of personal resolve. The threat is to destroy a nation’s civilian infrastructure - bridges, power plants - in “one night.” The argument, such as it is, will be that this is a deterrent, a masterstroke of coercive diplomacy. The steel-man version must be granted: a regime in Tehran that hangs gay people from cranes, that stones women for adultery, that chants “Death to America” while funding its proxies to kill Americans, is not a regime that responds to nuanced appeals. It understands force, or the credible threat of it. Very well. Let us accept that premise.

But here is the load-bearing joint, and it cannot bear the weight. The man making the threat is the same man who, with a tweet, can upend any coherent strategy, who confuses his own whims with national interest, and whose word is worth less than the paper a treaty isn’t printed on. This is not a chess move; it is a drunkard swinging a cue ball in a sock. The principle of jus in bello - the laws of war that protect non-combatants and forbid the targeting of objects indispensable to civilian survival - exists for a reason older than the Hague Conventions. It is the thin, crucial line between warfare and barbarism. To boast of crossing it “in one night” is to advertise a war crime as a campaign slogan. It is the language of a mob enforcer, not a statesman.

What chills is not the threat to a vile theocracy, but the casual erasure of the distinction between military and civilian, between the guilty and the innocent. It is the very essence of the totalitarian mind, so perfectly captured by Orwell: “The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.” The object of this threat is not a calculated deterrent; it is the thrill of issuing it. The audience is not Tehran. It is the base, and the mirror.

The silence from the usual defenders of “Western civilization” and “the rules-based order” is a roar. They have made their bargain. They will accept the strong horse, even if it tramples the very standards they claimed to uphold. The corruption is now complete. The argument has been made. It is a confession.

We are led by arsonists who think themselves pyrotechnicians. The fire will not respect the borders they have drawn.