To anyone who thinks Trump can bring peace and equality to Iran – I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Going cheap | Marina Hyde

To anyone who thinks Trump can bring peace and equality to Iran – I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Going cheap Marina Hyde If POTUS can really bomb peace, stability and women’s rights into the Middle East, I’ll take my hat off to him. Judging by his role in Gaza, I won’t hold my breath D onald Trump says Keir Starmer has damaged the special relationship by not helping him more in the US-Israel war on Iran. But you have to remember that when you do help, Trump pretends you didn’t anyway, and also pisses on your war dead . Still, what could be more enticing than the Americans trying to sell you a timeshare on a war in the Middle East? And so to Iran. “War is the realm of uncertainty,” said Carl von Clausewitz, who – and not to be a bitch – I still think of as a more impressive military theorist than Pete Hegseth. Certainly, Carl had fewer Crusades tattoos than the US defence secretary. Hegseth is 100% certain about all his nailed-down positions, even the ones in apparent conflict with each other. And it feels like a great sign that he, Marco Rubio and JD Vance already seem to have different rationales for why this war was launched. This is an administration that came to power on an explicit “no more wars” ticket – but look, as Pete keeps saying, this isn’t a regime-change war. If that seems confusing, given he first said it about 10 minutes after US-Israeli strikes had just cratered the ayatollah’s compound, Hegseth has since been on hand to scoff that what’s going down in Iran is “no nation-building quagmire, no democracy-building exercise” . Of course not! Trump and his guys don’t even love democracy in their own country, so they’re not exactly going to want it for one of the so-called shithole countries. Too many moving parts. Think of this as a regime-refresh war. You’re still not going to be able to spell the difference between ayatollahs, but ideally, the new guy will have more of a Venezuelan puppet feel to him. I don’t know about “women” and “freedom” and stuff,...