International Law … Byeeee …

International Diplomacy as Black Comedy

This morning, just before Trump’s deadline expired, I was listening to one of our senior politicians—part of the triumvirate that is currently driving New Zealand into the ground. Despite the best attempts of the reporter to get some sort of reasoned comment out of Winston, he evaded every question, quite as if he were a lawyer, or a junior minister caught with his hand in the cookie jar.¹ Desperately trying to avoid any hint of condemnation of Trump. I thought to myself “How can I distinguish you from a puddle of piss, that takes up the shape of any declivity it’s poured into?” I still can’t answer that question.

Normal international diplomacy precludes talking about the current US president as “a genocidal fuckwit”, at least, in public. The fact that no international diplomat has done this—in public—in the past 24 hours tells us what we have all suspected for some time concerning modern diplomacy, international law and the average modern head of state or senior politician.

Time to spell this out

Of course Donald Trump is a genocidal fuckwit. He has both said and shown us that he is. Consider the above tweet by him on his festering Truth Social. If that’s not threatening genocide, what is?

Both extensive past performance and his recent behaviour have firmly established the ‘fuckwit’ part. I was a bit concerned that he might actually nuke Iran out of existence, but the one remaining grace of the current apology for a banana republic that is the USA is that Trump Always Chickens Out (Above TACO image from here).

If he is to be believed (How can I type that with a straight face?), then Iran’s ten points are sufficient reason not to indulge in nuclear Armageddon. What are those ten points? Let’s see …

1. A guarantee that Iran will not be attacked again

2. A permanent end to the war, not just a ceasefire

3. An end to Israeli strikes in Lebanon and against Iranian allies

4. The lifting of all US sanctions on Iran

5. Iran agreeing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz

6. Introduction of a $2 million fee per ship transiting Hormuz

7. Revenue from shipping fees to be shared with Oman

8. Funds to be used for reconstruction of war-damaged infrastructure

9. Establishment of safe passage protocols through Hormuz

10. A broader framework to end regional hostilities.

Looks like Iran has won, with one proviso.

One proviso

So far we’ve seen Trump and Israel kill all the Iranian leaders they could in the middle of negotiations.

Trump started a war without the approval of US Congress.

He then made multiple statements that not only didn’t make internal sense, but also disagreed with external facts. He said that he was negotiating (and his cronies profited hugely from the announcement) without negotiations even commencing.

This is a man who goes out of his way to stiff ordinary American tradespeople.

How the fuck can anyone trust him? And I see that Israel has already broken the ceasefire (exchanging missiles with Iran) after agreeing to it, according to Trump. Doubtless there will be the usual back-and-forth recriminations.

Negotiations should be, well, ‘interesting’.

My prediction is that Trump will eventually walk away, leaving everyone in a worse position. Apart, perhaps, from Iran. But what do you expect from someone who can’t even run a casino profitably?

Europe needs to grow a spine

I appreciate that Europe is pretty stuffed without US support in NATO, and without the extensive trade they have with the US. But you can chop off everything in that sentence after the word ‘without’ and it makes no difference. The US is run by a genocidal fuckwit and his incompetent sycophantic camp followers.

Europe can hope that things will magically come right—that when Trump drops dead, someone less insane will make some vague attempts to repair the carnage—but let’s be honest here.

America elected Trump. His henchmen have already consolidated their ground in Gilead, and aren’t going to go away. As we’ve already seen,^⌘ Trump has a cult of 96 million Americans. They aren’t going to suddenly wake up and say “Are we the baddies?”

Sometimes you just need to stand up, pull up your Big Girl Britches and take the moral high ground. Spain closed its airspace to the US military. They’ve started to show some moral fibre. How much more potent would it be if everyone (apart from the despicable Orbán, of course) stepped up and said:

“Donald, you’re behaving like a genocidal fuckwit! Heck, you are one. Now just fuck off. We’ve had enough.”

Or ‘Diplomatic Words To That Effect’.

Surely, everyone would hurt. But this is just confronting the inevitable. So why are they so pathetic? Because they’re thoroughly modern politicians.

What is the threshold?

Someone—leader of a country that was often once considered something special—promises genocide, and pretty much no other head of state criticises him substantially. What would it take for them to grow a pair? How low would he have to stoop before they took him to task? Is there some lower depth of infamy he hasn’t quite plumbed yet, one that might provoke a response?

But you know the answer. Any hint of international morality that might put its head above the parapet is going to be shot. And this is the way it’s always been. It’s just that up till now, we’ve maintained the pretence that something called “international law” exists, and that it upholds some sort of ‘justice’.

The only thing lower than the craven cowardice of international politicians is how low they will stoop if there’s a quick buck to be made.

There has been a genocide going on in Darfur in Sudan since April 2023. And because pretty much nobody can make a dollar from it apart from international arms dealers, it’s continued. Israel committed a genocide in Gaza (there’s no other way to describe it) that is still ongoing, and there have been a few protests because it’s closer to home, but not enough protests to substantially disrupt economic ties with Israel. Ask Peter Thiel, who despite his close ties² has just got a huge contract in UK healthcare.

The entirety of international law and international relations is a mirage, constructed to allow rich bullies to do whatever they want. It is infinitely flexible in this direction, and will fit into any declivity you pour it into.

The first qualification that you need to become a modern politician is abandonment of any hint of moral virtue or constancy. The next, it seems, is cowardice. Self-serving avarice is taken for granted; short-term thinking is part of the job description. And it becomes somewhat disturbing when the most grown up comment in the room comes from the Iranian Embassy in South Africa:

RIP, International Law

It turns out you were never alive anyway. All you needed, like any good zombie, was a decent headshot. The fact that this was accidental, with a weapon wielded by an idiot, only increases the farcical nature of your exit from the stage.

My angry 2c, Dr Jo.

^{⌘ This symbol is used to indicate posts where I’ve discussed the flagged topic in more detail.}

1. Peters does in fact have a BA and LLB.

2. Or even because of them.