The president who declares his own war – power plants, threats, a marble statue – and no one is listening

Donald Trump sits in front of his screen, a war is underway, the Strait of Hormuz is closed, gas prices are rising – and he writes: “Now, with the death of Iran, the greatest enemy of America is the radical left, the highly incompetent Democratic Party.” You read the sentence twice. Not because it is hard to understand, but because you want to make sure you read it correctly.

Outside, the Middle East is burning. Inside, the President of the United States points at the opposition in his own country and calls it the greatest enemy of America. Not the regime in Tehran. Not the closed strait. Not the oil price that hits ordinary people every morning at the gas station. The Democratic Party.

What exactly the “death of Iran” means, Trump does not explain. The wording is too large for a military assessment and too vague for a political one. It sounds like closure, like victory, like the end of something – and leaves the reader in the dark about what exactly is meant. That is not an accident. Vague images are filled in by everyone themselves. Everyone sees in them what they want to see.

Scott Bessent: “That is the ONLY language the Iranians UNDERSTAND!” (It affects the civilian population 100% – editorial note)

Meanwhile, reality continues on its own path. Scott Bessent, Trump’s Treasury Secretary, appears on NBC and explains that Americans understand the short term pain – meaning gas prices. Fifty days of higher prices, he says, could mean fifty years of peace in the Middle East. Whether it will really be fifty days, the host asks. Bessent says he does not know. Whether thirty, fifty, one hundred – he cannot say. Scott Bessent tries to calm the debate. He says there is enough money, additional funds are only meant as a supplement. At the same time, 200 billion dollars are on the table. The number does not match what he is saying. It is an answer that is not an answer. But it comes in a tone that imitates confidence, and sometimes that is enough.

At the same time, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, speaks out. Trump had threatened to attack Iranian power plants if the Strait of Hormuz was not fully opened within 48 hours. Ghalibaf responds: anyone who attacks Iranian infrastructure must expect energy facilities and oil installations across the entire region to become legitimate targets – irreversibly destroyed, as he writes. Not a threat disguised as a threat. An announcement.

Tehran itself, meanwhile, denies having fully closed the Strait of Hormuz. Ali Mousavi, Iran’s representative at the International Maritime Organization, says the strait is open – for everyone except Iran’s enemies. It is a distinction that reads like semantics and is not. It means the passage is controlled, selectively, according to enemy images defined by Tehran itself.

Mike Waltz says on Fox News that Trump is serious. He will begin with one of Iran’s largest power plants. Which one, he does not say. How many people will be left in the dark afterward, he does not say either. He only says the president is not here for fun. Waltz says the Revolutionary Guards control Iran’s infrastructure and use it for war. That may be true. It is also true that the same infrastructure supplies hospitals, pumps water, heats homes. He does not say that.

Then there was also …

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz spoke with Trump on Sunday — the topics were the war in the Middle East and the situation in Ukraine. Both agreed to remain in close contact. Whatever that may mean. In this situation, Merz does not stand out. And that may be his greatest advantage.

This is the state of affairs on this Sunday.

Legal experts meanwhile explain what international law says: power plants that serve the civilian population may only be attacked if the military advantage outweighs the civilian harm. It is a sentence that appears in textbooks and in practice is interpreted by those who currently have the bombs.

At the same time, the WHO reports that the war has reached one of its most dangerous stages. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the organization’s Director General, speaks of attacks on the nuclear facility in Natanz and of impacts near Dimona, where Israel operates a nuclear research center. He says attacks on nuclear sites threaten public health and the environment. He calls for maximum military restraint.

No one is listening.

Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary General, also appears on Fox News — apparently the channel where global politics is being conducted this Sunday — and explains that the rift between Trump and the alliance is not a rift at all. More than twenty countries are implementing Trump’s vision. He has spoken with the president several times this week. The U.S. military is acting correctly, because Iran’s nuclear and missile program is an existential threat to the world.

The word existential is used, and it is used easily. Too easily for what it means.

You sit in front of this information and try to hold it together. A president who announces power plants as targets without saying which ones. A security adviser who confirms this on an entertainment network. A WHO chief speaking of nuclear danger while diplomacy remains silent. A NATO chief invoking harmony and overlooking that harmony in an ongoing war is not a condition, but a claim.

What stands out in these hours is not the escalation itself. Escalations have their own logic, and those who observe them eventually learn to read them. What stands out is the normality with which power plants, civilian populations and nuclear sites are spoken about — as if they were positions on a board, not places where people live.

Rutte says more than twenty countries stand together. He does not say how many of them were asked and how many simply went along because the alternative seemed worse.

Ghebreyesus says restraint should be exercised. He says it because it is his job to say it. And because no one else says it.

Somewhere between these three men and their sentences lies what is actually happening right now. A war that is growing. A rhetoric that talks it down. And a public trying to understand, somewhere between breaking news and talk show appearances, whether what it is seeing is still controlled or already long out of control.

None of the three gives that answer.

“The greatest”

While all of this is happening, Donald Trump shares on Truth Social an AI generated image from WomenForTrump: a marble statue of himself, wrapped in an American flag. Below it reads: “Greatest president of modern American history. Forever remembered as the G.O.A.T.” You can see this as self promotion. You can see it as distraction. You can see it as stupidity. Maybe it is all of that. Maybe it is none of that, but simply the mental state of a man who, in a moment of global tension, above all wants to ensure that people are talking about him – and in the way he wants.

What remains is an image that imposes itself: a president who, with a war unfolding behind him, does not point at the war, but inward. Who uses the moment not to explain, but to distribute – blame, hostility, attention. Gas prices rise. The strait remains contested. And the greatest enemy of America, according to the president, sits in Washington. In the other party.

Anyone who believes that no longer needs to understand foreign policy. They only need to know whom they reject. That is the simpler story. And the simpler story usually wins.

On and on.

Everyone has been talking about this place in recent weeks. The Strait of Hormuz. Men in suits, men in clerical robes, in front of cameras, in air conditioned rooms or bunkers. None of them have been there. We believe the whole truth will not be found there, but part of the story will.

In the coming days there may be slight delays in reporting. This is because we are currently changing locations more quickly and do not always have a stable connection. We ask for your understanding. And if in the end nothing remains but images of water, rocks and ships – then that is the truth of this place. Sometimes a place the world argues about looks exactly like that. And that image says more than much of what was said this week on Fox News.

To be continued .....