PRESS SIGNATURES.- Very shortly before the deadline for the ultimatum to Iran expired, US President Donald Trump announced on April 7 that it was halting hostilities for two weeks.
The president accepted Pakistan’s mediation proposal to suspend bombings and attacks for a period of two weeks. During that period, Washington and Tehran must discuss their conditions to seal peace.
It is a fragile truce. While the United States and Iran agreed to a pause in the conflict, Israel did not cease its aggression against Lebanon. Only last Wednesday, April 8, Israeli aviation dropped more than 150 bombs in 10 minutes against the Lebanese capitalBeirut, and targets in the south of the country. The attack left more than 250 dead and a large number of injured; Overflowing hospitals and victims under the rubble of buildings demolished by bombs. If Trump is serious about achieving peace, he will have to prevent a repeat of these devastating actions.
Trump faces another problem and this is national in nature. His apocalyptic threat to Iran, which he issued shortly before Tuesday’s deadline, generated differences and tensions in its own MAGA base. Politicians and figures on the American right criticized, horrified, Trump’s apocalyptic message against Iran: “An entire civilization is going to die tonight.”. Fortunately, Trump backed down and accepted the Pakistan-brokered ceasefire.
But its unprecedented threat caused enormous discomfort in the American publiceven among many of his followers. There was a revolt in his own party.
Former Georgia Republican state representative Marjorie Taylor Greene went so far as to suggest that The 25th Amendment of the Constitution will be applied to remove Trump from the presidency. The 25th Amendment establishes the formal procedure for presidential succession in the event of the death, resignation or incapacity of the president. Allows the vice president to take office, and the cabinet declares the president incapable of governing.
Greene was one of the president’s strongest supporters, but the war against Iran caused her to change her position.
“He has gone crazy,” said the former congresswoman. “We cannot kill an entire civilization. That is evil and madness.”
Senator Ron Johnson, Republican from the state of Wisconsin and until recently an ally of Trump, expressed concern about the threat to attack Iran’s bridges and power plants. “I hope and pray that this is bravado,” Johnson said. “I don’t want to see us start destroying civilian infrastructure. I don’t want to see that.”
And the famous conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, who has opposed the war against Iran from the beginning, said that Trump was “vile.” “It starts with a promise to use the United States armed forces, our armed forces, to destroy civilian infrastructure in another country,” Carlson commented on his television program on April 6. “That is committing a war crime, a moral crime, against the people of the country.”
Various polls show that the war against Iran is very unpopular among Americansalthough the majority of Republicans support the way Trump has handled the conflict. According to a recent CNN poll, Only 33 percent of Americans approved of Trump’s war actions against Iran. Of that sector that supports the president, 73 percent are pro-Republican.
Trump started hostilities against Iran without the approval of Congress, who is in charge of declaring a war, not the president. Trump ignores the legislative branch – in this case and in others – and pays no attention to the opinions and wishes of the American people. But this disdain for the functioning of democracy comes at a price. The president’s approval rating is on the floorand, like former Representative Greene, there are many who want to see him outside the White House and raise the 25th Amendment.
Trump’s disdain for the popular will has cost him dearly and he must achieve permanent peace with Iran to not continue losing the public support he still retains.
alende4@gmail.com
Andrés Hernández Alende is a writer and journalist based in Miami. The Spanish publisher Mundieditions has published his novels’the sunset‘ and ‘The Macedonian sword‘.
