WHEN I’M MAD, I’M . . . WRITE

MARCH 20, 2026 – In the all-too predictable Orwellian-speak of the Charlatan in Chief, today, just days into what could well be another endless war, he told us that he thought the economic impact of his “excursion” against Iran would have been worse than it’s turned out to be. Think about it: at the political helm of the most powerful country on earth is a man who heralds success by saying out loud that a disastrous action wasn’t as disastrous as he’d anticipated. The Man of Myopia, for whom “strategy” is absent from his narrow range of cognition, has no grasp of the concept of consequences. In his addled mind, life is nothing more than transactional self-gratification prompted by an insatiable need for uninterrupted adulation as measured by unqualified sycophancy.

What I find especially repugnant about the almost 80-year-old Trump is that the most profound damage of his transactional approach to what Republicans call “policy” will outlast him by many years, even decades.

To be clear here, the ruling powers of Iran aren’t choir boys—though in fairness, mosques don’t have choirs. And if the world inside or outside of Iran is inclined to cut the smiling new supposed Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, any slack whatsoever, that impulse should be nipped in the bud. He’s a “doomsdayer’; a believer in the approach of End Times, the ultimate battle, the final apocalypse, yada-yada-yada. Of course, neither Islam generally nor the Shiite branch specifically has a monopoly on apocalyptic doctrine: look no further than extreme off-the-wall sects of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism or even Buddhism, believe it or not. Extremists in the dark corners of every major religion harbor nihilistic dogma.

The significance of Mojtaba’s belief system lies not in its irrationality but rather, in his and his followers’ commitment to it. That cold brutal fact must be taken into account in approaching Iran, be it from a global strategic perspective or from the angle of the 91 million-and-counting inhabitants of that country. This reality presents a paradox. Extreme beliefs can drive things two ways. In one direction, if they are allowed to take hold, expand, and achieve the ability to wreak havoc on an apocalyptic scale, they pose a major threat to regional stability. Yet, if the “Apocalytpics” are confronted before they reach the capacity to torch the earth, then depending on when and how they’re challenged, they will endeavor to accelerate an apocalypse, though not necessarily the one they foresaw or advocated. They’ll see the confrontation as a sign, a signal, a divine directive to “go apocalyptic”—or at least to die trying—with the same result: turning the world into burnt toast.

The toaster dial turns up when the believers of one version of “End Times,” say, the Mojtaba gang, faces off against another version peddled by such fanatics as the “Christian Zionists,” alive and well in America, who believe Israel is an integral actor in the Second Coming of Christ. Through the lens of vintage horror movies, you could call it Godzilla vs. The Thing.

Extreme religious zealotry isn’t the only problem that is now writ large across the war initiated by Short-Term Trump and Bibi-bomber Netanyahu. Even absent the Apocalypse factor, we face on defense . . . survival instinct. As one can see throughout history, such motivation often defeats the high-tech armies and armaments of the Philistines. With a rock and a sling, the Davids of the world can outmaneuver the Goliaths. Look no further than the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese first against the French and later against the United States. Trump touts decimation of the A-string, B-string, even C-string leaders of Iran, but the IRG membership numbers a million. They’re subject to a hierarchy of command, indoctrinated commitment, and armed with an unlimited cache of “rocks and slings” and most critically . . . survival instincts. Given the IRG’s track record of violence and repression against their own people, the Revolutionary Guardsmen are unlikely to “switch sides” and lead the Iranian people—not to mention sizable minorities, most notably, the Kurds—into a felicitous age of peaceful democracy. But with survival instincts fully engaged, the IRG could prove to be a formidable “David” against the military might of the American “Goliath.”

Survival instincts are also a factor elsewhere in the present conflict. In this regard, Netanyahu’s interests diverge from our own—and those of Israel itself, for that matter. If Trump responds to the “ding-ding” chimes of a pinball machine, the Israeli Prime Minister is driven by endless deferment of prosecution for corruption. Until Iran is wiped clear from the map, Netanyahu holds a “Stay out of Jail – Free” card. For the sake of comparison, Gaza was an artificial concoction of the Egyptian-Israeli Armistice of 1949. Iran, on the other hand, is the direct successor nation-state of Persia with ancient origins under Cyrus the Great (550 B.C.E.), albeit not quite as long ago as Abraham’s migration from Ur to Canaan (circa 2025 B.C.E.). We can bet with confidence that Iran will occupy the map, that is, survive Netanyahu.

Then there is the Strait of Hormuz[1], the focal point of fallout from Trump’s “excursion.” The only reliable way to escort tankers (each, with a full load of oil worth hundreds of millions of greenbacks) is to seize and hold the dirt, the rocks, the sand, the heights along the Iranian coast for many miles on either side of the mid-point of the strait. To “take and hold” would require an inestimable number of ground troops and a long and costly supply chain of assets to position and support such forces. The unknowable variable in the cost formula would be . . . duration of the mission. The best guess: months, if not years. Like any major new weapons system, the estimated all-in cost of the operation would be an astronomical figure times three to cover the inevitable “cost overruns.” In the Bibi’s calculus, the Strait of Hormuz matters not. He’s got a direct line to the U.S. Treasury, global recession or no recession.

Before the marines now on their way arrive in the Gulf of Oman, Congress should know if Hegseth’s $200 billion “ask” for additional war spending includes figures for the open-ended above-described ground operation. Every Congressional Republican who’s inclined to approve the “ask” should be cross-examined on how it’s to be financed. No doubt the request won’t be accompanied by a proposal to increase taxes. Republicans running in November couldn’t withstand the reaction. Instead, the Treasury will need to issue an extra $200 billion in debt, adding to the deficit and by extension, accelerating inflation and pushing interest rates higher. As always, the poor will become poorer, the middle class will continue to shrink, and the rich? Over cocktails back at the clubhouse after another round of golf, they’ll complain about profligate Democrats causing inflation and driving up the cost of money.

The gravity-defying funding request by Hegseth adds to the staggering billions in cost of rebuilding the oil and gas infrastructure being destroyed across the oil producing countries of the Persian Gulf, not to mention in Iran itself. These facilities cannot be placed back online simply by a reboot of a refinery’s computer system. Some experts say it will take years to repair the damage. We must understand the cost of this war, not only in direct expense but in the reduction in global economic growth over the next five to ten years.

According to Trump, however, help is on the way: his answer to higher gas prices is to drop sanctions on Russian oil, thus increasing world supplies. In response, the outrage among Republicans in Congress is . . . yes, exactly: deafening.

The bottom line of Trump’s Middle East misadventure is that he’s kicked, shoved, bombed, and muscled the entire world to the edge of an economic precipice.

Yet, in a world always defined by irony, a supreme silver lining could develop out of this holy mess of an unholy war.

That silver lining is the forced acceleration of an essential full-bore transition to renewable energy. Ever since oil replaced coal as the preferred energy source for nautical engines in the late 19^th century (see Jackie Fischer and Winston Churchill in Robert Massie’s Dreadnought), strategists have recognized the vulnerability tied to reliance on Middle East oil. Any sixth-grader spinning the classroom globe can see that as long as the world thirsts for oil, the Strait of Hormuz presents a major strategic problem. Meanwhile, any frog in a sixth-grade classroom aquarium knows that climate change is “for real.” And 97% of the world’s climatologists—99.99%, if we exclude climatologists whose work is funded by the Koch Brothers and Big Oil—will tell you we must, not merely should, reduce carbon emissions drastically to avoid the worst consequences of anthropogenic climate change.

If Trump’s war brings new urgency to development of wind, solar and tidal energy, the irony would be boosted by Trump’s opposition to wind, not on any rational public interest ground but based on his passing displeasure when seeing wind turbines from the links of his course in Scotland.

Irony, ever with us, is the stuff of life and therefore, of great literature. There’s no reason why irony shouldn’t be embraced as well in “the greatest comic book series in history,” The Misadventures of the Misbehaving and Misanthropic Pyrite President, surely the featured work inside the future Trump Presidential Library.

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© 2026 by Eric Nilsson

[1]Perhaps named after the Zoroastrian god, Ahura Mazda, or after Ifra Hormizd, mother of Shapur II, King of Persia from 309 to 379 B.C.E. Yet, it could be that the origins of the name “Hormuz” is nothing fancier than the Greek word for “cove” or “bay”: ὅρμος – hormos.