I remember a Mel Brooks movie of my youth, Blazing Saddles. It was an irreverent parody of the cowboy movies (think John Wayne) that filled the screen in those days, and it was funny as Hell. (The movie is completely/totally/absolutely, politically incorrect for the 21st Century. It was pretty incorrect back in the 1970’s too. To watch it, turn off your “Woke Meter”, and accept it as the period piece it is).
Badges
The lead actor was Cleavon Little. He played “Bart”, a black man, chosen by the Governor (Mel Brooks) to save the little prairie town of Rock Ridge. The town was under siege by the criminal forces of a rich railroad executive Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman). The corrupt Governor counts on the racist town people, unwilling to accept a black sheriff, to create the chaos necessary for Lamarr to overrun the place. What he didn’t expect was the new sheriff’s friendship with “Jim”, played by Gene Wilder, an alcoholic ex-gunslinger who is unable to hold his gun hand steady enough to shoot.
Go watch the movie if you want to know what happens, or how NFL Hall of Famer Alex Karras knocks a horse out with one punch. Or to hear the tagline that outlives the plot of the movie itself: “Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!!”
But one scene reminds me of our current political world. Bart faces a mob of the folk of Rock Ridge, ready to lynch him rather than have a black sheriff. In an instant, Bart takes himself hostage, pointing a gun at his own neck and saying, I’ll shoot the – black sheriff – he uses a term than I will not in 2026. Bart them reverses his voice, and pleads with the crowd to not make “him” shoot “me”. He carries this charade on long enough to get into the sheriff’s office door. Bart then says: “Oh baby, you are so talented”. He then looks directly into the camera and adds: “And they are so dumb!!”
In the Times
All of this because of the world brinksmanship that we lived through the past few days. Donald Trump threatened the very existence of the Iranian/Persian culture. He made it clear it was his plan blow up their entire civil infra-structure in a massive four-hour bombing raid. Trump, operating without support of Congress, or NATO, or the American people, determined to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Age” (his words). And it would all start at 8:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time on Tuesday, March 7th.
It was all a matter of degree. Trump already took America to war against Iran, launching a devastating bombing campaign along with the Israeli government. The first episode took place last June, when B-2 Bombers were sent with enormous multi-million dollar bombs to destroy Iran’s buried nuclear research facilities. According to Trump, their nuclear development program was obliterated.
And, if the New York Times is accurate, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu convinced Trump to join him in an all-out assault on the Iranian leadership, a “decapitation strike” that began our current conflict on February 28th of this year. The reasons: the nuclear program might not be as “obliterated” as Trump thought. And, in concert with civil unrest within Iran, perhaps a new government might gain power.
As the American Secretary of Defense crowed daily about the successes of US arms against Iran, somehow the new theocratic leadership managed to launch successful missile and drone strikes against American bases and our other allies in the Middle East. “The Iranian Air Force was destroyed, their Navy on the bottom of the Persian Gulf”. But still Iranian missiles and drones continued to find targets.
By the Barrels
And Iran played its ultimate “ trump card”. They choked off the Strait of Hormuz, denying the rest of the world 20% of oil production. Costs for petroleum products worldwide sky-rocketed as the price per barrel went from $72 to $115. America’s gas prices topped $4.00 a gallon. The US might be able to destroy targets at will, but Iran had the world by the “barrels”, and there was little the vast armed might of the United States could do about it.
American allies, from Western Europe to the Pacific rim, demanded that the Straits be reopened. They weren’t interested in participating in the United States’ “war of choice”. But they did not want the world thrown into economic chaos due to the lack of oil. Trump also faced internal political opposition, with dwindling support for his”excursion”. Recent polling showed 57% of Americans opposed to the war, with only 34% strongly or somewhat for it (YouGov).
Then came Trump’s ultimatum, the threat of massive destruction against a nation of 90 million people. The Iranian government at the last moment issued a potential peace deal, and asked for a two week ceasefire. Trump accepted, and negotiations are ongoing in Pakistan. Trump supporters would have us think that he was holding the gun on his hostage Iran, who capitulated to his dire threats. And maybe that’s true: maybe Iran realized that the President was willing to commit whatever war crimes were required to loosen Iran’s grip on the world’s barrels. The first rule of dealing with a crazy man – realize that he’s crazy. To be clear, I mean the President, not the Ayatollah.
North Korean Tactics
Or maybe Donald Trump took the American people and our European allies, and pointed the gun at our own collective neck. Trump would send our kids to war. (By the way, why did the question of 18 year olds registering for the draft come up this week?) He’ll risk World War III (something Trump himself accused Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy of doing). The United States will bomb and destroy, untethered by the Geneva Conventions or the “rules of engagement”. Trump would even risk the Straits of Hormuz remaining closed, and world economic collapse, all to get a deal.
Was he crazy? Was he really willing to risk all to get what he wanted? Did Trump do this as a strategy, the Kim Jong Un method of political brinksmanship? Or, was Trump actually planning to throw the whole world into chaos, in order to gain a “victory” from the Iranians? “I’ll shoot the Western world, I’ll do it!!” “Please, please don’t make him shoot me!!”
Now there’s a two-week ceasefire. There’s possible language for re-opening the Straits. Currently, Iran is making money, charging a dollar a barrel toll for tankers (with millions of barrels) to go through. And, maybe, there’s a deal to be made. Or, two or three weeks from now, we’ll be back in main street of Rock Ridge, waiting for the sheriff to shoot himself.
Then we’ll be saying: we are so dumb!!!
