The Presidential Epic Fury

1. He wanted the Nobel Peace Prize and created the War Department. It was a contradiction that should have given us clues not only about the intentions of the most powerful man in the world but also about the flaws in his intellectual capacity. When he changed the name of the Department of Defense in September, we already suspected that Donald Trump would go on the offensive. And he came close. In January, US military forces entered Venezuela, captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, and transferred them to a US prison. In February, the raid by US troops, in alliance with Israel, killed Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. Between Operation Absolute Resolve in Venezuela and Operation Epic Fury in Iran, the death toll is in the hundreds. For now. The consequences of the attack on Tehran are impossible to predict. According to the Financial TimesThis decision by Trump is "the most fateful of his presidency."

2. Perhaps the world would be better without Maduro, a dictator whitewashed by rigged elections, and it would be even better without the regime of the ayatollahs, Islamic fundamentalists and sponsors of armed groups in the region, such as Hezbollah and Hamas. Perhaps Venezuela will indeed gradually move toward more comparable democratic standards, and the citizens of Iran will be able to seize the opportunity to carry out the revolution that was beginning to emerge. But the two military actions of 2026 are the most palpable example that the ends do not justify the means. Donald Trump has acted within the law, without the necessary permission of the United States Congress and without the approval of a United Nations that, if it continues down this path of paralysis and ineffectiveness, may soon have its buildings turned into an archaeological museum. That an uncultured, compulsively narcissistic man, with the vocabulary of a nine-year-old and gastric incontinence, should present himself as a world savior is worrying. Doing so systematically outside the law means undermining international law and the much-needed diplomacy.

3. What are Trump's intentions with these attacks? However much he justifies them with the Iranian nuclear threat or Venezuelan narco-terrorism, oil is always at the heart of the matter. There is also the need to regain popularity in an election year, given that in November he would be facing the mid-term to renew the House of Representatives and part of the Senate. Trump has a lot at stake. But these two military operations have also come when the declassification of Epstein's files seemed closer to revealing photographs and documents that would compromise the President of the United States. An investigation by The Guardian He recounts that FBI interview summaries could surface in which a woman claims to have been abused by Trump when she was a minor, with Epstein's complicity. In this context, he takes credit for having eliminated Ali Khamenei, "one of the most evil people in history." He seeks global acclaim and redemption for his past. But the tally of his crimes should never be reset. There isn't enough smoke to obscure his less epic transgressions.

4. To all this, we can't ignore the sickening persecution of immigrants, the global madness of tariffs, or the control of the media, now that CNN and CBS have been caught in his propaganda web. Against this backdrop, Robert De Niro has called Trump an "idiot," said he's destroying the United States, and offered the solution: "We have to get rid of him, we have to make him leave office, because he won't leave." But... who has a Trump to free us from Trump?