NORTH CAROLINA - So, Donald Trump has been impeached. So what, one must say, aside from the fact that he is only the third President to have ever been so stained by the U.S. House of Representatives (exactly along party lines), which will no doubt drive him to even more error because of his vast, narcissistic nature.

 So what, because if the economy and markets don’t implode between now and November, he is likely to get another four years in the White House. Frankly, he ought to have been impeached for the single reason alone of his performance in front of the big, blind crowd of his cultish followers in Michigan precisely at the hour he was impeached. And the impeachment charges?

Well, the specific charges may not rise to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors” unless you are a Democrat. There is little of concise specificity to the articles of impeachment in the opposition’s point of view, and the opposition does dominate the U.S. Senate which is not going to convict Trump. It’s all been just a lot more of Trump being Trump, a gasbag of ignorance and self-dealing.

 He has nothing of merit worth celebrating so far, but if truth be told, the Democrats are not far behind aside from a handful of notable Congressional reps who have frequently been vilified by members of both parties. But to get how misguided Trump is, all one had to do was listen to him fulminate off the cuff and interminably before his Michigan fans. He rambled on unbelievably and in such a macabre way, it’s fascinating.

Trump is the perfect expression of a country that seems to have lost its soul or has been losing its soul for the last 30 years or more. It’s been a period when really nothing has worked out as expected, or at least not as it was promised. But yes, the wealthy have gotten wealthier, and the big corporations have profited, and fascism has slowly become the order of the day in America.

 The “average” American barely recognizes the failures because the propaganda has been so intense and successful, it seems, from the corporate media, no thanks to Clinton who during his terms permitted media consolidation and full dominance by a mere five or so media companies.

The U.S. economy and markets are inebriated, an accident waiting to happen. False statistics can’t convince everybody. The military and its nearly trillion-dollar budgets year after year have bought little but scorn and horror and death overseas and unsustainable debts at home that have never before been seen in all of history. The almost two-decade-long war on Afghanistan, for one thing, was never “winnable” and the Pentagon, Americans just learned this month, knew this when the war was initiated, but this was covered up.

 Same with the Iraq war, except that if the goal was simply the destruction of a secular country, it succeeded. And so on in other areas of conflict such as Syria and Libya and Ukraine. It’s possible to cite a much longer laundry list of what amounts to failed policies, and not just in the Middle East, but especially in the Middle East. Respect? The U.S. may have lost this forever given the magnitude of the various failures.

In truth, it’s not just Trump (or Bush or Obama or the Clintons), but the entire country may need to be impeached and the payback has not even begun yet, but it’s coming in the coming decade – first in dribbles as one can witness now but eventually in a flood of divisiveness and rancor and breakdown – which is why the sage among us have long counseled alleged enemies like Iran, despite the sanctions and more, to remain cool and thoughtful, to avoid war (if possible), to shore up its friendships and alliances because of all of America’s detractors and enemies, the biggest by far maybe its own population like Trump’s fans in Michigan this week who are wallowing in self-deception even if they are not “bad” people. It is terribly sad. Ignorance is tragic.

One is almost inclined to suggest that Iran, which has since the JCPOA was trashed, still try to reach out to the U.S. and ask: Tell us Iranians what you could do for us aside from trying to crush our economy and people. We are almost 90 million strong in one of the oldest countries on earth with a proud heritage and if you were capable of putting yourself in the shoes of others, you would understand that we don’t take kindly to attacks and sanctions. But still, we want to know clearly: What is a FAIR quid pro quo to diminish the discord between us? Should we limit our nuclear capacities further?

 Then you must resurrect the deal and drop the sanctions and then we can negotiate further and maybe go farther with that. Do you insist that we demolish what defenses we have against attack and walk away from our friends who are equally worried about your threats? In many respects, compared to your offensive capabilities, our defenses are miniscule but even so how can you expect Iran to drop them? Would you if you were in our shoes for the past 40 years? 

Are we not to continue to recognize that your two allies in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Israel, continue to revel in war crimes and human rights abuses which, by the way, the entire world sees? Iran, as you know, has not attacked anyone aside from trying desperately to hold the line against further depredations by the Saudis and the Zionists against our neighbors. The Zionists, for example, with such influence in America have pushed so hard for support that America’s response, aside from many billions of bucks, has been essentially to eviscerate free speech with anti-BDS laws in the U.S. and with your allies, like Britain and France, in Europe.

 And what are you still doing in Syria? Please explain. Assad is popular and the Syrian Arab Army, don’t you know, has virtually won the war against the terror unleashed by your foreign proxies like ISIS and al-Qaeda injected with your assistance into Syria. And what about the theft of Syrian oil – is that truly likely to win America, allegedly a great country, friends? Why President Assad now believes you are lying about the number of American troops or associates in Syria. The number of U.S. troops in Syria could be in the many thousands, opines a dismayed Assad, rather than the 1000 or 2000 or so the Pentagon claims are there. What is the truth? Can America TELL the truth?

The above might constitute a worthwhile, direct appeal to the Trump Administration by Iran: questions asked and questions answered coming from both sides, a basis for real talks that do not mean Iran has caved to U.S. imperialism but simply wants to discover what may be possible, what both countries can do, to reduce tensions because the world desires it. In any event, the greatest tragedy is that the U.S. has been rejecting the tremendous benefits, even in mutual trade, that would inevitably occur with a kinder, honest approach to Iran and its people.