NORTH CAROLINA - Amid the madness, one thing is indisputable. Trump and Netanyahu are joined at the hip in part because both face the prospect, however remote, of eventually winding up in jail. Trump has been impeached but getting him out of the White House before November is a stretch, Natanyahu has been indicted on multiple corruption charges. Both think they avoid jail as long as they are in office. They planned and executed the demise of Soleimani through their respective appointees alongside the Mossad and the CIA.

Worse, if conditions deteriorate even further between the U.S. and Iran, like into open warfare as prompted by the assassination of Qassem Soleimani and others, they may be even less likely to be fired … until the publics of both the U.S. and Israel realize neither country can prevail over Iran and certainly not prevail over a Muslim world that maybe, at long last, has become galvanized to kick Western forces out of West Asia and perhaps beyond. To say with deeds, “no more Western imperialism!”

There are so many possible scenarios ahead after Iran, as it has promised, retaliates for the unwarranted attacks in Iraq on Soleimani and others. And what might be the ripest target for Iran’s retaliation? The place from whence the drone that bombed Soleimani’s convoy was launched: al-Udeid airbase in Qatar.  Iran knows what’s there and why it might be a ripe target. Moreover, if Iran does strike at all, and it seems it will, the world witnesses yet another impulsive action by Washington – retaliation upon retaliation (hardly an action befitting alleged (faux) “Christians” that also infest Trump’s administrative ranks). If the U.S. then responds to whatever revenge Iran exacts, Iran will unleash the totality of its very specific military capability on the western shores of the Persian Gulf. Does Trump want to see the devastation of oil production facilities in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE in addition to U.S. military and diplomatic facilities? The world economy would crater as oil prices would ascend to maybe $200 a barrel. Trump would lose big next November, but also consider that a crucial result of what the Trump gang has done in this nascent new year is the strong likelihood that Trump will be voted out of the White House in November WHATEVER he does. If he does NOT go to war, the Israelis from afar and fifth column Neocons infesting Washington like cockroaches will likely permit Trump to be convicted on the impeachment charges put forth by the U.S. House of Representatives.

However, it must be said that Trump, unlike Neocons like Pompeo (also a crazy end-times evangelical!) and others around Trump, does not want a war with Iran.

But the murder of Soleimani and others virtually assures a war. So what now constitutes the red line in Trump’s mind? Probably the killing of American troops by Iran in the Middle East. What did he expect, though, murdering Iranian and Iraqi soldiers? No retaliation from Iran? O, the contradictions boggle the mind! Through weakness of mind and spirit, it appears that Trump fell into the trap Netanyahu and his supporters inside Israel and the U.S. have long hoped to spring – a situation that makes war almost inevitable. But here is a wild speculation:

Two of the greatest and maybe the most important of the many attributes of Allah, the one God, are mercy and compassion. This is part of the sublime Sura al-Fatiha of the Qu’ran, and often appears elsewhere in the Qu’ran. Therefore, what if, and this is as fanciful and anything imaginable right now, Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, came out and said: Iran is going to reserve retaliation for the death of Soleimani and others at the hands of the troubled Americans and Zionists. We will reserve retaliation and therefore obviate a probable response by the U.S. that would force expansion of a war that will engulf the entire Middle East and beyond, killing many people. But we will do so under these conditions: that the U.S. come back to the JCPOA and eliminate economic sanctions on Iran entirely, and on other countries, it has hamstrung with sanctions. With that we can begin to jointly consider other ideas to reduce tensions of all kinds between us and others in the Middle East.

Why even suggest such a fanciful idea for Iran’s leaders to consider? Because the idea shines a light on the glories of Islam and its divine message to humanity, and also on the Islamic Republic, but it also ensures and insures the amplification of what the Islamic Republic already has gained from the fact of the cruelties of U.S. imperialism and the insane murders of Soleimani and comrades in Iraq this past week: sympathy and empathy, both of which are often derived from the actual expression of mercy and compassion.