Try Not to Laugh

It’s going to take me a while to get to the point of this column, but please try to stay with me.

During the waning days of 1977, President Jimmy Carter traveled to Poland — a nation still under the thumb of the Soviet Union but with the first stirrings of trouble for the local Communist hierarchy. So, it was an important, symbolic and substantive trip that included stops not only in Poland but also in six other European nations.

Carter had been president for less than a year, and he wanted to make a good impression on the global stage. During introductory remarks at the Warsaw airport, Carter spoke of his hopes to improve East-West relations, and he stated a wish to learn about the Polish people’s desires for the future.

Unfortunately for Carter, the translator working that day butchered his remarks in Polish in the most embarrassing way imaginable. When Carter said he had left the United States that very morning, the bemused Poles heard that he had left America and never intended to return. What?

When Carter said he hoped to learn about Poland’s wishes for the future, it was translated that he desired the Polish people in a very carnal way. I remember the New York Times reported Carter had been mistranslated into wanting to understand the Poles’ deepest sexual yearnings.

When Carter said simply that he was happy to be in Poland, the hapless translator told the crowd Carter had said he was “happy to grasp at Poland’s private parts.”

I remember reading about the Polish politburo’s reaction to this nonsense as they stood on the welcome stand. Communist Party boss Edward Gierek was said to have elbowed the ribs of one of his colleagues whose shoulders were visibly shaking. But this obviously was a mistake and certainly not Carter’s fault.

Why do I write about this now? Because I think the Iranian reaction to our current president’s cockamamie peace proposal is probably similar to the guffaws the Poles tried hard to muffle all those years ago. AI tells me “what the hell?” can be translated into Farsi as “chi be chiye?” I suspect there was a lot of that going around Tehran today. Unlike Carter, Trump hasn’t been mistranslated. He means what he says or at least thinks he does.

I mean, you bomb the hell out of their country, you assassinate their head ayatollah, you threaten to completely wipe out Persian civilization for all time, and then you suggest Iran might like to join the Abraham accords?? Oh sure, no harm no foul, right? Chi be chiye indeed!

Trump’s tour d’horizon envisions Iranians eagerly jumping into bed with the Saudis, their mortal enemies, in a festive y’all come recognition of Israel. He’s invited Turkey, which, um, already has diplomatic relations with the Jewish State. And he offered the same invitation to Jordan and Egypt, which, excuse me, Mr. President, have abided by peace treaties with Jerusalem for decades. Trump threw in offers to Pakistan and Qatar too, saying they “should be ready to sign up to the agreement.”

Uh huh.

You have to hand it to Trump He has this child-like, stumble-bum optimism about the world he thinks he can bend to his will. This is all apart from his foolish attempt to offer the mullahs blandishments to entice them to end the war Trump started. The mullahs don’t appear to be in much of a hurry, do they? This war has so far resulted in Iran not giving up their nuclear ambitions, their ballistic missiles or their chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, to say nothing of the theocracy there absolutely not giving way to the dawn of a new democratic day. Sheesh!

It’s not that Trump isn’t holding any cards, it’s that he doesn’t seem to know where the deck is. And here’s the best part: everybody around him is telling him he’s a genius, that he is outfoxing the Iranians, not the other way around. Really? How many times has he blustered about what he’s going to do to the Iranians and then never done it? How often has he told us the war will be over in two days or weeks or months? It’s all going splendidly, he tells us.

But if we’re winning this war, why are we the ones always suing for peace? Isn’t that what the losing side usually does? You have to be really incompetent to get the short end of the stick in this conflict. Iran was nowhere near our match militarily before our attack. What about now? His aides told him this would be a cakewalk, and must have omitted the part about the cake weighing 10,000 lbs.

And now we hear the U.S. struck Iranian missile launch sites Monday night and attacked boats laying mines.

According to the New York Times, Capt. Tim Hawkins of the Central Command, said it “continues to defend our forces while using restraint during the ongoing cease-fire.”

Doesn’t sound like peace is at hand, does it?