With strikes on Iran, Trump has chosen a path of insanity

With strikes on Iran, Trump has chosen a path of insanity
It's time to ask: Is a mental condition driving his foreign policy?

By Bill Curry
Published June 22, 2025 5:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) There's nothing quite like the U.S. entering a war to drive home the risks involved in electing a mentally ill person president. Since Israel attacked Iran, Donald Trump, the clearest example of malignant narcissism most of us have ever seen or even heard of, has rampaged about Washington — and, earlier this week, the G7 in Canada — hunting the attention he craves. With Saturday night's attacks by the U.S. on three Iranian nuclear sites, it appears he has gotten it.

There are lots of good reasons for not psychoanalyzing politicians. But when a leader suffering a severe mental illness poses a grave risk to the nation and the world, we can’t just close our eyes. We are in such a moment now.

In the lead-up to last night's airstrikes, which Trump immediately declared a "spectacular military success" in a hyperbolic 3½ minute speech from the White House, his behavior has been marked by manic outbursts and abrupt changes of course. His actions strongly suggest that his mental condition is driving his foreign policy, and that it has now drawn us into war, however limited he promises it will be, with Iran.

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Trump needs attention like Dracula needs blood, and the Israel-Iran war, in which the U.S. has now become an active participant, struck at the worst possible time in his feeding cycle. On Saturday, June 14, he’d just staged a disastrous military parade — presumably to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army, but actually held in his own honor — at which there was no John Phillips Sousa, no red white and blue bunting and, worst of all, no adoring crowds. There were only camouflaged soldiers in a silent procession closer to the Stations of the Cross than a Fourth of July parade. ...............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/06/22/with-strikes-on-iran-has-chosen-a-path-of-insanity/