What quality Trump has, better than any street thug.

 An NBC News interviewer asks:

Whom?

Iran's Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi.

"Do you trust Trump?"

Anyone hearing this question would laugh, and laughter is the fitting response.

Along with a counter-question: who is this Trump that he should be trusted?

Asking again, in bewilderment: why would anyone trust Trump, or why should they?

And pointing out precisely what quality Trump has, better than any street thug, that would earn him respect.

It was a question that inspired contempt for the one asking it.

So on hearing it, the only path left to anyone is to stifle a laugh at the questioner's wretched plight, a maddening fate.

A mocking laugh that comes only at the sight of a foolish king's nakedness.

A mocking laugh at the questioner's servility toward a naked occupying power.

A laugh at a question that the occupier's shoe-lickers love to ask.

Araghchi should have replied that he didn't understand the question.

With the counter-question: Trump is not the name of some new god or avatar to be believed in, is it?

Araghchi should also have asked back whether there is anyone in the world, or could ever be, who trusts Trump.

Is the questioner mistakenly calling the fear of military might "trust"?

I don't know.

People fear thugs not out of trust but out of distrust.

Fear of thugs comes from the insecurity that distrust creates.

Did the NBC questioner fail to grasp this?

Is the NBC questioner sugar-coating with chocolate the act of cowering and cringing before a threat, and calling it trust?

Is the fear produced by someone's distrust and suspicion of Trump "trust"?

The fear of the danger this reckless man creates, and the submission that fear breeds: is that trust?

Submission born of fear is nothing but helplessness.

Lambs do not trust or respect wild beasts; they distrust them.

Sensing danger through that distrust, they fear it in advance.

Not just Third World countries like India, but even many European countries known as the First World are living in fear.

When military power is in a fool's hands, everyone should be afraid. That is America and Trump.

Especially when that fool uses his weapons and power:

To portray wisdom as foolishness,

To turn the wise into fools,

To pass off truth as falsehood,

To punish truthful and good people by branding them extremists and terrorists.

Someone who tries to rule the world driven by profit alone will cause any kind of harm.

Someone who decides good and evil, right and wrong, solely to benefit himself and his cronies.

The fear is of the weapons and power of this foolish, vile man and his gang;

Beyond that, no one has any faith in his or his gang's justice or truth.

Everyone else lives in fear caused by the fool and his folly, and in the helplessness that fear brings.

Then in the servility that helplessness creates, in spinelessness.

The language of their servility is not that of wisdom, courage, principle or dignity.

Either it is falling silent, for lack of any alternative, against the aggressor's aggression.

Or it is a cruel, sportive "neutrality" of silence.

They become dogs waiting outside Trump's doorstep for the scraps, bones and thorns they imagine he will toss to them.

Abbas Araghchi did not say he failed to understand the question; he should have.

Saying he didn't understand the question would have been the best possible answer.

He should also have answered by asking back: why should anyone trust Trump, does anyone in the world actually trust him, would they in any way?

But as Iran's foreign minister, within what his judgment allowed, he did something else instead.

Another firm reply:

"Our trust is in ourselves."

A dignified, spirited reply that does not lick the shoes of occupying powers: a reply overflowing with Araghchi's wisdom.

A firm reply that their faith lies in God, in divine truth, in social justice, in non-exploitative ideals of faith.

Not that anyone, Iran included, should trust outsiders:

Not the enemy who lies in wait to attack, not the one who hunts down the weak, attacks them and steals their wealth.

Not the one who attacks and exploits the unarmed while they are still unarmed.

Not those who wear the veil of deceit and hypocrisy.

Not those who, veiled, call you to talks and attack you during the talks and under cover of them.

Our trust is in standing with heads held high, without cringing before occupying fascist powers, and in ourselves, standing that way.