Speaking at the Doha Forum in Qatar last week, Mnuchin made a virtue of the US imposing economic sanctions on countries it dislikes because such measures, he claimed, were a way to avoid the worse alternative of war.

“The reason why we’re using sanctions is because they are an important alternative for world military conflicts,” said the US Treasury Secretary.

The sleight of hand here is to portray Washington as somehow being more responsible and principled in its foreign policy by using coercion against other nations supposedly without harming civilians, damaging infrastructure or spilling blood.

Billionaire Mnuchin is living in a bubble of American propaganda if he thinks that economic sanctions are some kind of sterile lever which do not have any impact on human suffering. Sanctions are acts of war, conducted as other means to troop invasions, air strikes and naval blockades.

International lawyer and former UN diplomat Alfred de Zayas calls the sanctions imposed by the US on Venezuela “economic terrorism”. Tens of thousands of Venezuelans are estimated to have died as a result of Washington’s tightening embargo on the South American country since 2017.

Iran’s government has also condemned US sanctions on its nation as “economic terrorism”. So too has Syria, North Korea and Cuba – the latter having been embargoed by the US for nearly six decades without relent.

Typically, sanctioned countries cannot import vital medicines and medical equipment due to US restrictions on banking systems and trade. That leads to premature deaths from terminal illnesses that go untreated, and to worsening health of vulnerable sections of the population, the young and elderly. Less perceptibly, but no less real, is increased mortality from general deprivation caused by sanctions-hit economies.

Remember how former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright infamously admitted on national TV that American sanctions killed 500,000 children in Iraq during the 1990s, and with monstrous callousness added, “it was worth it”.

Steve Mnuchin claims with barefaced lies that US sanctions do not impinge on humanitarian supplies to targeted countries. That is contradicted by independent international observers who have visited Syria, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela and North Korea where US sanctions have decimated public health services. See this article by independent journalist Eva Bartlett who visited several of the aforementioned countries.

Indeed, the whole purpose of sanctions is to deliberately ravage populations in order to provoke widespread social instability and ultimately regime change.

The practice of unilateral sanctions by the US should be banned under international law as a form of aggression against nations. It is an act of war and, without just cause of self-defense, is therefore a war crime.

Mnuchin’s cynicism pretends that sanctions are a valid legal instrument of foreign policy which are qualitatively different from military warfare. His nauseating attempt to claim that the US is acting with restraint by using sanctions “instead of war” is absurd.

Sanctions are part of the US arsenal to harass and subjugate other nations which Washington deems to be recalcitrant to achieving its geopolitical objectives.

Historically it is seen that economic assault on countries is often the prelude to all-out war. The good “alternative” that Mnuchin talks of is delusional.

Recall how US sanctions against Japan in the 1930s aimed at cutting off the latter’s oil imports led to Japan precipitating the Pacific War with the attacks on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Arguably, the war’s inception was not at Pearl Harbor, but rather found in the prior US policy of strangulating Japan economically.

That’s what makes the current sanctions on Iran by the Trump administration a matter of grave concern. The US economic blockade seems aimed at forcing Iran to make a retaliatory move which would then be cited by Washington as “justifying” American military action. But let’s put those sanctions in proper context. They were imposed unilaterally by the Trump administration when it tore up its signature in May 2018 to the treaty-binding international nuclear accord. Bad faith has been followed by economic aggression, which may, in turn, lead to open military aggression. Thus, sanctions are part of a sliding scale of war, not some abstract benign alternative to war, as the US Treasury Secretary likes to pretend.

What is more disturbing is the increasing use of sanctions as a normal foreign policy by the Trump administration.

The list of nations under US sanctions continues to grow. In addition to countries mentioned above are several others, primarily Russia and China. Countless layers of sanctions originated by the Obama administration have been added on to Moscow by the Trump presidency. The vague and unverified nature of US claims invoked to implement these sanctions against Russia are in themselves provocative.

The threat of American sanctions against Russia’s Nord Stream-2 mega project for increasing gas exports to Europe is perhaps the most egregious example of using economic instruments gratuitously to pursue geopolitical interests. Not only Russia but also European “allies” of the US are being threatened with sanctions over Nord Stream-2.

Nord Stream-2 clearly illustrates how US sanctions are another instrument of unlawful aggression and coercion for achieving American interests.

The complacency of Mnuchin’s virtue-signaling belies a brutal truth. Far from avoiding war, Washington is more and more at war with the rest of the planet by using economic aggression, terrorism and bullying.

The would-be US hegemon is increasingly out of control, no longer restrained by the superficial need for appearance of legal niceties. The international tensions it is stoking by its wanton tyranny are creating a dangerous threshold. US economic warfare through sanctions has ensured that catastrophic military war is but one fatal slip away.

Ms. Trump’s husband failed to impress anyone a week earlier after his long-awaited and overly hyped Middle East “peace plan” was presented at a “workshop” in Manama, Bahrain. Dubbed “Peace to Prosperity,” Kushner’s plan more resembled a real estate development prospectus brochure than a bona fide peace proposal between the Palestinians and Israelis. The Palestinians and some Arab nations were wise to consider Kushner’s plan “dead on arrival.” Kushner’s and Trump’s real estate companies are known mainly for bankruptcies and fraud. In reality, Kushner’s plan foresees the Palestinians selling their land to developers in a get-rich-quick scheme. No where did the plan mention the political status of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, or the Palestinian diaspora’s right of return.

Kushner’s call for Gulf and other investors to ante up $50 billion over a ten-year time frame for infrastructure development, which includes a $5 billion transport link between the Gaza Strip and West Bank, appeared to be more a get-rich scheme for Kushner, his friends, and Trump’s cronies. The only people who seemed excited about Kushner’s contrivance included former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, founder of Skybridge Capital, and Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of the Blackstone Group and chairman of Trump’s short-lived Strategic and Policy Forum, both of whom were in Manama to praise Kushner’s initiative. Billionaire US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said of Kushner’s plan, “It’s going to be like a hot IPO [initial public offering].”

Kushner’s plan was rightly panned for being an unrealistic project concocted by someone who counts Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as a close friend. In concert with orders from Netanyahu and two other Kushner compatriots – former Trump attorneys David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel, and Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s adviser on Israel – the issue of Palestinian sovereignty was not included in the “peace plan.”

While Kushner failed to impress anyone in Bahrain with his peace plan nonsense, his wife, Ivanka, made an utter fool out of herself and the United States by appearing center stage at the G20 Summit. Rarely was Ms. Trump absent from photographs of the gathered world leaders. A short video link was released by the Élysée Palace in Paris showing Ms. Trump attempting to barge in on a conversation between French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde, and British Prime Minister Theresa May. It is clear from the audio that Trump’s daughter was way out of her league and her insertions of babbling nonsense failed to impress the four leaders, three of whom are responsible for major nations and one for an important international organization. Ms. Trump has only been responsible for using her White House position to enrich her portfolio of handbag, clothing, perfume, footwear, and jewelry companies.

Trump’s neo-conservative war hawk national security adviser, John Bolton, did not accompany the president to Panmunjom. North Korea has made no secret of its dislike for Bolton, an opinion that is shared by many other countries and a sizable percentage of Americans. Instead, Bolton was banished to Ulan Bator, Mongolia, where he conducted talks with Mongolian state security secretary Davaasuren Damdinsuren. Bolton’s place in Panmunjom was taken by Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who would not even have a job in the television business had it not been for the fact that his father, Dick Carlson, was a past president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and director of the Voice of America. Together with Ms. Trump and Kushner, Tucker Carlson made up the US contingent in Panmunjom for the first ever “visit” by a sitting US president to North Korean soil. In fact, two past presidents, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, accomplished much more during their post-presidential visits to North Korea than did Trump for a self-serving “photo op.”

When it comes to the G20 leaders, regardless of politics, it can be safely said that Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minster Narendra Modi, South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa are in a class by themselves when it comes to experienced practitioners of geo-political statecraft.

At the other end of the spectrum, where inexperienced and outright stupid novices roam, is found Trump and Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro. During a joint press conference in Osaka, Trump was asked about President Putin’s belief that “western liberalism” was on the political ropes. Trump, obviously unfamiliar with the concept advanced during the Age of Enlightenment by such 17^th and 18^th century figures as John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Baron Montesquieu – it should be firmly stated that anyone who ever took a college political science or history course is familiar with the refrain “Hobbes, Locke, and Montesquieu” – began blathering about liberal Democratic cities in California, specifically mentioning Los Angeles and San Francisco. In a cringeworthy moment, Trump incredulously said, “I guess you look at what’s happening in Los Angeles, where it’s so sad to look, and what’s happening in San Francisco, and a couple other cities which are run by an extraordinary group of liberal people.”

It is of little wonder why Trump only seems to bond with Bolsonaro, an admirer of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Bolsonaro is a disciple of the Richmond, Virginia-based Brazilian polemicist, Olavo de Carvalho. A fierce opponent of former Brazilian Presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, Carvalho rejects Copernican, Newtonian, and Einsteinian physics, choosing to believe that the Earth does not revolve around the sun; that the concept of infinite numbers, as well as manmade climate change, are hoaxes; that there was no such thing as the Spanish Inquisition; that vaccinations kill people or make them crazy; and that Pepsi sweetened its drinks with aborted human fetuses. Carvalho has also said that there is insufficient evidence to prove whether the Earth is flat or a sphere. No wonder Trump and Bolsonaro admire one another. They have become the antithesis of the Age of Enlightenment. They represent a modern “Age of Stupidity.”

One could easily dismiss those like Carvalho as lunatic gadflies. However they have powerful admirers and cohorts, as witnessed in March 2019 at the Trump International Hotel in Washington. Former Trump adviser and campaign strategist Steve Bannon co-hosted a screening of a complementary film about Carvalho. Present was President Bolsonaro’s son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, a representative for South America of Bannon’s global fascist “Movement.” Following the screening of the film, Carvalho declared that all journalists are drug addicts. While many journalists do enjoy their adult beverage of choice, such a Trump-like statement by the political guru of Bannon and Bolsonaro provides further evidence that our world has entered the Age of Stupidity, where up is no longer down, facts are considered false, and imbeciles like Trump and Bolsonaro, along with their corrupt families, now govern major nation-states.