INTERVIEW A right-wing Romanian intellectual praises Trump: “While Iran was butchering its own citizens, it was not good. Now, when someone hits the dragon in the head, decisively, and it is not good”

“Trump is the only one who really, seriously, put the issue of peace, by force, it's true, both in Ukraine and in the Middle East”, believes the writer and former Romanian MEP Traian Radu Ungureanu, in an interview for the HotNews audience.

Traian Radu Ungureanu (known in the cultural world as TRU) was, from 1980 to 2003, one of the voices of the BBC. He wrote over time in various publications, after the revolution, because he had previously left the country and was banned.

Ungureanu was a member of the European Parliament in two legislatures: the 2009-2014 and 2014-2019 periods, from the PDL and PNL, respectively, and affiliated to the European People's Party (EPP) parliamentary group.

After the joint US-Israeli attack in Iran, Traian Radu Ungureanu says that the two countries are thus moving towards fulfilling a clear and well-known objective of theirs for the Middle East: “The expansion of democracy and freedom in spaces that have never had anything like this or we haven't seen them for a long time”.

He also believes that President Donald Trump and his team show “coherence and unity” in this whole context.

“It's the only possible decision if we think about the good”

– HotNews: Mr. Ungureanu, do you think that it is a good decision that Donald Trump made in the Middle East, that of attacking Iran together with Israel?
– Traian Radu Ungureanu: Yes. It is the only possible decision if we think about the good. Because the Middle East was cancerous from Iranian expansion, the imperial expansion of Iranian and military Shi'ism, which had already reached total submission in… Let's recap: Lebanon, large parts of Syria, Yemen.

Also, in the same plan there was a strong action to infiltrate Saudi Arabia. And let's not forget that Iran was the material and military patron of both Hezbollah and Hamas, probably the most serious security threat in Israel and the surrounding area.

So, therefore, Trump's decision could only be made together with Israel. The decision taken by Trump and Israel, long prepared and, as we see, very well prepared, does an enormous service both to the tens of millions of Arabs in the area and to the vast majority of Iranian citizens.

“Trump acts where leftism has destroyed”

– Do you see it as a revenge against the left, against the Democrats?
– Yes… I don't think it makes sense to politicize, I think that would mean reducing Trump and not seeing the historical dimensions of this character.

Of course, the polemical, poisonous quarrels of politics prevent us from noticing that, for example, Trump is the only one who has really, seriously put the issue of peace, by force, it is true, both in Ukraine and in the Middle East. Plus in areas for a long time, simply, destructured by the action of socialism and the leftism of politics. Whether we're talking about Venezuela or, as we'll soon see, about Cuba.

Trump and Netanyahu “are not in the business of paper production, as, unfortunately, the European Union is in business”

– What signal does Donald Trump send, through this collaboration with Israel, through which he attacked Iran?
– It gives a very normal signal. Namely, we are talking about the signal coming from two normal countries, simply, with two leaders who are finally doing their job and are not dealing with the production of papers, as, unfortunately, the entire European Union is dealing with. It gives a signal to all those who are slow to get down and start living a life where there is a chance for good.

What, after all, is wrong with America's association with Israel? It's no secret, it's old, but it has a clear goal, we all know it, the expansion of democracy and freedom in spaces that have never had anything like it or haven't seen it in a long time.

“A Welcome Hurricane”

– And for the Middle East, what do you think this conflict means? What will he look like in the future?
– For the Middle East, this means, for the first time, a welcome hurricane, a hurricane full of oxygen. There are states, populations, nations that have been suffering for decades and decades under the threat, under the domination, under the Iranian repression, which have known nothing but terrible civil wars, from one end to the other of the Middle East and which now have a chance to restore their destiny, to start, incredibly, even the Middle East, a way of life that is as efficient as possible.

“Now everything becomes possible and nothing is frozen anymore, as it was 47 years ago”

– Talk about the chance they have now. Do you think this chance will be, say, brought to fruition by the Iranian people?
– We are not in cartoons and everything will be done extremely slow and hard. Like any other great and ancient country, Iran is an extremely complicated nation, an illustrious nation of historical antiquity, but also an ocean of problems.

There will be internal dissension, there is, in quotation marks, the chance of civil war. There are still countless possible scenarios, but the most important thing is that from now on everything becomes possible and nothing is frozen like it was 47 years ago.

“Whoever thinks that Trump did what he did with the election in mind is naive or has a very low level of judgement”

– What do you think this step means for Donald Trump? I know you said we shouldn't discuss politics, but still we can't ignore the fact that there are midterm elections in the US. Do you think he will have to lose or gain domestically?
– Whoever imagines that Trump did what he did with the election in mind is naive or judges at a very low level. I don't think you start turning the world upside down just because the US parliamentary elections are coming. Of course, it will obviously do him good. But so did the victory at the National Hockey Olympics, which is a national triumph still celebrated in the United States.

I do not believe that every good thing should be devalued by putting it in the balance of the coming election. We'll see, I think Trump will lose in the coming elections, it's in the normal cycle of things, as it has been verified so many times in the history of the United States.

A president loses ground in the plan of Congress after a year or two in office, so I think we will soon forget about this hypothesis. Trump did what needed to be done and what he had been preparing for a long time.

On critics of US-Israel strike in Iran: 'Reactions that are not only embarrassing, but illogical'

– How do you see the fact that a former Republican congresswoman from Georgia, declared, after the attack on Iran by the US: “I didn't campaign for it. I didn't donate money for it. I didn't vote for itShe says it's “heartbreaking and tragic” what's happening.

– I cannot understand this kind of reaction which is not only embarrassing but is illogical and in conflict with basic common sense. As long as Iran was butchering its own citizens, it was not good. Now when someone hits the dragon in the head, decisively, and it's not good. The only thing that seems to be good is to attack Trump from the position of a former ally or from the position of a present enemy, with any weapons and from any position. It seems ridiculous to me.

By the way, I don't see where the protests are, where they were, where the protests were supposed to be against the repression in Iran, which cost thousands and thousands of lives, while the markets were full of Hamas supporters, in London, in Paris, in Berlin, in Washington. I don't see Why did nothing then matter about what was happening in Iran, and why is there now a silence sometimes broken by such cynical remarks about American imperialism?

At the end of the day, all this illogical nonsense comes down to one thing: that there are people who must blame America and Israel for whatever they do, at all times and forever. This is not politics, it is simply mania.

Trump and his team have shown “evidence of coherence and unity”

– Is it possible to see more people from President Trump's camp showing their disagreement with these actions in the coming days?
– No, I don't see it… It seems to me that Trump does not have a team problem, so far the Trump team or the decision-making circle around him have shown coherence and unity. I haven't seen anything behind the scenes. So I don't see anything like that. Obviously in politics things can change, obviously people can start to have their own ambitions, but this is something, after all, and I don't say it with joy, something human.

For now, what I see is that the functional, American decision-making block at the top of the US is working very well. With a coherence that other administrations did not have both in terms of vision and in executive matters.

Criticism of the European Union: “Huge production of papers and summits”

– Would you like to add anything else relevant to the HotNews audience on this topic?
– Yes, there is something more to say, I think there is, unfortunately, a big loser at this end of the world in Iran and the Middle East. And he is Europe. By which, I mean the European Union, more precisely, the leading group at the top of the European Union, represented by the Commission and the leaders of the front-line states, so to speak, primarily Germany, France and England, which are… Not that they are on the edge, they are nowhere.

The famous Coalition of the Will died without ever having expressed its will, apart from an enormous output of papers and summits. The urgency does not seem to touch… It does not enter the perception of the European ensemble, which decided to meet on Monday, almost 72 hours after what was to be played was played in Iran.

It's a bad sign and, unfortunately, I don't have the impression at all that the European whole will draw a line and understand what is to be understood from all that has happened.