Nobel Prize-winning economist Daron Acemoglu has compared Donald Trump's decision to launch a joint US-Israeli attack on Iran to a notorious episode in Zimbabwe's history - when dictator Robert Mugabe won the country's national lottery in 2000 simply "because he could."
In a column for Project Syndicate, as reported by "Hvylya", the MIT professor argues that both the military strike on Iran and the legal crackdown on AI company Anthropic serve the same purpose: demonstrating that "the existing system of rules is a farce." According to Acemoglu, once you destroy institutions constraining your power, "you can rule for personal enrichment, personal aggrandizement, or simply personal entertainment."
The economist notes that Trump "came to power promising no new foreign entanglements, especially in the Middle East" but has now launched what Acemoglu considers a potentially riskier operation than the Iraq War - "and with even flimsier justification." At the same time, a president who rails against "socialism" and "far-left Democrats" has used the state to crush a private company.
Acemoglu acknowledges that the Iranian regime was "repressive, murderous, and bad for Iranians' economic and social well-being," and that Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps "had blood on their hands." But none of this, he argues, justifies initiating a new war that lacks support from international allies or domestic buy-in.
The parallel with Mugabe is deliberate and precise. When Zimbabwe's dictator won the lottery, the damage to norms and institutions was "part of the design." In Acemoglu's reading, Trump has now achieved "Mugabe-level absurdity" - and just like in Zimbabwe, "the shock value and trampling of norms" is the entire point. Trump's personal and political credo, the economist concludes, boils down to one line: "Rules are for suckers."
Also read: George Friedman: A Nuclear 9/11 - The Fear Behind America's Strike on Iran