By Johnny Zokovitch
In 2024, more than 200 mental health professionals issued an open letter theorizing that President Trump exhibited behaviors that meet the criteria for antisocial personality disorder.
“Even a non-clinician can see that Trump shows a lifetime pattern of ‘failure to conform to social norms and laws,’ ‘repeated lying,’ ‘reckless disregard for the safety of others,’ ‘irritability,’ ‘impulsivity,’ ‘irresponsibility,’ and ‘lack of remorse,’” the letter said.
What’s interesting to me in that description is how those characteristics describe US foreign policy, and especially – at this moment – the war being waged by the US and Israel against Iran.
As the early justifications for the war on Iran from President Trump and others in his administration repeatedly hammered on the description of Iran as a “rogue state” that engaged in “terrorism,” I found myself recalling a class I took as an undergraduate student in college, General Psychology, and the first time I learned about the psychological term “projection.”
Simply put, projection happens when a person attributes to – or “projects” onto – another person or group of people negative traits that they can’t face about themselves. Projection functions as a defense mechanism, shielding one from having to acknowledge and take responsibility for ugly truths about themselves.
In the days since the first US and Israeli attacks on Iran, the Trump administration has tossed out as reasons for the war Iran’s purported threats to assassinate President Trump, their continuing efforts to build and use nuclear weapons, their plans for attacks on civilian infrastructure, “bad faith” diplomatic negotiations, imminent threats against US citizens and US allies, their failures to observe international laws and norms, their support for terrorism around the world, and the brutal repression of dissent and the killing of protesters in their own country.
Does this at all sound familiar? Even a first-year psych student would be able to see the projection taking place here.
It was Israel – with the blessing and support of the US – that assassinated another nation’s leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. No Iranian attempt has been made against President Trump.
It has been the Trump administration that has sought to expand the US nuclear arsenal, restart nuclear weapons testing, and has reneged on treaties designed to keep the world safe from nuclear threats. (And it is still ONLY the US that has ever used a nuclear weapon in war.)
The attacks on Iran have damaged necessary infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and electrical plants. More than 1,000 Iranian civilians – including more than 160 school children – have been killed. Zero US civilians have died. (Six US military service members have died since the attacks started last Saturday.)
The war began at a time when negotiators were optimistic that an agreement between the US and Iran was within reach, but the surprise bombing of Tehran while talks were still happening suggests that the US – not Iran – was negotiating in bad faith.
In the past three months, the US has ignored international laws and norms: conducting a military attack in Nigeria, bombing Venezuela and kidnapping their president, and offering continued support for Israel in their genocidal campaign in Gaza and for their illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
And while the world has universally condemned the brutality of the Iranian regime on the protests taking place in that country, the Trump administration’s record on disappearing and deporting immigrants – some of them US citizens – and violently quashing dissent, including the murders of Alex Pretti and Renée Good, suggests this administration has more in common than not with their Iranian counterparts.
Addressing the US-Israeli escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, and Iran’s subsequent response, Pope Leo reminded the world:
“Stability and peace are not built with mutual threats nor with weapons that sow destruction, pain and death, but only through a dialogue that is reasonable, authentic and responsible.”
Wise counsel that a psychologically healthy, well-adjusted person might consider.
Because right now, this US administration need not look to Iran to see what a rogue state that practices terrorism looks like. It need only look in the mirror.
Johnny Zokovitch is the former executive director of Pax Christi USA. He currently serves on the board of the Pax Christi International Fund for Peace and is in pastoral leadership at St. Cronan Catholic Church in St. Louis. Read more from Johnny at https://johnnyzokovitch.substack.com/and sign up there to receive his articles directly to your email inbox.
Johnny Z. is right on with the disgusting US President and immoral congress of the US.
This will pass in time, but the horror is now and the world will not forget the actions of the US President and Congress. We will suffer much in the future.
Sublime commentary! Thank you so much.
One does not need to be a Psychologist to form the view Mr Trump is unbalanced and a dangerous man. He is surrounded by sycophants who reflect his views. All we can do is pray he is not tempted to use the ultimate weapon and plunge the world into Armageddon
Thanks, Johnny Zokovitch, for your brave statement that won’t win you any friends amongst most of our clergy and their military-corporate donors. I’m dreading going to Mass this evening or tomorrow when we will “pray for our troops” and pretend the scores of little girls we murdered in their school near the Strait of Hormuz never happened. It is a sad day in America when the most influential public voice against this blood lust comes from the likes of a Tucker Carlson instead of from our best-known cardinals, archbishops, bishops( both Episcopalian and Catholic),evangelical Protestants and rabbinical leaders. Where are they on CNN? And yes, Big Brother has some serious mental health “issues,” but let us not forget that with our collective silence we are his co-dependents and enablers.
David-Ross Gerling, PhD