NORTH CAROLINA - On March 13, a “Friday the 13th” by the way, a date in the West anyway often considered to be full of bad news, bad luck and bad omens -- a superstition to be sure – U.S. President Donald Trump was ebullient and bragging that the U.S. stock markets had one of its best days ever. The U.S. equity market climbed almost 10 percent on the 13th after a previous several days of what can only be termed a serious mauling by the proverbial “bear”. No, the U.S. equity market did not make up its losses so far this winter, and in fact closed lower than the highs made just before the vicious recession of 2008-09 that affected the entire world.

What was really bad news on Friday the 13th for the world was more of the same – more evidence that the Trump Administration and much of the entire U.S. government is merely thrashing about destructively with no positive policies or agenda or the leadership required to stem the ongoing tsunami of the Coronavirus pandemic that is blossoming in the U.S. now exponentially, but also in many locations around the world and perhaps especially in Iran and points farther east in Asia. Furthermore, the relief rally in the markets are bound to be erased and then some, dramatically during this Spring season and beyond.

With Trump (and his gang), who have not a scintilla of real concern or empathy for a world in the grip of a dangerous, even murderous, grippe, it appears to be business as usual: vilifying other countries, dropping bombs on other countries like Iraq and Yemen, supporting terrorists in Syria, denying aid to others – which in Iran’s case would be the cancellation of the sanctions (which Iran has requested) and much, much more.

In the U.S. Trump has ordered some travel bans, for example forbidding citizens of the E.U. travel to the U.S., but not, notably, British citizens. Why? Some believe because Trump has private real estate, business interests, in Britain. (He always thinks of himself first.) But even so, health experts are saying the bans that have been enacted don’t do anything much to halt the pandemic spread even in the U.S. It’s too little, too late. It is predicted that maybe 20 percent of those who become ill with the virus will need hospitalization, and in most of those cases major interventions in intensive care facilities in U.S. hospitals, and there are not enough of such ICU beds, not enough equipment like ventilators in the U.S. to handle the predicted caseloads. Some experts have said that by early May U.S. hospitals will be literally swamped by ill patients and unable to cope very well, as may be occurring in Iran and some others countries now. I, for one, am hearing this, too, from a son, Dr. Sean Love, 33, who happens to be a “critical care” resident doctor at one of the top three hospitals in the U.S., Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. But is there anything at all positive about what is happening worldwide now?

For one thing, some leading writers are now claiming that Trump is finished and has little to no chance of being reelected in November. This depends, of course, on the degree and depth of growing perceptions about Trump’s incompetence as well as his selfish myopia and his politicization about the suffering in other countries, particularly those countries that have a majority Muslim population like Iran.

This fact may well sum up the situation: the U.S. has been bombing Iraqis amid the virus outbreak while other countries, especially China, are delivering experts and medical aid and drugs and equipment to fight the virus. Mahan Air, for example, apparently delivered eight plane loads of aid to Iran from China, and that airline is under U.S. sanctions. And that’s not all that China, the country hardest hit by a virus that may have been deliberately planted in the country by the U.S. back in October, is trying to do to assist. Iranians will never forget China in this regard.

But Trump may be finished politically, and that’s important, claim some observers. Not only has he failed the American people in putting in place effective policies to halt the virus, but more and more Americans are finally realizing that he is unfit intellectually, temperamentally and morally to be President.

Even a few still lonely voices in the U.S. Congress like Muslim Rep. Ilhan Omer believe the U.S. ought to drop sanctions against Iran. A crisis always ultimately reveals such flaws as Trump has always possessed, not that it already hasn’t been revealed since 2016 to discerning minds. Trump is a man of no character and no real leadership ability. He has always been little but a con artist, which is not news to Iranians especially.

Maybe, just maybe, this medical crisis sweeping across the globe is going to prove so devastating that it will reorder thinking generally, especially in the corrupted West: that humanity hasn’t a chance of a decent future unless virulent nationalism and hegemonic pretensions are dropped and the species finally understands that cooperation and mutual aid are absolutely necessary.