When Donald Trump says in relation to Iran that “we’ll just keep bombing our little hearts out”, he gives voice to the murderous puerility of his war. As with a kid pulling the wings off flies, this brutality is its own purpose. And in this it is the logical conclusion of a process of ultraviolent futility that has been under way since the second World War. In his definitive The Bombing War: Europe, 1939-1945, Richard Overy says that “the bombing offensives in the second World War were all relative failures in their own terms. The horrific failure of mass bombing in the second World War has been repeated again and again.

Source: The Irish Times March 31, 2026 06:31 UTC