Many years ago, there was a professor of law (I do not recall his name) who asked what is most important: that justice is fully done, or that it appears as though it is? The professor held the latter view.
When we speak of politics, the most important thing is not whether something serves an alleged purpose, but whether the politicians manage to present their endeavours as serving a purpose.
A typical example is the “climate struggle”. Here, politicians have succeeded in selling a solution to a problem that does not exist. If one follows the regular updates on Climate4You (look it up), one will realise that there is no “climate crisis”, and that there will not be one in the foreseeable future.
If we were on our way towards doom, there would, moreover, be nothing politicians could do to avert it. All they can do is empty people’s pockets in order to benefit various climate profiteers, who are adept at securing themselves a place at the public trough.
Reality, in political terms, is not real. The real is what one can make the voters believe, while concealing who benefits from this narrative.
We are seeing it these days in connection with the Iran war.
It does not help Donald Trump that his military has eliminated large parts of the power apparatus of the Allah-regime and for the time being has cut off its opportunity to acquire nuclear weapons.
Politically, what is decisive is which narrative he can sell to the population. One can always endorse Trump’s endeavours to spare the world a Shia Hiroshima, but if it does not appear as though that is his plan, his opponents will have an easy game.
Trump’s opponents in the USA and Europe prefer that the executioners in Tehran continue to finance terror and slaughter their own citizens, and therefore they spread a narrative that he is in the process of losing.
The American president undoubtedly has a cunning plan for how he shall bring Iran’s deranged extremists to downfall, but what use is that when he sends out contradictory messages about his war aims?
If the plans are so intricate that no one understands them, they may be as brilliant as they please, but they are unsellable in the political market.