This is an opinion column.

Donald Trump and I agree. I know, some of you may need to take a minute before reading on. I’ll wait …

… Better now?

As I was saying, Trump and I agree: We both want peace. I want it just because.

War, huh, yeah.

What is it good for?

Absolutely nothing.

Say it again, y’all

– “War” Lyrics. Edwin Starr

Trump wants it, too. Desperately. He craves it — rather, he craves credit for it.

The president claims he should have already won as many as five Nobel Peace Prizes. He said that after one of his buddies — humiliated Republican former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, who withdrew as Trump’s U.S. attorney general nominee after drug and sex trafficking allegations — chimed Trump should be awarded the coveted prize if he brokered a nuclear stand-down in Israel and Iran.

“If Trump pulled that off,” Gaetz reportedly said on his One America News Network Show, “they wouldn’t just give him the Nobel Peace Prize, they’d rename it the Trump Peace Prize.”

Of course, Trump didn’t douse such ludicrousness. He poured gas and tossed a match of disillusionment.

“They should give me the Nobel prize for Rwanda — and have you looked — the Congo? You could say Serbia-Kosovo. You could say a lot of them. The big one is India and Pakistan. I should have gotten it four or five times. I should get it for the … Abraham Accords [2020 deals between Israel and Arab nations] would be a good one too.”

We all know by now that Trump dropped bombs on Iran last Saturday night, though we still don’t exactly yet know what they hit or the true extent of the damage.

Soon after the attacks, Trump called the operation a “spectacular military success,” adding that Iran’s nuclear arsenal was “completely and totally obliterated.”

That doesn’t quite jibe with our very own internal intelligence assessment reportedly said the attacks only set back Tehran’s nuclear calendar by a few months.

Trump was so quick to claim the attack prompted peace that he dropped an F-bomb on the rest of us on Monday when it looked as if the initial cease-fire was more of a shaky sheesh fire.

He then repeated his bloated “obliteration” assertion following the NATO summit Wednesday in the Netherlands.

Whatever the state of the truce, the president and I are on one accord: We want peace.

Here’s the stain on any claim that Trump’s action — and it’s clear this was his action, not Congress’ as it should constitutionally be), nor the will of the preponderance of Americans — merits a peace prize.

Peace isn’t piecemeal. And there are no part-time peacemakers.

Trump isn’t worthy of recognition for garnering peace in the Middle East while he disturbs the peace at home—and elsewhere.

There’s no prize for ripping peace from families — from hard-working, dream-striving brown people across the nation (like the more than 30 folks ICE’ed Tuesday while building a $131 million school in Mobile — because they lack a piece of paper.

There’s no prize for disrupting the peace of possibility by slashing investment in scientific research such that it threatens future treatments and cures that could save the lives of our children, our grands and beyond.

There’s no prize for slashing foreign aid that has already begun to undo 25 years of progress — of peace — against AIDS and other diseases in Africa. “Kids are going to die,” says billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates.

There’s no prize for ramming a big bloated bill down the throats of Americans that, among other atrocities, proposes massive cuts to Medicare, Medicaid (after lying that the programs won’t be touched) and food assistance programs that, in Alabama, support 7,800 jobs and $350 million in wages and provide food to nearly 400,000 households and 333,590 children in the state.

There’s no prize for turning on farmers, among the very voters who supported you.

There’s no prize for swiping white-out on anything that celebrates, recognizes — that sees — the collage of color comprising our nation. Or for specifically aiming to eradicate the teaching of Black (American) history.

There’s no prize for punishing references to women or anything not cisgender in programs or grants seeking to address clear, unlawful and unethical disparities, efforts that largely aid white women.

There’s no prize for shuttering Job Corps, which has helped thousands of young people pursue productive careers when they might have otherwise faltered.

There’s no prize for doing all of this, and more, to lower taxes for the wealthy while touting that the people being hurt most are not a “priority” of this administration.

Trump craves credit for dropping bombs on Iran that spurred a tenuous peace while dropping bombs on us every day.

There’s no prize for obliterating our peace.

Let’s be better tomorrow than we are today. My column appears on AL.com, and digital editions of The Birmingham News, Huntsville Times, and Mobile Press-Register. Tell me what you think at [email protected], and follow me at twitter.com/roysj, Instagram @roysj and BlueSky.