It is one thing to revel in the fact that you have become the world’s policeman. It is another thing altogether to enforce that policing role upon the world.
US President Donald Trump
It is one thing to revel in the fact that you have become the world’s policeman. It is another thing altogether to enforce that policing role upon the world. Donald Trump came to power in January thinking that he would set the world right. First, he tried to enforce an Israeli-Hamas truce. It took weeks in the making and only a day to unmake. Trump has practically handed Gaza to Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to do with as he wishes. Netanyahu has once again unleashed his worst impulses on Gaza’s Muslims.
Trump came up with a harebrained scheme to displace Gaza’s two million Muslims to his Arab vassals, Egypt and Jordan. Egypt and Jordan do not want any more Palestinians in their territory and shrewdly outmaneuvered Trump. Nothing more is heard about Trump’s grand plan. Then Trump thought that he would end the Russian-Ukrainian war by bending over backwards for his friend, Vladimir Putin of Russia. Trump wanted to reward Putin’s aggression but President Zelenskyy of Ukraine would have none of it.
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Trump proposed a carpet-bagging minerals deal to Zelenskky, which the latter has only now reluctantly signed. Zelenskyy is caught in a bind. Trump has suspended military aid to Ukraine. Without American military aid, Ukraine will surely lose the war. It remains to be seen how much aid Trump restores after the minerals deal, but it doesn’t seem like it would be enough to thwart the Russians. Another flashpoint in the world is South Asia. There India and Pakistan are engaged in another round of war games. Asked about the tensions, Trump said that they have been going on for 1,500 years.
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The statement just exemplified Trump’s ignorance. Islam came into being about 1,400 years ago. The first Arabic marauders invaded India only in the eighth century, that means about 1,300 years ago. Islam became entrenched in India only circa 1,200, which means 900 years ago. Trump either doesn’t read his history or he’s winging it. It seems that he’s given a few talking points by his aides and he just recites them. He thinks that he is a brainiac, that he has a complete mastery of every issue.
And he has surrounded himself with a bunch of inexperienced people. Consider Marco Rubio. He’s the top diplomat of the US. But Rubio has very little experience in foreign affairs. When he was a United States senator, he served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. That’s the extent of his experience in foreign policy. His utterances against China were so foul that he is persona non grata in China. Imagine that! Your top diplomat is not allowed to enter your number one competitor. Rubio is photogenic. Elon Musk told him that he looked good on TV. That was about it. Furthermore, Trump has hampered him by surrounding him with special envoys – a special envoy for the Middle East, one for Russia, and one even for special things. Rubio has been known to criticize Putin, a targeting that has surely not gone down well with his boss.
Frustrated with the RussianUkrainian talks, Rubio now wants to pull out of the mediation within days. As America’s top diplomat, he should know that it is easy to break things and much harder to mend them. Imagine. Amongst a sea of Pete Hegseths populating Trump’s cabinet, Rubio is considered one of the more capable people there. Coming to South Asia, there was a terrible terror strike originating from Pakistan in India’s Kashmir region, which killed 26 Hindus. India and Pakistan have been on the brink of war for days. Trump cited their history of tensions and said that they would work out the matter between themselves.
It seems that with Trump, it’s become an issue of being twice bitten (Gaza and Ukraine), thrice shy. The mood in India is palpable, as palpable as the wind across one’s cheek in a frozen Midwestern plain. People in India want revenge for the terror strike. India is led by a decisive prime minister, Narendra Modi, who will not back down until Pakistan makes significant concessions like deposing its army chief, Asim Munir, who is believed to be behind the terror strike. Munir felt that the US was too preoccupied with Gaza and Ukraine and therefore he had his chance to beat up India. It is only one week after the strike that Rubio reportedly talked to his counterparts in India and Pakistan.
India is baying for Pakistani blood; Pakistan is happy internationalizing the Kashmir dispute. If India attacks Pakistan, Pakistan will counterattack, which escalation could quickly lead to a nuclear exchange. South Asia has suddenly become the most dangerous flashpoint in the world, but both Trump and Rubio are blasé in handling it. The first 100 days of the Trump administration have been manic. There has been no particular focus on anything whatsoever. Trump drowned himself with self-imposed tariffs, which led to a stock market crash, sky-high inflation, and a stalling economy, leave alone the damage they have wrought to America’s standing in the world. Now Trump doesn’t have the bandwidth to deal with global crises. His attention span was always short. With age, he’s becoming ever more weary. His first 100 days have been tumultuous. It foreshadows turbulent governance. What was the rhyme… .Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall….
(The writer is an expert on energy and contributes regularly to publications in India and overseas.)
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