TRUMP’S CANTANKEROUS LEADERSHIP A BAD OMEN FOR WORLD PEACE

Claims about the activities of the US government-aligned institutions such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and USAID, among others, give credence to discourse about a systematic fermentation of chaos in international relations.

USAID has been whittled down since the triumphant return of President Donald Trump to the White House. Trump ascended to the Oval Office on stern promises that he would put an end to the forever wars involving the US at a staggering cost of trillions of taxpayers’ dollars.

Lo and behold, hardly a year in office, Trump has sown more chaos in geopolitics than his two predecessors – Barrack Obama and Joe Biden, put together.

Predictably, Trump’s boisterous political base of Make America Great Again, better-known as MAGA, is reeling in disbelief at the billionaire-turned-politician’s sudden adoption of a chameleon character, spectacularly changing tag both shamelessly and effortlessly.

But then, voters are no fools and any act of disingenuity targeted at them is wont to be punished at the polls. In the case of the US, the mid-term elections are scheduled to take place in a matter of six months – November. Judging by CNN’s and a number of other polls, Trump is skating on thin ice. I dare say, for the man who has abandoned the bulk of his base, the writing is on the wall: Mene mene tekel upharsin.

Shakespeare, that English master writer and story-teller, would probably say to Trump today: Beware the Ides of March, just as Julius Caesar was warned by a soothsayer in Shakespeare’s tragedy named after the main character himself, Julius Caesar.

But Trump notwithstanding, the US has pursued a consistent America First foreign policy irrespective of the party in power – be it Democrats or Republicans. At various intervals of history, empirical evidence shows that the insatiable thirst to maintain the US hegemony has borne cantankerous outcomes throughout history.

Examples are too many to list in full. However, the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 comes to mind. It featured the killing of the sitting head of state, Saddam Hussein. In 2011, the US led the military onslaught on the wealthy African nation, Libya, and aided the local rebellion groups to easily topple the government of a Pan-Africanist leader, Muammar Gaddafi. Like Saddam Hussein before him Gaddafi, too, was killed in the carefully manufactured chaos, having been raped prior.

And then of course, who can forget the 20 years that the US laid a siege of Afghanistan after accusing the Taliban of a hand in the horrific events of 9/11? Dramatically twenty years later the Taliban returned to power, causing the US military to flee in public ignominy.

There is no single country that boasts a similar number of military bases on foreign lands as the US. Through either sophisticated intelligence services or brazen military expedition, the US uses various complex methodologies through dubious agencies such as the NED and USAID to take over the agenda-setting lead role in far-flung countries through overt or covert funding of NGO’s and the media in particular.

Thus, it is not only the purview of the US military to enforce compliance with Washington’s foreign policy objectives, but also the impact of soft power agencies that play an equally important role in the amplification of the US propaganda on various issues.

Ultimately, regime-change agenda remains the key performance requirement of the US military and soft-power agencies. Therefore, the offer of foreign aid comes laced with the trappings of subjugation. The fact that the US has remained as the only superpower following the end of the Cold War has enabled Washington’s unhindered extension of dangerous tentacles throughout the global community. At the G7, where the world’s leading economies converge, the US remains the elephant in the room. At the UN Security Council, whose resolutions are binding under international law, the US has used its veto power to thwart dozens of resolutions aimed at curbing Israel’s genocidal program in Palestine. Lebanon has lately borne the brunt of Israel’s wrath following Hezbollah’s confrontation with the Israeli Defence Force (IDF).

Neighbouring Arab states that survive despite their close proximity to Israel include Egypt and Jordan, whose “good behavior” towards Israel has earned them handsome rewards in the form of bilateral economic deals with the US. Additionally, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries were persuaded to adopt Israel-friendly foreign policy in exchange for military support and economic cooperation with the US.

As things stand, the GCC is caught between a rock and hard place. In the ongoing US/Israeli war on Iran, Tehran has adopted an unforeseen retaliatory strategy of asymmetric warfare, targeting every US military base and related interests across the six GCC countries that include Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.

The evidence of the domineering US hegemony at the heart of unipolar posture in global affairs is not hard to see. It manifests itself in the collective silence of leading nations in the world over the transgression of international law by the omnipotent US. At best, muted criticism comes from the Global South quarters. Other than that, the world is an oyster for the US to do as the US pleases, period. Multilateralism, the cornerstone of the UN Charter, is on its death bed, seemingly terminal.

Inadvertently, this has expedited the demise of the UN system itself. The UN Chief, Antonio Guterres, has been reduced to a ceremonial figurehead. His credibility deficit has been grossly compounded by the UN’s failure to protect vulnerable societies such as Haiti, Sudan, Myanmar, Cuba and Palestine, leaving the US to operate as a world body whose unilateral imposition of economic sanctions is obeyed by all UN members-states without fail.

Trump’s recent imposition of global tariffs on every nation on the planet – friend and foe alike – also demonstrated another side to the US: the ability to morph into a wrecking ball. The global economy is yet to fully recover from the Trump ill-advised tariffs. However, as if that wasn’t bad enough, the international community is now grappling with the double closure of the Strait of Hormuz first by Iran in response to the unlawful attack on its territory and sovereignty by the US and Israel in tow.

Secondly, and in response to Iran’s move, Trump has ordered to closure of the Strait against all Iranian-flagged vessels, threatening to unleash mayhem on them if they dare attempt to sail through the US blockade. Again, the international community continues to ignore the genesis of the conflict, which is the illegal attack on Iran.

Instead, the narrative is centred on condemnation of Iran for closing the Strait of Hormuz and tolling the “enemy maritime traffic”. Little or nothing negative is uttered against the US’s additional blockade of the Strait, which clearly aggravated the situation. However, to innocent news followers, it appears like Iran is in the wrong and the US is trying to save the world.

Through all this unfolding drama that can escalate any moment, the plight of Palestinians has been shelved momentarily. Yet day in and day out, Israel continues to bomb Gazans and indiscriminately detain scores of men, women and children in West Bank and occupied territories indefinitely. Only the US is sitting at the helm of the way-forward, single-handedly determining the fate of Palestinians in a way that favours The Knesset and the armed hooligans known as Settlers who are well supported by the Benjamin Netanyahu regime.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to succeed at virtually every goal he sets his eyes on, buoyed by the blatant double-standards of the international community led by the West and their shoddy lessons about a “rules-based world order”.

If World War 3 were to break out tomorrow, I bet Trump and the US would have triggered it. Arguments about Iran never to have a nuclear weapon whereas Israel has its unverifiable stockpile of nuclear arsenal to which the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is not allowed to exercise its mandatory oversight role.

Under Trump’s universal power – unhinged and unhindered – I can foresee a bleak future for mankind characterized by the will of the mighty and strong over the weak and weary.