Any hope that office would, somehow, transform Donald Trump into a capable, functioning President of the United States has been firmly dashed by this week’s events. Trump’s odyssey from the White House to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Rome, NATO HQ in Brussels, and the G7 Summit in Sicily left a trail of visual, political, diplomatic and strategic wreckage.
The sad fact is that a narrow minority of Americans, aided and abetted by their electoral college system, foisted upon America and the world a mendacious, mentally deteriorating, bullying, ignorant buffoon as a world leader.
Brussels was pure Christmas pantomime. An extended cast of European leaders stood disbelieving and bemused while Trump attempted to lecture and exercise leadership over them. They looked dignified; he looked pathetic and vainglorious.
His mental deterioration is now obvious. Anyone who views footage of Donald Trump from 15 or 20 years ago will immediately appreciate how far his mental faculties have crumbled. He finds it difficult to deliver written scripts with anything approaching conviction. His capacity for complex thought has reduced to incapacity to deliver even short, simple sentences or sincere thoughts. His demeanour is that of a brain damaged ex-professional boxer attempting to look normal. He cannot even stand still, swaying from foot to foot and fidgeting. Jostling the prime minister of Montenegro, Dusko Markovic, out of a photo opportunity followed by setting his jutting jaw and arranging his ample jacket, speaks volumes about increasing crudity and loss of self-awareness and simple good manners.
Many people, myself included, now believe that Jared Kushner was brought into the White House inner circle for one purpose only – to conceal the increasingly erratic and demented personality into which Donald Trump is descending before our eyes. Trump needs Kushner simply because he cannot function on a one-to-one basis with other office-holders without revealing his collapsing mental capacity.
Trump’s White House had lied through its teeth when it claimed that FBI Director Comey had not been sacked on account of the Russian investigations. Trump’s description of Comey as a “real nut job” and his reference to the ending of “pressure” in respect of his campaign’s relationship with Russia occurred because he believed that he and Russian foreign minister Lavrov enjoyed privacy. But such meetings are always documented. It was inevitable that Trump would be exposed as a liar if he could not restrain his tongue.
Trump’s bizarre summit of Sunni despots convened in Saudi Arabia to hear his tirade against Iran has also fallen flat on its face. Trump is now handcuffed to the House of Saud and its satellites. He “sealed the deal” with a massive arms sale to the Saudis (so massive that Israel is now getting nervous in case regime change at Jeddah might leave those arms in the hands of its enemies).
The visit to the Pope demonstrated, by the Pontiff’s unsmiling face, that Trump has the capacity to snatch embarrassment from the most auspicious photo opportunities.
Whether anybody in the “rust belt” who voted for Trump appreciates, or can appreciate, the damage that Trump is doing to American prestige wherever he goes is, of course, doubtful. But the sooner Trump is back in the White House and in the custody of the small circle who can control his senescence, the better.
Trump’s Saudi message (“Sunni Despots Good; Shia Republic of Iran Evil”) is astonishing.
Just who do Trump, Kushner et al believe financed Islamic fundamentalism in madrassas from Indonesia to Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Arabian peninsula, the Horn of Africa, and the Maghreb? The Shias in Teheran?
Was it Shia who flew aircraft into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on 9/11? Or was it not wahhabism and salafism funded by Saudi moguls? Was it Iran’s fault that the Isis/Isil caliphate was founded in Raqqa? Have any “home grown” Islamist terrorists in the US or in the UK or in France been Shia? What Muslim state allowed its people to choose between a moderate, outward looking candidate for presidency and a conservative introverted opponent? What people, other than the Iranians, chose the moderate course? Was it Shias who massacred the Yazidis or slaughtered Coptic christians in Egypt this weekend?
Was it Shia ideology that indoctrinated a 22 year old native of Manchester to the point that he took his own and 22 other lives and maimed scores more of innocent young girls and their parents in this week’s horrific bombing?
It is absolutely true that the Manchester atrocity is beyond any excuse. That does not mean that we should not seek to understand how it came about. What mind-set, other than salafism and wahhabism originating in Saudi Arabia, inspires young men to such hatred of other human beings and of the West while offering them instant access to paradise as suicide bombers?
No matter how it is described, that mind-set was not exported from Teheran to Manchester.
All of this underlines the utter folly and dishonesty of Trump’s decision to arm the Sunni despots and to prepare the way for war against the Iran.
Will anyone in the White House want to repeat last week’s world excursion by the President? Will many elected heads of state want to be visited by Trump in future? Barack Obama’s friendly reception in Berlin contrasted hugely with the diplomatically and politically disastrous foray by Trump into Europe.
Like an aging elephant wreaking havoc in the vegetable gardens of poor peasants, will Trump now be encouraged back into the “jungle” of US politics in the hope that he does not return.
Lastly, Jeremy Corbyn was correct to point out that Britain’s militarist incursions into the affairs of Islamic countries from Iraq to Libya are ingredients in the horror of Manchester.
The sheer horror and agony of the Manchester victims’ parents was hard to watch – we had to watch it to maintain solidarity with the people of Manchester.
When British-made cluster bombs were unleashed on civilians in Sanaa in Yemen, there too were mothers and fathers who went through the same horrifying, pitiable ordeal. We never really heard about their anguish and can only imagine it. Sky News did not devote hours of coverage to the plight of the victims. Tears of parents in Sanaa taste the same as the tears of parents in Manchester.
After Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan and Libya, the West must ask itself whether its undoubted capacity to kill its intended and unintended targets by remote controlled missiles, drones, and the mother of all bombs is serving, or has served, any useful purpose.
No-one should encourage Trump to make war on Iran. The so-called “war on terror” is not a war and cannot be won – the West must understand that military power when projected against the weak will always provoke a desire for a cruel backlash by those who are, or who identify with, the victims.