US President Donald Trump is standing on a blasted heath of his own making, raging against friend and foe and talking of invading Cuba while the world economy hangs by a thin strip of water dotted with mines and sunken ships.
Three weeks after going to war against Iran without telling Americans or the world he had an ultimate plan, it is increasingly obvious that Trump is making it up as he goes.
His whole pretext for going to war, that Iran posed an imminent threat – because it would respond to attacks from Israel by striking US forces – is completely laughable.
It is also a salient reminder that Australia joined the 2003 Coalition of the Willing because we believed a lie primarily pushed by the Bush administration that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Australian soldiers lost their lives in the conflict that followed.
Now Trump’s personally appointed director of the National Counterterrorism Centre, Joe Kent, has resigned, declaring Iran posed no imminent threat and the US went to war after pressure by “Israel and its powerful American lobby”.
Having started a war without any idea how to end it, Trump has made petulant and contradictory claims that he had almost achieved his goals and lied that an American missile didn’t kill scores of Iranian school children. Worst, he has ignored the most blatant consequences of attacking Iran – blowing oil supplies out of the water and taking money from everyone’s pockets as the world economy reels under soaring mortgages and prices at the bowser and checkouts.
With his war bogged in futile destruction, Trump has become increasingly desperate.
He hypocritically lifted oil sanctions on Russia imposed by the US following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, stooped to asking China to patrol the Strait of Hormuz and begged Britain, France, Japan and South Korea for help.
At different times over the past year, Trump has denigrated many of these allies. When Britain’s Keir Starmer and France’s Emmanuel Macron declined to intervene, the vengeful US leader confusingly seemed to think his war was somehow a great test of the NATO alliance with the US.
Overnight, he even roped Australia into the fray. “The United States has been informed by most of our NATO ‘Allies’ that they don’t want to get involved with our Military Operation against the Terrorist Regime of Iran, in the Middle East,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “We no longer ‘need’ or desire, the NATO Countries’ assistance – WE NEVER DID! Likewise, Japan, Australia, or South Korea.”
Last April, Trump thought it good business to impose a 29 per cent tariff on Norfolk Island goods. He still seems addled. Somebody in his inner circle should tell him that Australia responded to a UAE request and sent a surveillance aircraft and 85 personnel last week to help limit the carnage.
As a wartime leader, Trump has sunk to the occasion. He has exposed himself as a hollow man playing a deadly game of bluff poker while the world is forced to underwrite his futile strategy of going fast and breaking things.
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