Trump is no ‘strongman’ when it comes to Russia or Israel. If other democracies don’t step up, anarchy awaits

It is too easy to blame Donald Trump for everything that goes wrong in the world. The ability of any US president to fundamentally change or control the behaviour of other major powers is frequently overestimated. Yet by posing as a sort of uncrowned global monarch and grand arbiter of war and peace, Trump perpetuates fantasies of US hegemony, omnipotence and divine right. Intoxicated by such ego-inflating delusions, he pledged before taking office to swiftly end the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts. Perhaps, in his vanity and hubris, he truly believed he could.

Eight months on, the exact opposite is happening. Both crises are expanding and escalating. The bubble has burst, his bluff has been called, the emperor has no clothes – and there is no denying that Trump, by alternately appeasing, excusing and encouraging the two foremost villains of these twin tragedies, is greatly to blame. Last week’s multiple Russian drone incursions into Nato member Poland – which Polish officials are right to call deliberate – risk transforming the Ukraine war into a Europe-wide conflagration. Likewise, the reckless, illegal Israeli airstrike in Qatar, which blew up the Gaza peace process, physically and metaphorically, has supercharged regional tensions.

A common factor in both developments is US weakness, which is to say, Trump weakness. Has any other US president devoted so much effort to making himself look like a strong leader while failing miserably to act like one when it matters? Much of what he does, whether it’s promulgating illegal executive orders, firing senior officials, bullying neighbours and defenceless migrants, ordering troops on to the streets of US cities, backing a fellow coup leader in Brazil, or picking fights with judges and independent media, is about bolstering the strongman Trump image.

The reality is very different. When Trump is faced by tough, unyielding opponents, rather than soft targets, he folds. He chickens out. Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, worked this out long ago. Both men play him for a sucker. They flatter him. They spin lies about wanting peace. They offer easy wins. Then they go home, as was the case with Putin after last month’s embarrassing Alaska summit, and carry on doing whatever they want, which usually involves even greater violence. When an angry Trump calls to complain, as after Netanyahu’s Qatar raid, and whinges, pathetically, that he’s “not happy”, he merely confirms his weakness – and is ignored.

Far from facilitating an end to these wars, Trump has become a prime obstacle to peace. His ill-considered interventions, grandstanding and partiality make matters worse, prolonging both conflicts. His dearth of leadership skills, coupled with a lack of integrity and common sense, is shocking for Europeans, accustomed to dealing with mostly rational, relatively competent presidents. Trump’s hostility to the EU and Nato, his tariff wars and his anti-democratic machinations have further undermined western cohesion and confidence – and boosted authoritarian regimes.

Trump is no ‘strongman’ when it comes to Russia or Israel. If other democracies don’t step up, anarchy awaits

Putin and Netanyahu are creating chaos in the vacuum left by a weak US president. But there are still ways to foil them, says Guardian commentator Simon Tisdall

^{Simon Tisdall (The Guardian)}