President Donald Trump’s expletive laden post on X is a first as US political culture does not allow for such language in formal communications, says Atul Aneja, veteran journalist who covered West Asia for over a decade (2002-14) as correspondent for The Hindu.
“Leaving aside the abuse, there’s something far more serious,” he told StratNewsGlobal, “by threatening to blowup bridges and other civilian infrastructure, he is admitting his intention to commit war crimes as defined by the Geneva Convention.”
As president Trump will probably get away but the people who actually carried out his orders may end up before the International Court of Justice or face some other legal action. So a backlash maybe brewing, Aneja warned.
Brig Anil Raman (Retd) who studies the US from his perch in the Takshashila Institution, believes that Trump’s conduct of foreign policy including the abusive post, suggests there is perhaps nobody in the administration who can restrain or guide him.
In fact, Raman believes Trump’s conduct of foreign policy reveals a familiar and unsettling US weakness:
“A Council on Foreign Relations survey of US foreign policy ranked the 2003 Iraq invasion the worst decision in American foreign policy,” he wrote in a recent analysis.
“Key reasons included ignoring intelligence warnings, sidelining professionals, launching the war without a credible endgame, and decision-making by a small group bypassing formal deliberation.”
Two decades later, the same pattern of decision making.
‘A tendency to marginalise professional advice, rely on a small circle of policymakers, and announce shifting objectives. The Iran conflict also reflects the growing influence of informal advisers and the diminished role of institutional review in the national security system.”
“He has been coerced by Bibi (Israeli PM Netanyahu) and seduced by the easy Venezuela military success to undertake this operation,” Raman told StratNewsGlobal, “he ignored military advice to the contrary and is in a deep political quagmire.”
Some reports suggest the foreign policy missteps have been exacerbated by the president’s medical condition, hinting at early signs of dementia.
His references to Greenland as Iceland in January, for instance, and while addressing coal workers in February where he struggled to pronounce the name of the award given to him, even bizzarely saying that coal “needed a PR job.”
Over the weekend, there were reports that he had been admitted to the Walter Reed Medical Center where US presidents are treated. It was later denied.
But Trump’s MAGA backers like Alex Jones have turned against him. Only last week, Jones said that president “does babble and sounds like the brain’s not doing too hot.” He said the government was “in free fall, and that means we’re in free fall in the midterms.”
“We are real America Firsters, we like Trump of the past, we’re sorry he’s obviously had an aneurysm or something, but we’re not Trump.”
Nevertheless, Trump appears set on his course, come hell or high water as the saying goes.
