The United States is poised to slap more sanctions against Russia, Iran and North Korea in a move which demonstrates the utter confusion in Washington’s foreign policy six months’ into a Republican Party administration and a Donald Trump presidency that promises to “make America great again”. This confusion only serves to highlight how much America is actually not ‘World No.1’ anymore, and is not likely to be again.
In the rest of the world, Pakistan’s Prime Minister had to resign on Friday on grounds of suspected massive corruption and, both North Korea and Iran tested powerful new rockets last week - the Korean for military purposes and the Iranian for peaceful, commercial purposes. In Palestine-Israel, the Israeli authorities on Friday prudently lifted the entry ban and all stringent security checks at the holy Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem following protests in Palestine and neighbouring states. Meanwhile, Syrian government forces are inching their way into rebel-held parts of western Homs region.
In sharp contradiction of Trumpian bombast and claim, America is more likely to demonstrate its ‘greatness’ not so much through world domination but how American democracy withstands inroads into its institutions of governance and justice by Trump’s manipulations and double-dealing. That is why it is so stimulating to watch how the United States Congress (the Senate and House of Representatives), as well as its security agencies, undertake their own parallel investigations into possible treasonous dealings between the US President’s closest associates and Russia, on the one hand and, on the other, probe Russia’s covert large-scale cyber warfare against the US political system.
Never before has so many high level investigations of the US head of state been undertaken just as he assumes office. I do not know of any other country, either, where this has happened. Never before has a US President publicly trashed his own Attorney General and done so in connection with a criminal probe directed against his own staff and family! Never before has such bad language (yes, obscenities) been used publicly by the President’s closest top officials against each other!
All this sharply reverses the very persona of a ‘super-hero’ that this US President has tried to project throughout his TV career, in his campaign to become President and, in his presidency.
Missile tests
Donald Trump ranted against Iran and North Korea even during his campaign although his very warm statements in favour of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin were a notable contrast. He promised to trash the painstakingly negotiated five-party agreement on nuclear development restrictions for Iran achieved during the Obama administration. To date, Trump has not moved against that treaty. It is a tacit acknowledgement that the US is helpless when it comes to multi-lateral arrangements. The Iran treaty is not a mere bilateral one but involves five major powers, including the EU and Russia, and hence, cannot be ended by any one signatory country.
Ironically, the US aircraft company, Boeing, has won its largest ever aircraft purchase order from Iran! The Iran order, 80 passenger jets worth US$ 16.6 billion, helped Boeing to beat its sole rival Airbus Industrie in volume of purchase orders. Then, on Thursday, Iran tested its newest long range rocket, named ‘Simorgh’, designed for commercial space launches. On Saturday, not to be outdone, North Korea succesfully test-launched a second long range ballistic missile, the ‘Hwasong-14’ and immediately claimed that mainland USA was now within reach of North Korean missile strikes. No matter that North Korea is yet to develop practically usable nuclear bombs that can be launched on missiles. No matter that South Korea did not react with panic at this test launch. The US Congress has seen it fit to pass a new law that slaps new sanctions on both Iran and North Korea.
But Washington also quietly admits that its attempts to restrict North Korea’s military build-up have failed. But why should another country so far away from North Korea want to restrict its military development? With the end of the Cold War and the so-called ‘Communist threat’, why is there a need for the US, the world’s most heavily armed nuclear military power, to worry about a potential threat from one of the world’s poorest nations?
If a real threat is the criteria, then the US, with its tens of thousands of nuclear weapons and its record as the only user of the atomic bomb, is the bigger ‘threat’ to world peace by that logic! Let us not forget that it is the US and not North Korea that has troops in their thousands in all four continents outside North America either fighting wars or protecting prison camps or military bases.
At the same time, Congress has also added new sanctions against Russia in retaliation for its cyber attacks on the US election system during last year’s presidential election.
The White House has indicated that the President is likely to sign in to law these latest sanctions. Presidential approval of sanctions against Russia for election-meddling will be tacit admission by Trump that there was, indeed, such a Russian attack, although Trump himself has persistently denied it. Throughout his six months as President, Trump has continued to pretend that the Russia scandal is nothing more than ‘fake news’ and a Democratic Party conspiracy to delegitimize his election victory.
This ridiculous reversal of Presidential posture on a vital issue of national security and geo-politics only exposes the disarray in Washington’s current foreign policy as well as the divergent views within the US state on how to handle national security.
The Russians are expected to retaliate with reports from Moscow that the Russian government was likely to block the US diplomatic community in Russia from using its main recreational facility.
Meanwhile, the European Union is poised to protest any broadening of the scope of the new US economic sanctions against Russia that could effectively threaten Europe’s current import of cheap gas from Russia. Clearly the EU and the US are at loggerheads over Russia.
On the one hand, Trump himself cosies up to Putin much to the horrow of his European allies, undermining their faith in the US’ policy consistency. Then suddenly, the US slaps stiff new sanctions against Russia that could also harm the EU’s energy budget.
What it shows, more than anything else, is that the US is no longer embracing a globalist and multi-lateral perspective of world affairs but an isolationist and unilateral approach that disregards the interests of its closest allies and friends, leave aside the world community as a whole.
Last week Pakistan experienced a major political earthquake when the Supreme Court ruled that the accumulated evidence of massive fraud and corruption against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and family disqualified him from the premiership.
Shariff resigned forthwith, no doubt aware that the Pakistani Army, the long-time underwriter of civilian political leadership in that country, would not tolerate any attempt to cling to power.
In any case, Shariff’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz group (PML-N) party holds a comfortable majority in Pakistan’s parliament so there is no immediate likelihood of major political change.
What this development has shown to the world is the strength of the Pakistani judiciary in upholding the rule of law in the country. Not many other countries in South Asia can demonstrate such judicial integrity that metes out justice to both commoner and king.
Notwithstanding the court ruling, though, Shariff’s party is expected to nominate one of his brothers, currently Governor of his home province of Punjab, for the premier post. Shariff, himself, along with some of his children – all adults – faces a series of judicial prosecutions for massive corruption and fraud.
The whole of South Asia, replete with their own powerful political families, will watch closely to see how far this judicial process will go.