Waiting for Trump | TheArticle

The two great conflicts raging on Europe’s borders — Gaza and Ukraine – appear frozen, mired in grievance and hate, no closer to peace, perhaps even edging towards the cliff edge.

Both wars are brutal, existential and potentially lethal far beyond their borders. The war in Gaza which has now spread to Lebanon, could threaten world oil supplies and therefore the world

economy if it spreads and draws Iran in.

The war in Ukraine menaces Europe’s borders and the security of its eastern flank nations. It is not inconceivable that a weakened Vladimir Putin could resort to a battlefield nuclear strike

as a last, desperate act to stay in power if things go badly wrong.

One of the big contributing factors to this gridlock has nothing to do with what’s happening on the ground but what will happen in America in November.

At least two of the protagonists – Putin in Moscow and Benyamin Netanyahu Israel’s Prime Minister – will be hoping that Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, wins in November. As well he

might. The race is still too tight to call.

Both, for somewhat different reasons, have an interest in seeing someone in the White House less interested in a stability overseas than domestic advantage and someone with a largely

transactional approach to life in general and politics in particular.

It all feels a bit like Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett’s masterpiece about the meaning of life. Two characters wait for the mysterious Godot to do something miraculous to change their

blighted existence. He sends word that he is coming but never does.

The fallacy at the heart of these expectations, like the delusion in the minds of Beckett’s characters, is that Trump, should he win the White House for a second time, is the answer to these

immensely complex, costly and dangerous conflicts.

Trump is no miracle maker. The man (or woman) in the White House may be leader of the most powerful nation on earth. But it is an iron law of history that peace cannot be imposed on

combatants who wish to carry on killing each other by a third party. They can be encouraged, pressured, even incentivised. But peace, either in the Middle East or Ukraine, cannot be imposed.

Gone are the days when a finger wagged in Washington stopped a war in the Middle East. Netanyahu knows this, so continues to pound Gaza despite his generals’ advice that there is little

military value in continuing the war.

Sending booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies indiscriminately to kill and maim Hezbollah fighters (and some of their relatives) in Lebanon may showcase Mossad’s legendary prowess. But it

prolongs the war in Gaza and goads Iran into retaliating.

Joe Biden, the incumbent President, may ask: how does planting thousands of explosive devices in Lebanon help return Israelis driven from their homes by Hezbollah rockets? Or is the return

of the Gaza hostages nearer? Or even ‘ Is Israel any safer? Netanyahu has stopped listening. Like Putin, he’s waiting for Trump.

The irony of the 21st century is that while individual states have become richer and more powerful the great centres of power that shaped the 20th century have become weaker in relative

terms.

The slow erosion of the familiar international order, with America and the now-defunct Soviet Union at the top, has given way to a messier, multipolar world where the old certainties have

been replaced by mixed loyalties and shifting, contradictory alliances.

The US withholds a shipment of arms to Israel as a sign of its displeasure at the number of civilian deaths in Gaza. India steps in to plug the gap with drones and explosives. Russia’s stock

of rockets depletes as it steps up its bombardment of cities and towns in Ukraine. Iran obliges.

The tiny, immensely wealthy Gulf state of Qatar (pop 3m) becomes a mediator for all seasons in Gaza and even Ukraine. Turkey is emerging as middle power, a member of NATO and yet doggedly

independent. And, looming over this political ebb and flow, China rises.

The late Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon’s manipulative Secretary of State reportedly once asked: “Who do I call if I want to speak to Europe?” The story is almost certainly apocryphal. But

it does hark back to a time when things were simpler and alliances were set, if not quite in stone, then preserved in aspic.

The war in Ukraine will end when both sides decide there is no more to gain from fighting. Neither Trump nor Kamala Harris can do much about that, beyond tweaking sanctions on Russia and

adjusting the spigot delivering arms to Kyiv.

Whether the war in the Middle East spreads or abates, perhaps both, depends not on what happens in the US but locally: which vision of Israel is in the ascendant- the religious right’s

messianic version or the more pragmatic, traditionalist view; how Iran reacts and whether it ramps up its nuclear programme; whether a third intifada erupts in the West Bank.

There was a time when all roads to peace went through Washington. Trump deludes himself that he can fix the world by the sheer force of his personality. The US, Britain, Germany, France saw

themselves – and still do — as actors on “the right side of history” with an inherent right to be world referees. The Vietnam war and more recently the catastrophic invasion of Iraq put paid

to that.

Beijing, Delhi, Doha, Istanbul are all players now. This makes things harder and more complicated. It requires a degree of humility, a quality wholly absent in Trump and increasingly rare in

Western statecaft more generally. We should welcome this.

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