Mr. Trump, When Will This Movie End…

I used to say, ‘Donadaliheligv’ (congratulations in Cherokee language) to you after being the president-elect of the United States (US) –“Donadaliheligv, Mr Trump – what say you” – Malaysiakini, 10/11/2016. There were many Trump-haters then, to the extent that there were forecasts of a strong ringgit and a higher FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI if Hillary wins.

You are just being yourself – your hair, penchant for excesses, manner of speech, being comical and the xenophobic proposal to build a wall on the US-Mexico border or ban Muslim immigrants. The sexist, lewd comments or demeaning towards women during campaigns as was at ’The Apprentice’ set and recently, through the ‘Epstein file’ exposure, are still there though you denied any wrongdoing.

Your perspective on problem solving is iconoclastic i.e. not the same ol’, same ol’. You can talk to Vladimir Putin which was taboo by previous presidents, you admitted Iraq wasn’t a great idea and thinks Americans are best letting the Syria mess play itself out.

A few months earlier, you expressed a desire for the Nobel Peace Prize to improve your legacy on foreign policy actions.

However, lately, you have somehow made U-turns, especially evident in the war on Iran.

You used the “shock and awe” tactics (Rapid Dominance) – to paralyse the enemy through overwhelming force and power. But you failed to follow one of the four vital characteristics of rapid dominance i.e. near total or absolute knowledge and understanding of self, adversary and the environment. Too bad, Iran is not Iraq. In Iraq it was US technological superiority and Iraqi ineptitude.

By the way, isn’t shock and awe are terrorism by another name?

Before us now, in real-time, is a blockbuster movie produced by a major film studio with a large-budget seeking financial fortunes.

Operation Epic Fury, dwarfed earlier “shock and awe”. The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said, the first day alone was nearly double the scale of the 2003 Iraq bombardment with nearly 2,000 targets within four days. The Israel Defense Forces claimed roughly 1,000 targets each day.

Painfully for the US, the shock and awe tactics lead to domestic and international backlash including psychological impact on your army and people across the globe has turned fear to anger.

Violence happens daily and the we keep getting conflicting/mixed news from Washington. The goals are shifting in real time including the empty threats and shifting rhetoric.

Meantime, we may need to redefine certain words such as negotiation, totally obliterated, self- defence, legitimate, winning and ceasefire.

In March 2025, you urged Iran for a new nuclear deal on a two-month deadline, threatening military action if negotiations fail. Negotiations were on-going but you authorised air strikes and totally obliterated Iranian nuclear facilities in June that year. But now you said Iran was “right at the doorstep” of “a nuclear bomb”. By the way, why Iran can never have a nuclear weapon but Israel can maintain a monopoly on nuclear weapons in the region?

You and Israel launched “unprovoked” and “illegitimate” wide-ranging strikes since 28^th February killing thousands including Iran’s supreme leader, hundreds of schoolchildren and dozens of senior figures. It was done without advance notice to your global or regional allies and also Congressional approval, citing necessity of shock and awe. But you blasted your allies for not coming to US’ aid and NATO is just a ‘paper tiger’. Luckily, some countries in the Middle East are “excellent” in supporting the attacks.

You and your allies accepted Israel’s military actions in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran (invoking Article 51 of the UN Charter) as an inherent right to self-defence, particularly in response to the October 7 but considers Iran’s retaliation and self-defence upon your illegal armed attacks as not legitimate.

In early March you said, “We won. In ​the first hour it was over” but why the bombardment carries on? 

You put in writing, “And now I, as the 47^th President of the United States of America, am killing them. What a great honor it is to do so!” You added; Iran regime has been “killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years now”.

Are you aware of international humanitarian law (IHL) and the Geneva Conventions?

What does that make you – Rambo, the bloodthirsty and unhinged soldier or a lone terrorist? By the way, how many million innocent people has the US and Israel killed, maimed and displaced all over the world over the same period?

The funny part, we call them Vietnam war, Iraq war, Afghanistan war, Iran war, etc. Shouldn’t we name them after the assailing attacker?

On 8^th April you announced a ceasefire and said, “Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the US and Iran. You also told reporters that the US had won a “total and complete victory”. Soon afterwards, you can’t seem to agree or forgot what was agreed to for the ceasefire.

Is the US really open to diplomacy when there is a stated goal of destroying Iran’s military capabilities, terming them as the world’s number one sponsor of terror and bombarding them for six weeks? Then, to “hit them extremely hard” over the next two to three weeks and threatened to bring them “back to the Stone Ages”.

What happened to the promise to revive the economy and keep the US out of foreign conflicts when now you want to bring Iran back to the stone ages? Targeting a “civilization” violates international law.

The plan to punish certain NATO allies is insufficient and I think there is no need to strongly consider withdrawing from the ‘paper tiger’ – they were not there when you needed them (Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty). Just withdraw and keep selling weapons to them.

The storyline and scripts kept changing and more of contradiction.

There’s no concrete update on just how exactly this war would end. Benjamin Franklin, one of US’ founding fathers said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail”.

And the promise of when the war is over, “the US will be safer, stronger, more prosperous and greater than it has ever been before”. Are you serious? Your ‘rose-coloured’ view of how the war is progressing has many looking at it as a ‘jaundiced view’.

“Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”. This quote often attributed to a Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels says it all. Incidentally, the Nazi propaganda repeatedly claimed that Jews held outsized and secret power in Britain, Russia, and the United States. It further spread claims that the Jews had begun a war of extermination against Germany, and used these to assert that Germany had a right to annihilate the Jews in self-defense. Fast forward, I think it was not a lie after all.

Your options are very limited now and the gamble are not paying off. US need to go back to the drawing board and assess its military superiority, ego, intelligence and the cost to defend Israel. More importantly, between technical superiority and long-term economic and logistical sustainability – strategies for the 20^th century may not be applicable today.

Military deterrence with a diplomatic effort to address tensions is not a mechanism that fits the 21^st century. Deterrence is both about military capabilities and the willingness to use them and uses the threat of force.

And your claim to have turned a “dead and crippled” economy into the “strongest in history” does not hold water.

Bombing a country on the other side of the globe won’t make the Epstein files go away and “the chickens are coming home to roost”.

We have seen the development, pre-production and production of the current ‘movie’. What is confusing is the script keeps changing even at post-production stage, no denouement and also the ending montage.

In 1991, the Soviet Union lost the Cold War and simply imploded. It was the “greatest geopolitical tragedy of the twentieth century”. Could we be seeing the “greatest geopolitical tragedy of the twenty-first century” soon?

And would that mean the world can look forward to a day when we are finally free from the wickedness and aggression of a superpower?

What say you…

 

Saleh Mohammed