American president also turned back in speech in a space of a few hours
Victor Lacombe, Sao Paulo, SP (Folhapress) – In the space of a few days, US President Donald Trump apparently abandoned his isolation policy to justify direct bombing to Iran, defending a rapprochement between Washington and NATO, and criticizing Russian president Vladimir Putin for his Ukraine invasion.
The American president also turned back in speech in a space of a few hours, saying, for example, that he no longer intends to suspend sanctions against Iran he had said he studied doing it after praising Tehran for maintaining the ceasefire against Israel.
The alternation between hard and smooth posture with allies and enemies and between an isolation and interventionist foreign policy has been confusing analysts and scholars of international relations as well as countries around the world.
In response to questions, the White House, however, says that everything follows a well-established plan: Trump, said spokesman Karoline Leavitt, practices the “purposeful strategy ambiguity” as a trading tactic. “World leaders fear him, respect him, pay attention to every word he says,” he said.
Leavitt also said that the US president “leads world events and is not guided by them. The world is changing because of Donald Trump, and Donald Trump has not changed because of the world.”
Experts disagree. When he ordered unprecedented bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities on the 21st, Trump was seen as reacting to a dictated reality not by the US, but by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu who came into war with Iran saying to prevent the production of a nuclear weapon.
At the same time, Israeli military authorities admitted under reserve that they had no ability to reach the uranium centrifuges in Fordow, the complex buried in a mountain in Iran.
Only the US, they said, has the necessary equipment to do so and so, Trump ordered an attack with antibunker bombs charged by b-2 Spirit bombers, weapons that only Washington has.
The extension of the damage caused by the action is not yet clear, with the White House arguing that it was “moderate to severe” (and with Trump saying that the Iran’s nuclear program was obliterated) while preliminary intelligence reports point out that Iran will need a few months to raise itself.
After helping to mediate a ceasefire between Tel Aviv and Tehran, Trump said the US would try to return to the negotiating table to get a new nuclear agreement with the Iranian regime, but said it would not think that would be necessary. Already this Friday, he said that “no doubt” would authorize new attacks against the Persian country if the regime again enriches uranium.
Trump supporters for whom Republican’s isolation campaign promises were important when deciding their vote showed seizure with the president’s decision to involve the US in another war in the Middle East.
Another promise of Trump, that he would end the Ukraine war quickly, remains distant from reality even saying that he would do his best to close the conflict, the president oscillates between criticizing the Ukrainian Volodimir Zelenski and the Russian Vladimir Putin, sometimes ambushing one during an official visit to the White House, sometimes telling European leaders that the other is not interested in peace.
