No getting round it, Donald Trump’s bit of fun in the Middle East is not going to plan. Could even have a whiff of Vietnam, when some funny little country tucked away the other side of the world showed America who’s boss. And who isn’t. But while that was their problem this one’s hitting everyone. And, as our Political Correspondent Peter Spencer reports, the range of knock-on effects here in UK is surprising.
At least we all know where it’s all gone wrong. The ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu nailed it with the line: ‘Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.’
And of late the Prez has certainly been audible.
Europeans in general and Brits in particular are useless cowards for not charging into this war. Maybe it’s time to smash up the NATO alliance. And the French President lets his own wife knock him around.
It all comes across as a little boy squealing because mummy’s taken away his favourite rattle.
Certainly, White House sources concede that The Donald’s got particularly irritable in recent weeks, looking for someone to sack.
And, sure enough, he has just booted out the US army’s most senior general and his own top legal aide. Which looks like rats being chucked over the side of a sinking ship.
On one level it’s understandable.
He’d gambled on a rerun of Venezuela, when he managed in one hit to get the top dude replaced by someone more compliant. Only it didn’t work out this time.
Skilfully coordinated though the initial strikes in Iran were, instead of rubbing out the regime they simply got the leaders replaced by a bunch of even nastier people.
And their stranglehold over a fifth of the entire world’s oil and gas supplies means they have one helluva weapon to hit back with.
Upshot, what Trump might have seen as a strategy was just a tactic, and a reckless one.
It comes back to that Chinese strategist’s take – that the lack of a coherent long term plan can only lead to chaos and failure.
The inevitability of this makes it all the more exasperating, as the shortages of fuel, energy supplies and a host of other things dependant for their manufacture on oil take their toll worldwide.
For all the man’s boasts that America at least is insulated, petrol prices across The States are shooting up. And, as night follows day, his own poll rating is shooting down.
Support from what’s supposed to be his own side, that’s to say Republican voters, has tumbled nearly twenty per cent since his war started.
And noises about the President or his cronies’ possible corruption are getting louder. The suggestion being that he’s using his power as a handy little get-rich-quick tool.
Last week saw an excoriating critique from the Assistant Editor of our very own Daily Telegraph, a natural ally of Republicans but not, clearly, of Donald Trump. Judging by the following:
‘Apparent tolerance of this kind of behaviour has reached levels more synonymous with a third-world banana republic than the mature, law-abiding form of governance the US pretends to represent.’
Daresay Sir Keir Starmer would go along with that, though he’s gone no further than sticking by his guns. In the sense that he’s steadfastly refusing to get them out of their holsters for this war.
All a far cry from the nicey-nicey stuff he’d been trying on the man from the moment he made it to the White House.
Now it seems he’s fallen back on Yankee funny man Groucho Marx’s marvellous line: ‘Those are my principles. And if you don’t like them I’ve got others.’
You can’t even begin to imagine how King Charles will stumble through that minefield when he pops across The Pond and addresses Congress later this month.
Meantime, it’s fallen to the Tory leader to be ruder than Starmer about Trump’s adventure. Broadly supportive at the outset, she’s now accusing him of making a mess in the Middle East.
And she went so far as to cite a line from former US secretary of state Colin Powell: ‘If you break it, you own it.’ Adding: ‘It doesn’t feel like there is a co-ordinated plan.’
Which cues up another Groucho gem: ‘There are only two things you can start without a plan. A revolution and family life. But then at least a little bit of a plan will still be required.’
A very much bigger one in the case of a war. And certainly, it looks like Kemi Badenoch’s clocked the mood of British voters, who’re giving what’s happening an almighty thumbs down.
Seems the Reform Leader Nigel Farage has got that message as well. As he too has backed away from backing the bust-up.
He’s now saying Starmer was right to keep his distance, as he’s also struggling with the Yanks’ motive. Admitting: ‘It’s difficult listening to the press conferences sometimes to work that out.’
Arguably a somewhat belated conversion there, as nearly a quarter of voters say his support for Trump is their number one reason for not voting Reform.
Not that Nige wasn’t a bit stung, mind, when he made such a big deal a few weeks back about his trip to to Mar-a-Lago to meet the great man, only to not get a single second’s face time. Poor love.
Still, he’ll be consoled with the truth universally acknowledged, to coin the phrase, that Labour will get trashed next month, when voters go to the polls in town halls, and Scotland and Wales.
But it won’t necessarily be as much help as he’d like, as Reform’s favourability’s slipped a clear and consistent four points in recent months.
Where they were would have been enough to get them into power at the next general election. But where they are may not, even though they are still way out front.
Our so-called first past the post system might look clumsy, outdated and unfair. But it’s very good at keeping insurgents’ tanks off the old parties’ lawn.
When the SDP, a breakaway chunk of Labour, was flavour of the month back in the early eighties they started polling exactly where Reform has now landed.
Ever so ever so exciting, except that when the election came they only bagged a couple of dozen seats. A fat lot of good.
All such a long time ago that hardly anyone can even remember. But we humans don’t know the half of it.
When reports of Jonathan’s death spread like wildfire on X last week he might have felt like reprising Mark Twain’s line about the rumour being exaggerated.
He didn’t because he can’t. Because he’s a tortoise. But the news was such a big deal because he’s been a tortoise for nearly two hundred years. Making him the world’s oldest land animal.
And to him, tucked away on the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, stuff we read in history books must seem like only yesterday.
Like the end if the industrial revolution, two world wars, the abolition of slavery, the invention of cars, and the reigns of new fewer than eight British monarchs.
Puts us in our place, doesn’t it?
Watch Peter’s report at peterspencer.org
Peter Spencer has 40 years experience as a Political Correspondent in Westminster, working with London Broadcasting and Sky News. For more of his fascinating musings on the turbulent political landscape, follow him on Facebook & Twitter.