Editorial: Trumping the Donald
How did our Taoiseach do this St Patrick’s Day?
How do you go to Washington and deal with a US President who has just plunged the world into global crisis by choosing to attack another sovereign country unlawfully?
Of course, you could march in there and point out the huge injustice of the US and Israeli attack on Iran and the unnecessary loss of life and what an unmitigated disaster it has been for almost everyone bar Putin. But what would that achieve? The meeting would be cut short and some other wild tariff might be imposed on us. I don’t really see the point in our political leader criticising Donald Trump directly to his face. What will it achieve? Better to try and steer him towards negotiating a deal with Iran that enables Trump to think he is saving face and try and end this unjust conflict as quickly as possible before more lives are lost and more countries destabilised.
It’s possible that this unjust war has already changed the way the international order operates forever.
The US is now longer the all-powerful guarantor of international order as we know it. The US now blatantly disregards international law and allowing the US have bases in your country does not guarantee your safety anymore either. The economies of the US’ Middle East allies are now being entirely disrupted. Who now wants to visit these countries on holiday? The likes of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE now know just how vulnerable their refineries and vital water desalination plants are to attack from cheap drones.
Iran has found a way to hurt America and its allies militarily. Of course they have not defeated US navies or armies but they’ve found a way to bleed them, destroy some of their Middle East bases, destroy infrastructure worth billions and show the world how fragile the ‘protection’ of the US really is.
Micheál Martin got a 50 minute St Patrick's Day meeting with Trump in the White House on Tuesday. One of the lighter moments came when Trump said the Taoiseach and Northern Ireland's deputy first minister, the DUP's Emma Little-Pengelly “get along so well” that they should consider a “merger”!
“I love mergers, but we're going to get into a little trouble, we're going to get in more trouble with that.”
A lot of the media coverage after - here and abroad- was based on how Martin defended UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer after Trump expressed his disappointment in Starmer for failing to get involved in the Iran war adding Starmer was “no Churchill”.
Having had a summit in Cork last week with Starmer, the Corkman said he had done “much work to reset the UK-Irish relationship”.
In relation to the Iran war, Mr Martin said: “What we want is a peaceful resolution. That's where we come from as a small nation.”
It seems that Trump may visit Ireland later this year. What a pleasure!