RW Johnson: Will Donald Trump go to war?

Key topics:Trump’s dealmaking failed in Ukraine, Gaza, and Iran conflictsIsrael strikes Iran while Trump seeks attention and creditTrump’s chaotic team fuels risks of deeper US entanglements.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.The auditorium doors will open for BNIC#2 on 10 September 2025 in Hermanus. For more information and tickets, click here..By RW Johnson.It is unnerving to watch Donald Trump’s crude and childish forays into international politics. During his election campaign he repeatedly insisted that he would settle the Ukraine-Russia war on his first day in office. He could only make such a promise because he had absolutely no appreciation of how fundamental is the Russian urge to recapture its old empire. If, for example, he’d read the history of WWII he would have seen that even when Stalin had his back to the wall, with German armies advancing on a broad front into Russia, he was furiously insisting that Roosevelt and Churchill should recognise the Soviet conquest of parts of Finland and its possession of part of Poland which it had acquired as part of the Nazi-Soviet Pact. These conquests had been made by ruthless wars of aggression against peaceful neighbours but all that mattered to Stalin was that once they had come under Soviet rule, they must never be surrendered.It is precisely because Russia’s neighbours know only too well the elemental nature of Russian imperialism that they have flocked to join NATO. But even that has not restrained the Kremlin which openly says that after Ukraine its targets will be the Baltic states and Poland.Now, six months after he took power, Trump has made no headway at all in ending this war. He had gaily assumed that the war was just like a bidding competition for property – with which he is extremely familiar – and that it was just a matter of making a deal. But this was just completely ignorant and wrong.The same is true with the Israeli war in Gaza. Here too Trump was even willing to break the long-standing American rule never to negotiate with terrorists in his eagerness to get Hamas to accept a “deal”. But Hamas isn’t looking for deals, it’s a fanatical death-cult bent on exterminating Jews. And the Israelis burn with an almost equal determination to ensure that Israel is a safe haven for Jews. Neither party is easily biddable and neither is looking for anything that compromises their key principles. So once again Trump’s confident assumption that he could bring conflicts to an end failed completely.Absurdly, Trump had made his property crony, Steve Witkoff, his emissary and negotiator for both these conflicts. Witkoff is as ignorant as Trump of the background, the history and the dynamics of these conflicts. Being asked to solve both of them at once was simply ridiculous. One can’t but remember the huge sophistication and knowledge that Henry Kissinger brought to such conflicts – skills and intelligence which Trump doesn’t understand, let alone value. We have regressed a very long way.In the same spirit, Trump announced that he would conclude 90 trade deals in 90 days – although trade professionals are used to such negotiations quite normally taking years. At the end of 90 days Trump has been forced to back down by China which simply witheld the precious rare earths on which US industry and defence alike depend. He has managed just one trade deal, a back-of-an-envelope affair with the UK. Even so, Trump keeps changing his mind and shifting his ground so no one can ever depend on any agreement signed with him..Read more:.The Economist: The end of the post-1945 order – Donald Trump has begun a mafia-like struggle for global power.Then came the flare-up between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. The world held its breath as they raided one another, for both are nuclear-armed. Trump made various remarks about the conflict and when it swiftly died down he trumpeted that this was a great success for his mediation. President Modi quickly pointed out that this was nonsense and that America had played no role at all in reaching this truce. The fact is that Trump cannot bear not being the centre of attention and that he has never had any problem with telling untruths. His behaviour is that of a naughty spoilt child.Next came the showdown with Iran. Once again the ridiculous Steve Witkoff was dispatched to seek a deal with the Iranian foreign minister. But of course, neither Iran nor Israel is looking for “a deal”. The Iranians have been doggedly pushing ahead with nuclear research and uranium enrichment for many years – despite sanctions, foreign interventions, agreements, threats and the assassination of many of their nuclear scientists. They are led by an absolutist Muslim cleric with medieval views and the sudden appearance on their doorstep of a New York property dealer wanting some sort of compromise “deal” was never likely to get far with them. Indeed, they must have regarded Witkoff and his assumptions as simply preposterous. Trump kept shouting from the White House that they must make a deal and gave them only 60 days in which to do it. This was not diplomacy as they knew it.Equally, of course, for Israel the issue of Iran and nuclear weapons is an existential one. The Israelis will not rest until that threat is removed. They are not interested in any compromise. So once again Trump’s attempts at mediation came to nothing. He seems to have been very annoyed by this persistent failure and has repeatedly attacked the Tehran regime for not accepting his “deal”. Meanwhile, Trump’s poll ratings have been drifting lower and lower as the public registers this succession of fiascoes.Netanyahu then launched his attack. Israel has been planning this for decades and has conducted a formidable advance penetration of the Iranian military and intelligence services. If Trump is an ignorant amateur, the Israelis are the true professionals. And once committed, Netanyahu cannot afford to fail. He cannot accept any other result but the complete destruction of all Iranian nuclear facilities and, possibly, regime change in Tehran. Thus the demands by Macron, Starmer and others for “de-escalation” are completely beside the point. Netanyahu cannot stop half-way: that would merely leave a bitterly angry Iranian regime in place more determined than ever to get hold of nuclear weapons. That would be a true disaster and Netanyahu would not survive it politically.As the Israeli assault continued, together with Iranian counter-strikes against Israel, world attention focused on this dramatic struggle. This did not suit Trump, who always wants to be the centre of attention. Clearly carried away with military enthusiasm like a small boy playing soldiers, Trump started issuing statements which suggested that he, not the Israelis, was leading the attack – saying that “We” were winning and berating the Iranians for not accepting his “deal”. He then even demanded their “unconditional surrender”, a ridiculous notion since the US was not at war with Iran..Read more:.FT: US bunker-buster could target Iran’s hidden nukes - but success is far from certain.Trump was clearly torn with indecision. On the one hand he would like to take responsibility, and thus kudos, for conquering Iran. On the other hand he has promised his electorate that he won’t get into anymore foreign wars. So he teeters between the two options and even boasts that no one knows what he might or might not do (since he clearly doesn’t know himself). The media have sought to dramatise the situation by arguing that Trump alone can decide whether or not to use America’s giant “bunker-buster” bomb, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (the GBU-57) which alone is capable of destroying the nuclear installation at Fordow, which is buried under a mountain.This is actually misleading. It has been evident from the start that Israel has agents on the ground inside Iran and while it is perfectly true that Israel has neither the GBU-57 nor the B-2 bomber which alone is capable of delivering the bunker-buster, it is certain that Netanyahu would not have embarked on hostilities unless he had a plan for dealing with Fordow, presumably by special forces commandos.Meanwhile there is some alarm among Republican politicians in Washington. They know it is not normal for America to get thus far embroiled in significant foreign hostilities without a clearly worked out plan. It is in the highest degree alarming that the whole enterprise depends entirely on Trump’s whims and how he feels at one particular moment. Moreover, there is no confidence at all in the team he has around him. Just as was the case in the first Trump administration of 2017-21, Trump has failed to fill many key posts and the result is chaotic. Marco Rubio, for example, is currently both Secretary of State and National Security Adviser – both very much full-time jobs, normally each with their own large staffs.On top of that many of Trump’s appointments are crazy. Pete Hesgeth at Defence, is a wild card. No one has any confidence in Steve Witkoff. The Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has enraged Trump by coming out with strong statements that Iran is nowhere near making a nuclear bomb at the same time that Trump is saying the opposite. She is likely to be sacked. Trump also listens to some fairly wacky advisers and, like a child, has a very short attention span. Meanwhile the polls show that 60% of Americans do not want to get involved in a war with Iran against only 16% who would support such an involvement.Meanwhile the US already has one carrier group off-shore Iran and another is about to arrive. Trump, in his excitement, would doubtless like to exercise battlefield control and it is not clear that the Joint Chiefs of Staff will be able to restrain him. Yet carrying out a massive military intervention with many moving parts on the other side of the world is an extremely complex and taxing task. It is, to say the least, entirely unclear that Trump’s team is capable of discharging such a task. If one remembers the professionalism and sophistication with which President Kennedy dealt with the Cuban missile crisis one realises that America has virtually disabled itself.

RW Johnson: Will Donald Trump go to war?

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