A Loose Monkey with a Knife

Trump reveals the inconsistency of his personality by failing to carry out his threats.

With Donald Trump in the Situation Room where war operations are conducted, there have already been two occasions so far this year in which the ghost of an unexpected war has strolled around the White House. The first was at the high point of the heightened rhetoric between Kim Jong Un and the U.S. president, just at the beginning of the year, when the competition over the size of their respective nuclear buttons added to the exchange of insult and injury. The second took place this April, when Trump called Bashar Assad an “animal,” and promised him “nice and new and ‘smart’” incoming missiles, raising the fear of a direct confrontation between Russia and the United States over Syrian territory.

The most dangerous and erratic president in history has overcome two critical situations in three months with the same nonchalance with which he started them. The fact that his threats have not materialized says a lot about the inconsistency of his personality, described by James Comey, the hostile and dismissed ex-director of the FBI, in terms of emptiness and desperation for “affirmation,” unbecoming for an adult.

Trump’s character will be tested again from the same critical points where the war drums have sounded. May 12 is the deadline for signing the six-month extension regarding suspension of sanctions against Iran in exchange for Iran’s agreement to freeze its nuclear program. Trump has already suspended sanctions twice despite his reluctance to do so since it fails to fulfill a campaign promise. And, if he does not sign now, it is almost guaranteed that Iran will resume its program, Israel and Saudi Arabia will seek immediate reprisal, setting up new conditions for war in the Middle East.*

There will be another dangerous appointment at the end of May or the beginning of June at the summit between Kim Jong Un and Trump, at which the former wants to obtain international recognition, and the latter seeks the cancellation of the North Korean nuclear program. The speed and efficiency of North Korean diplomacy, with the supreme leader’s recent trip to Beijing and tomorrow’s summit meeting with Seoul, do not ensure the success of the historic meeting, in which Trump wishes to emulate Richard Nixon’s opening to China. Success is neither ensured by the recent additions to the White House of Mike Pompeo, the new secretary of state, or John Bolton, the new national security advisor, both more supportive of missiles than diplomacy. Nor will the incoherence of what is being done with North Korea and being undone with Iran be of any help, actions which can only be explained by the peculiar personality of the president, to whom the principle of noncontradiction is foreign.

The fascination with the young Emmanuel Macron, with his good multilateral advice, is the only thing that can exert some beneficial and conciliatory influence on this president, who is subject to the “loose monkey with a knife” syndrome every time he faces a war crisis.

*Editor’s note: President Donald Trump announced on May 8, 2018 that he was withdrawing the United States from the Iran nuclear agreement and restoring sanctions against the country.