IT’S a challenging task to decipher US President Donald Trump’s ever-changing statements on war and peace. His recent posts on social media and various media interviews with him have left us bewildered. The remarks are puzzling and compound the prevailing uncertainty surrounding the next round of US-Iran talks. The president’s constant self-aggrandisement has made it hard to believe anything he says. It is both comical and dangerous.

While insisting that he has achieved all war objectives, Trump continues to threaten Iran with more destruction if it does not comply with his demands. (Absurdly, he believes that his ‘peacemaking’ efforts deserve a Nobel Prize and recently said that the Lebanon-Israel ‘ceasefire’ was his 10th achievement in the context of conflict resolution.) Trump’s coercive diplomacy has failed to subdue Iran, which has endured weeks of relentless bombing and the loss of its top religious, civil and military leadership, but has refused to engage in talks under the shadow of threats.

Trump’s refusal to lift a naval blockade and the US interception of an Iranian cargo ship have jeopardised the tentative peace process mediated by Pakistan. Mixed messages of escalation and optimism emanating from the White House appear to be a deliberate strategy aimed at influencing global markets. The sharp fluctuations in the oil and stock markets following his remarks reinforce this view.

There is now a serious danger of escalation, with diminishing prospects for the resumption of talks in Islamabad after the expiration of the fragile ceasefire. Can Trump be........

© Dawn