OTTAWA—While the United States’ armed extravaganza in Iran has demonstrated the Americans’ tactical military prowess in unmistakably ferocious terms, its effect on President Donald Trump has been of another order.

As he thrashes about in an escalating war that is killing many thousands of people and wrecking the global economy, Trump appears to be undergoing a kind of shrinkage in his—and by extension, his country’s—stature.

The war has more than ever exposed the president as an impulsive, freakishly unpredictable photo-op addict with no concept of geopolitics, statesmanship, or military strategy. Accordingly, the attack on Iran has weakened the American economic landscape, splintered U.S. credibility, played into the hands of Washington’s adversaries, and eroded what is left of the pivotal post-war western security alliance.

If there is a western leader who has emerged from the Trump-inspired Middle East and global catastrophe, it is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. His country’s expertise—thanks to Russia—in combatting today’s increasingly dominant drone warfare has raised his standing among the Gulf Arab states now under attack as Iran fights back against the massive U.S.-Israeli bombardments.

That role for Zelenskyy may bring in new partnerships and needed investment for Ukraine from the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and other countries. And that will be desperately needed, since Trump’s stumble into another protracted Middle East conflict has benefited no one as much as the architect of the war on Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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Canada has role to play in Ukraine peace talks as ‘moral conscience of the good guys,’ say observers

Trump. Putin. Round two in Alaska. Will they, won’t they? 

Despite unimaginable losses, Putin continues his relentless push into eastern Ukraine, town by town, village by village, body by body

Read more on this issue:

Why Trump’s NATO exit is long overdue

Trump’s options in Iran: some horrible, others humiliating

Trump has created wars of whimsy

Trump’s assault on Iran has indirectly given Putin the means to continue his four years of terrorism against the Ukrainian people.

Prior to the U.S.’s misbegotten Feb. 28 offensive, the once-booming Russian war economy was finally nearing a breaking point. Economic growth is flat, inflation is up, and government social programs have been trimmed as declining world crude prices dried up the revenues needed to finance the Kremlin’s invasion.

But the upsurging price of oil from Trump’s war is providing a windfall—possibly approaching US$100-billion by now—sufficient to finance Putin’s attack on Ukraine for years to come. That stroke of luck is being augmented by the U.S. president who, desperate to offset the oil crisis he engendered, issued a 30-day suspension of sanctions on Russian oil exports. And then there are the tens of billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment the U.S. is now expending in the Middle East—arms that are badly needed by Ukrainians going into their fifth year holding off Putin’s far-superior forces. 

If that were not enough, Trump has answered his Kremlin pal’s dream by leaving the future of NATO in doubt. Angered by the completely rational decision of NATO countries (who were never consulted in advance of Feb. 28) to join the out-of-control battle over Iran, the president is threatening to leave the 32-member group high and dry.

For Putin, whose delusions of grandeur revolve around cutting the West down to size and expanding Russian power in Europe, a NATO alliance left adrift without key U.S. military assets couldn’t be a more welcome prospect.

All indications point to the likelihood that Putin, barring an overwhelming setback in Ukraine, would be continuing his expansionary aims in Europe. The only thing deterring Russia’s aggression is NATO. And it’s an open question whether European countries and their allies like Canada could—without the U.S.—muster the will or military might to deter Putin in the foreseeable future.

We might get a better idea where that is headed when Trump talks this week with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. He has the misfortune of being scheduled to visit the White House at a time the president is regularly denigrating his transatlantic allies. On April 6, Trump again said Americans had been badly let down by NATO countries in the new Middle East conflict and suggested the U.S. would no longer back NATO. He added that the alliance is a “paper tiger” that Putin considers unworthy of consideration without American military presence. 

It seems obvious at this point that whatever else emerges from Trump’s disastrous armed foray into the Middle East, it has already given the war criminal in the Kremlin a new lease on life when it comes to his obsession with the subjugation of Ukraine and others in the Soviet Union’s long-gone European sphere of influence.

Les Whittington is a regular columnist for The Hill Times.

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