The other day, after signing a deal with President Vladimir Putin to buy diesel from Russia, President Donald Trump suggested to the Ukrainians to “get a new leader who can make a deal”. The Iranian leaders have been dealing with his ambiguous and fast-changing statements for the past seven months. Before he was sworn in as the 47th President of the USA, I had put in a piece that ‘unpredictability’ would continue to remain the calculated policy of President Donald Trump in leading the USA. This was my conviction, anchored in our experience with his ambiguous, unpredictable and fickle conduct as the USA leader in his first term. He has been more unpredictable in his second term, as demonstrated by his conduct of the war with Iran.

In the second half of the twentieth century, wars were the main feature of the USA’s foreign and security policy. The USA, as the leader of the so-called free world, vowed to fight godless communism in every corner of the globe, from Central America to greater Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The Americans never learnt a lesson from their humiliation in Vietnam. Besides Central American countries, Asian nations have witnessed more wars in their region, mainly involving the USA in one way or another. American military interventions in various regions have persisted unabated since the Second World War.

Following the humiliating defeat in Vietnam, the USA sent military forces to Lebanon to end the civil war there. President Ronald Reagan also wanted to intervene militarily in Central America to halt the advance of the Soviets in February 1984, despite resistance to his plan from half of his........

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