The new Trump doctrine: Every country for itself

Donald Trump's much-anticipated address from the White House early on Thursday (India time) was, in the end, a speech delivered by an American President on the backfoot.

- Happymon Jacob

He did not declare an end to the Iran war — not that such a declaration by Trump would have ended the war. He also did not, to the relief of the Europeans, announce an exit from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato). The speech, instead, was an exercise in trying to provide reassurance — to jittery financial markets, an American public uneasy with the war, rattled global energy markets, uneasy allies, and Gulf States unhappy about being dragged into a war that is not theirs. However, Trump's attempt was, by any measure, futile.

Thirty-three days in, the war in Iran is not going well for anyone, including Trump. He told Americans they are “very close” to achieving the strategic objectives behind the war — around two to three weeks away, he said. Iran's navy is gone, its air force “in ruins,” its leaders dead, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps “is being decimated as we speak”, he claimed. And yet Tehran has not fallen. The Islamic Republic has absorbed devastating strikes but continues to fight. It has gone after its neighbours hosting American military, attacked Israel, and, perhaps most consequentially, taken control of the Strait of Hormuz. The regime is not falling like a house of cards, as Trump might have expected, still flush from his cheap win in Venezuela.