Blasé Capital ‘bart’ of war
There is something about the ‘Orange Man’ who keeps changing his colours, tunes, aims, actions, and decisions faster than the trajectories of the sun, moon, planets, stars, and galaxies. For some, his character is evolving, and dissolving into that of the famous cartoon character, Bart Simpson, who is “mischievous, rebellious, misunderstood, disruptive, and ‘potentially dangerous.’” Yet another description: “His penchant for shocking others originates… back to before he was born…. Bart is a notorious prankster… and his pranks are elaborately complex, but can lead to unfortunate consequences…. His actions and speech frequently show considerable mental agility, street-smarts, and understanding.”
Like it or not, believe it or not, these, and other descriptions and explanations fit perfectly with Donald Trump, the US president. Yet, his several-split personality, or his amazing ability to depict different variations of his so-called personality, which has astounded and amazed many, has gone in for another not-much-needed change. According to a media report, he has emerged as ‘Don Tzu,’ or “a portmanteau of Donald Trump and Sun Tzu (ancient writer of the famous book, The Art of War).”
Phrases such as ‘Let your plans be dark,’ or ‘In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity,’ have new meanings.
From the ‘I did not do it,’ and ‘Eat my shorts’ catchphrases, attributed to Bart, Don Tzu’s new mantra and dictums that were turned into popular social media memes include ‘If you do not know what you are doing, neither does your enemy,’ or ‘You cannot lose if you do not have a goal.’ The war on Iran amply proves the existence of the new Don Tzu, or the ‘Bart of War,’ as depicted by Trump. Sun Tzu rightly said that warfare is based on deception. But he added that when one can attack, one must seem inactive. The Don believes in saying everything upfront, then doing what he said, and later trying to backtrack.
Possibly, all is not lost on the modern Sun Tzu. He has realised that when you surround an enemy, one must leave an outlet free, and not press a desperate foe too hard. But Trump wanted to force Iran into submission. He did not wish to keep an outlet free. When the war dragged on, he tried to free the Strait of Hormuz by issuing an ultimatum, and then giving a five-day reprieve. The peace talks that he talks about may be a strategic move to open one of the closed outlets. Trump needs to get out of the war he never wanted to get out of.
Look at another paradox. Now, the entire focus is to open the Strait of Hormuz to ease global crude oil supplies, and supply chains for other crucial commodities. The war will end if Iran agrees to a truce that allows shipments from the Middle East to Asia. Indeed, Trump has said the same, keep the Strait open, and America will stop the bombings, or at least not attack sensitive energy assets like
power plants. As one of the comments on social media reiterates, no one remembers that the Strait of Hormuz was open before the war. How did one go from ending Iran’s current existence to open what was already open?
Of course, the wise warrior, as Sun Tzu said, avoids a battle. This was indeed the case with Trump, who went around extinguishing ‘small global fires’ that had erupted across the world, and claimed to have stopped several global wars. He wanted a Nobel Peace Prize for it. When he was disregarded, he went seeking wars all over the world. He tried when he warned that he would annex Greenland. He tried when he whisked away the Venezuelan president, and his wife. He tried when he earlier bombed Iran, but only for a few hours.
Finally, Trump changed track, and went headlong to seek, start, and stoke a war that has almost turned into a miniature version of World War III. But he embraced another edict from the book, The Art of War. He kept the enemy confused, as Sun Tzu advised, so that the enemy could not fathom the real intent. Trump changed his objectives, as he changed his tactics, as the days turned into nights, and nights into day. A clever fighter is not the one who wins but wins with ease. Trump has made it tougher as the days went by, nearing impossibility.
As the media report states, “The reality is that this war has slipped out of Trump’s control, if he ever had any to begin with. It will be neither quick nor decisive, like his intervention in Venezuela, nor easy to walk away from by declaring victory where there objectively is none, as Trump did last year after the US bombed the Houthis in Yemen, and some militia in Nigeria.” But it is not easy to write him off easily. He can still pull rabbits out of the hats, even if they are not the rabbits that he intended to, or the hats belong to someone else.
Remember what he did with India and Pakistan? Remember what he almost did with Russia and Ukraine? Remember how he stepped away from Greenland? Maybe he will target Cuba to take the heat off Iran.
