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Opinion
If Trump has all the cards, why is the US in such a strategic quagmire?
For all his bluster, he has failed to broker peace in Ukraine even as Israeli strikes dashed any chance of a nuclear deal with Iran
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Richard Javad Heydarian is an Asia-based academic, currently a Professorial Chairholder in Geopolitics at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.
Just four months ago, US President Donald Trump was lecturing a surprised Volodymyr Zelensky on how the Ukrainian leader was “not winning” because he did not “have the cards”. As commander-in-chief of a superpower, Trump unabashedly brandished his geopolitical capital – apparently more interested in negotiating agreements with traditional US rivals such as Russia and Iran to bolster his “art of the deal” credentials.
Today, the strategic picture looks dramatically different. Following the spectacular success of Operation Spider’s Web, which saw Ukrainian forces launching devastating drone attacks from within the heart of Russia, Kyiv seized the strategic initiative against the Kremlin.
Trump, meanwhile, has struggled to translate his geopolitical capital into concrete gains. Despite his promise to swiftly finalise new deals with Russia and Iran, and repeatedly promising a new era of peace to his “Make America Great Again” (Maga) base, the situation has escalated in traditional theatres of conflict.
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