Trump is more CEO than President; this won’t work

Let’s face it: We are turning into, literally, a species of killjoys. The prime examples of this evolutionary trait are those that comprise the Islamic State or Al Qaeda and their adherents outside the West, or even India for that matter. Their latest outrage, in a repetitively numbing pattern, was obviously in Manchester, targeting children at a concert. In the IS joyless vision of the world, you can’t have that. That’s why their foot soldiers have attacked the Friday the 13th gig in Bataclan in Paris or a nightclub in Orlando. Nowadays it appears that if you want to stop to smell the roses, it could be they are part of a bouquet left at a makeshift memorial after another jihadi strike.

That brings us to the American President’s maiden grand tour; a leap of faith. Donald Trump has often blustered about obliterating the Islamic State. That he would place Saudi Arabia at the centre of that objective points to a kink that may well jinx his Administration (beyond the drip, drip, drip of leaks that’s this White House’s version of the Chinese water torture). In the worldview where MAGA (make America great again) is magic, Trump is given to operating less like a political executive and more the CEO; which brings forth its own set of problems. Main among them is an approach where crafting the deal garners more interest than any principle.

So, $110 billion can buy Riyadh a free pass on attitudes that have been adopted with great brutality by the terrorist hordes: Like the place of women in society (locked away like family possessions), gays (stoned to death), free speech bloggers (flogged), tolerance for other faiths (non-existent). The new facet of this unholy alliance is branding Iran the biggest terrorist threat to the world. The bereaved in Manchester, Nice, Brussels or Boston aren’t exactly wailing over suicide bombers inspired by Tehran. To be fair, Trump’s predecessors didn’t exactly take a righteous message to the House of Saud, but Trump has inflated its importance with his worship of the bottomline.

After curtsying before the Saudi King, Trump royally namechecked him as a “wise man” in a churlish speech at the headquarters of NATO in Brussels. The courtesy of before gave way to hectoring leaders of the Alliance nations: “NATO members must finally contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations,” he said, to side-eyed glances and grimaces, not necessarily caused by the bright sun. Once again the ledger led the way, as he lectured about 23 of 28 NATO nations not meeting their financial obligations. This is foreign policy conducted as commerce, putting a new spin on that phrase, checkbook diplomacy.

This is a presidency where snark (and snarls) take the place of good humour, but Trump may not find much joy in this path dictated more by balance sheets than a code of ethics. The last laugh, unfortunately, may just go to the humourless hordes. Many people might know a lot of diverse things, but when they need to actually utilise them, they tend to forget. For instance, the virtue of patience is known to all, but used by a few. Our propensity to be impatient about many small or big things in our day to day lives cost us the loss of peace of mind. Though we have little control over most things, but we tend to believe that we are the drivers of the events in our life.

I have seen people becoming nervous and abusive with airline staff if the flight is delayed. Knowing fully well that neither they nor the airline ground staff is responsible for it. When the Bhagvad Gita tells you to do your duties and forget about the results, it is basically teaching you to be more patient and less worried about things on which you have no control. When someone sows seeds for a tree, digging every morning and seeing its growth will not help.

Sometimes giving more time to the problem acts as a solution. It is solved by either a quirk of fate or changed circumstances. the intensity of our actions does not always result in positive results. So when we teach our children to be more patient, we need to give them more time to imbibe this quality too.