Our Spl Series -- Great Optics
Americans may not realise how they have changed the course of Muslims across the globe. Barack Obama pledged to bring the Iraq war to an end in 2008.
While US combat troops formally left Iraq in 2011, the rise of ISIS a few years later forced changed the course of history in the Middle East. Obama had to re-deploy militarily in the region.
Americans pretend to treat and give an impression that their Presidents cannot go wrong. This is the price they are paying today.
Their international reckoning has nosedived and worse President Donald Trump is leading his country towards confrontation with more than half of the world -- especially the countries and the world that matter. Countries like Brazil, India and China have come a long way since 1960s or 1970s and Trump is far from realising this.
Glories to US President(s) --- after careful studies - seem like another country -- unreal and distant.
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President Carter Visits India, January 1, 1978
It is a fact of life that Donald Trump isn’t the first US President to promise miracles and global peace. He is just the latest to learn that wars don’t end when presidents - especially those in Washington - say they will.
This helplessness has led Trump to personal frustration and much of ego-hit. Thus, he is acting irrational against India.
Possibly one reason - is India did not oblige him despite his repeated claims (to the delight of Rahul Gandhi in India) that he (Trump) has intervened successfully to end the India-Pakistan conflict in May 2025.
Thus came his Tariff bombs and today the hard-earned Indo-US ties are under serious stress if not threats.
Lyndon B Johnson, elected in 1964 as the “peace candidate,” inherited John F Kennedy’s legacy of Vietnam. In fact, it was one of the longest and deadliest wars in US history.
More lately, it was the turn of the Democrat Joe Biden.
In November 2021, Chinese Prez Xi Jinping said,
“It is playing with fire, and if you play with fire, you will get burned". The reference was US support to Taiwan.
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| Biden : An image of failures on multiple fronts |
The year 2021 has been the most frustrating year for Americans in the recent past, but the journey continues. A regime change marked 2021 in the United States. But the transition of power was not at all smooth and reflective of a healthy democracy.
"Democrats suggested they could charge President Donald Trump with “high crimes and misdemeanors” for inciting a mob that attacked the Capitol," reported 'The New York Times' , definitely adding to the shame of all Americans and their much touted claims over democracy.
However, at the end of the calendar year, Biden hosted virtually a Summit for Democracy trying to enlist the support of key global players including India and its charismatic leader Narendra Modi against the supposed hegemony of two authoritarian powers, Russia and China.
This self-virtuous pretension never works well.
In 2025, Trump is back and he is still busy engaging and dealing with Russia and China.
Let us go back to Vietnam. In 1968 Richard Nixon became President 'capitalising' on public discontent by suggesting he had a strategy to end the Vietnam War.
His master plan was never shared. Yet spin masters work very well in America and people voted for Nixon. The tussle for the US went on till 1973 and beyond.
Nixon found himself with a new role. How to 'expand' the Vietnam War into Cambodia and Laos --- his regime went ahead with bombings. He promised “an honourable peace” and later called “peace with honour".
Rhetoric survives in American life and polity and the Paris Peace Accords weren’t signed until 1973.
Further more two years after American troops left Vietnam, North Vietnamese forces were rapidly advancing on Saigon.
The US-backed South Vietnamese army, without American military support, was overwhelmed.
The Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, marked the end of the Vietnam War.
North Vietnamese forces captured the city, leading to the unification of Vietnam under communist rule. This event concluded a conflict that had divided the nation for decades and represented a significant defeat for the United States.
The chaotic evacuation of Saigon, known as Operation Frequent Wind, saw desperate attempts by many to flee the city as North Vietnamese troops advanced.
For Biden of course, the worst crisis and that hit America's global reputation was in the form of the Afghanistan crisis. In simpler language, it was a 'botched up' withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan and the Taliban took over Kabul on August 15, 2021.
Americans had themselves to blame for everything.
The so called 'Doha' assurances of the Taliban leaders In the last few years came a cropper. Of course, a few weeks after the August high drama punctuated with loss of face for Uncle Sam, India's no nonsense External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar did some plain speaking.
"....When I say levels of concern, the commitments which were made by the Taliban at Doha, the US knows it best. We were not taken into confidence on various aspects of that," Dr Jaishankar said.
Only on August 26, Biden's Afghanistan policy hit his country most. At least 60 civilians and 12 US service members were killed as Islamic State claimed responsibility for the dastardly Kabul attacks. It turned out to be the deadliest day for US forces in a decade, subjecting President Biden to face sharper criticism.
Trump inherited that legacy and he may not realise that few countries will 'fear' US President these days in the manner people might have done in the 1960s and 1970s.
The evacuation of western forces and others from Afghanistan plunged into a deeper crisis as multiple explosions in Kabul killed scores throwing the entire world into panic.
Just bang Uncle Google and it would say --
Several US presidents have faced significant failures and faced criticism for their performance during their time in office. Some examples include James Buchanan's leadership during the lead-up to the Civil War, Andrew Johnson's handling of Reconstruction, and the second-term challenges faced by presidents like Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Additionally, the presidencies of Warren G. Harding and Donald Trump have also been cited as failures by some historians. He has vanished the 'trust' between two countries.
India’s deep-seated preference for protectionist policies, rooted in its colonial past, will not be easily abandoned.
Given that tariffs also serve as a vital source of government revenue, a sudden reduction could disrupt fiscal stability, says Congress leader Shashi Tharoor.
The Gulf War of 1991 will be another conflict the Americans may have to blame themselves one day.
President George H W Bush framed the war as a mission to push Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. Operation Desert Storm lasted just over a month, with an overwhelming US-led coalition assault that forced Saddam Hussein to retreat.
The war was widely seen as a success and Bush’s approval ratings soared. But that military triumph did not end the broader conflict. Saddm Hussein remained in power, and Iraq remained under US sanctions.
Much later Bill Clinton had his problems and at one stage, it was that the Gulf War’s unresolved endgame contributed to the invasion of Iraq under his son George W Bush.
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