COMMENTARY: By Lim Tean
Why is US President Donald Trump carrying on with his State visit to Beijing this week on May 14? I wouldn’t if I were him.
It also shows that he is surrounded by incompetent officials. Any competent advisor would advise him against undertaking this trip.
He goes as the leader of a “defeated” nation, against a foe on which the United States has imposed the stiffest sanctions for 47 years. He will be viewed by the Chinese as the President that ended the American empire.
He thinks he is going as a conquering hero and can wow the Chinese with his empty boasts that America won a huge victory and destroyed Iran. He will be met by President Xi and the Chinese leadership with polite smiles and smirks of the greatest disrespect.
If he has any EQ, he will know that his treatment in Beijing is going to be brutal. The Chinese may even gift him the symbolic white flag of surrender. You will see that in this summit, the US will be very much the junior partner.
Iran will never give this defeated President the satisfaction of a peace agreement which he so desperately needs, and is begging for, before his trip to Beijing. They will make sure he goes to Beijing as a defeated man.
Iran is not after a peace deal, but the total and comprehensive defeat of America as the global hegemon. Iran will see to it that the US gets out of the Middle East totally so that Israel is isolated and the Greater Israel project totally destroyed.
Security architecture shifting
Even as I write, the security architecture of the Middle East is shifting rapidly. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman are shifting their allegiances increasingly toward Iran, Russia and China.
Fifty-five years of being America’s poodles are coming to an end. These countries have realised that the US is an unreliable partner and cannot guarantee their security.
The stupid countries are the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, which still hitch their wagons to the Americans and Israel. They have dug their own graves.
History has never witnessed another event as dramatic as the Iran war, where a global power has lost power and prestige in such a short period of 4 months.
Lim Tean is a Singaporean lawyer, politician and commentator. He is the founder of the political party People’s Voice and a co-founder of the political alliance People’s Alliance for Reform.
Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz