Modern Diplomacy Has Never Seen Such a Farce
If Trump led any other country, he would be ignored — or laughed off the stage.
Last Friday, the president of the United States proclaimed that Iran had “agreed to everything.”
The “Hormuz Strait situation is over” and “Iran has agreed to never close” the waterway again, Trump wrote on social media. He also said that “Iran, with the help of the U.S.A., has removed, or is removing, all sea mines.” He added that Iran had agreed to stop enriching uranium on its soil, and that negotiations would resume in Pakistan two days later.
All these claims were completely made up. Tehran hadn’t agreed to any of the above. If it opened the strait, it closed it again the next day. It quickly disputed the uranium claim and rejected calls for another round of talks, which has now been postponed indefinitely. And if sea mines exist, they have yet to be found.
Trump’s lies followed a profanity-laced social-media post earlier this month, in which he addressed the Iranians as “crazy bastards.” In the absence of direct and formal diplomatic communication between Washington and Tehran — they broke off official relations in 1979 — social media has provided an informal channel to exchange messages. Some of its content may be unseemly, but it’s de facto part of diplomacy — and the official government record.
Seeing the F-word in this context should anger everyone. Whether I describe Trump’s behavior as clueless, embarrassing, revolting or maniacal, my vocabulary fails me in trying to find a word that truly reflects the massive damage he has inflicted on global diplomacy, U.S. power and basic human decency.
I’m tired of the commentary in the media about Trump’s “unconventional diplomatic style.” Would you trust a heart surgeon with his own “style” of performing a quadruple bypass that ignores proven practices? So why do we tolerate such grotesque diplomatic malpractice? Is diplomacy less important than medicine? Are lives not at stake when one tries to end a war?
What would it take to see that the entire world is desperate for competent diplomacy? Obviously, writing and talking about it doesn’t help, even when one “keeps on keeping on,” as some readers have noted I’ve done. When the economy suffers much more than it has already because of the war and the Strait of Hormuz’s closure, will Americans — or anyone in power, for that matter — see that as a failure of diplomacy?
How can any country negotiate with an opponent who makes up almost everything he says — not just to mislead, but as a modus operandi — and ignores actual facts on the ground?
Is there any way to make sense of Trump’s propensity to invent lie after lie? Is it possible that, in his mind, this is an effective negotiating method? Could he believe that Iran would do something just because he demands it? Or is all of this about manipulating markets to help certain people profit from insider trading, as the BBC suggested this week?
Someone in a position of power must explain to Trump that the mess he has created won’t end well for anyone, including him, unless an adult with at least minimal expertise and experience is in charge of the diplomacy to end the war. Stubbornly clinging to his real-estate envoys in this farce will only lead to greater suffering.
In one of his posts on Friday, Trump referred to the negotiations with Iran as “our transaction.” Although his transactional approach and obsession with dealmaking are widely known, that quote still startled me. One must have very limited mental capacity not to understand that ending a war requires a set of longer-term agreements with the other side than a “transaction.”
Having dug himself into a hole, Trump not only failed to make any progress with the Iranians before the two-week ceasefire expired; he saw no choice but to extend the truce unilaterally, in a move that amounted to self-inflicted humiliation. If his mental capacity were greater, he might recognize that, while lies, threats and bullying may work in real-estate dealmaking, they almost never truly work in diplomacy.
It’s clear that Trump is the U.S. government’s worst negotiator in decades, and one of the worst in history. If he led any other country, no one would pay him any attention. I wish more Americans understood just how much of a joke he has become to the rest of the world.
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Nicholas Kralev is the founder and executive director of the Washington International Diplomatic Academy, and a former Financial Times and Washington Times correspondent. His books include “Diplomatic Tradecraft,” “America’s Other Army” and “Diplomats in the Trenches.”
Might this now be the time for U.S. citizens to demand better diplomacy, at least?