In what can only be described as a tantrum that would shame a toddler denied a second biscuit, Donald Trump has accused the US House of Representatives of being ‘unpatriotic’ for daring to vote on a resolution limiting his ability to bomb Iran back to the Stone Age. The vote, which passed with bipartisan support, essentially says that Congress – not the Cheeto-in-Chief – gets to decide when America embarks on yet another Middle Eastern quagmire. Trump, clearly not a fan of constitutional checks and balances, took to Twitter to spew his usual brand of verbal napalm, calling the lawmakers ‘human scum’ and ‘traitors’.
Meanwhile, across the pond, Her Majesty’s Government has issued a statement so bland it could be used as wallpaper. ‘We stand with our Gulf allies for stability,’ they intoned, which is diplomatic code for ‘Please don’t drag us into your mess, but we have to say something because oil.’ The UK, still smarting from the whole Iraq WMD fiasco, is understandably nervous about any new adventure in the region. Yet, as ever, they’re trying to have it both ways: supporting the US while hoping Trump doesn’t start World War III before tea time.
Let’s be clear: the current US administration treats foreign policy like a game of Call of Duty, with Trump as the player who screams racial slurs into his headset. The House vote was a rare moment of sanity, a glimmer of democracy in a sea of authoritarian impulses. But Trump, who has never met a dictator he didn’t like, sees any attempt to restrain his trigger finger as an act of treason. No, Donald, the only treason here is your betrayal of every American who thought they were voting for a president, not a monarch.
The UK’s position, as always, is to smile politely, extract itself from the blast radius, and hope the Americans don’t do anything too stupid. But hope is not a strategy, and with Trump at the helm, stupidity is the only constant. So as the world braces for the next tweetstorm or drone strike, the UK stands with its Gulf allies, sipping its tea and pretending it’s not about to get its fingers burned again.
