Political Editorial Opinion
As I sit here late at night considering the world that we now live in, where America has instigated, once again, another ‘illegal war’ based on determinations of the United Nations Security Council, it has become obvious that International Law is now, essentially a moot point.
If might is right according to whomever decides to use it, then the world is now in a completely new, and dangerous place, unlike anything seen since WWII.
Trump’s decision for a ‘war of choice’ against Iran, simply means that going forward, any nation can utilize the same logic, or lack of it. According to today’s Guardian editorial;
“Laws cannot be optional for allies and binding only for adversaries. Unlike preemptive wars, preventive wars are deemed unlawful because they grant the powerful licence to strike at will… Mr. Trump’s actions are also shaky. There’s little public support in the U.S. for this attack, and Congress was not asked to authorize hostilities.”
Experience should have taught America something of value, but that appears to, once again, not be the case.
“Regime change from the sky has repeatedly proved an illusion for America – in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.
“Once preventative war is normalized, it can be used by any state that considers itself threatened in the long term. That is a dangerous precedent in an age of expanding missile arsenals, cyberthreats and nuclear proliferation.”
The United States may well find that it will be on the ‘receiving end’ of such actions, and has nowhere to look for the reason, other than in the mirror.
American War and De-Dollarization
Today, Heather Stewart of the Guardian wrote an opinion piece that has also been rattling around my cranium ever since Trump decided to unilaterally suggest that Greenland ‘will become part of the United States’.
Every time that Trump has another epiphany or stroke, I’m not sure which, — the US dollar takes another dive, having lost 7% of its value over the last year. It also suggests to other nations that holding American debt or treasuries is becoming increasing a risky proposition.
Actions that destabilize, like going to war with nations simply because you can, has the tendency as Francisco Quintana of Edinburgh Law School puts it; to ‘make it more and more clear that it may not be the best thing to have such a huge dependence on the US, which is becoming less and less reliable.”
Stewart states, in closing her opinion piece;
“The process of de-dollarization has been given fresh impetus by Trump’s chaotic regime, and government’s around the world are quietly building alternatives. The heavily indebted US of a few years time, may not like what comes next.”
The headwinds for America are already growing, before Greenland, Venezuela, and now, Iran.
As Stewart suggests; “Now, with Washington’s growing willingness to use its financial dominance to strong-arm rival countries, it has increased the clamour for alternatives to the greenback.”
BRICS along with what may well become a completely new trade organization, the Global Trade Organization, that looks like it may well supplant the WTO in time, combined with America being progressively ostracized from trade and particularly this growing trade group, may signal further erosion related to the dollar’s influence.
The world’s democracies, in particular, no longer feel they can trust the US, whether economically, in relation to trade, and certainly no longer now, in relation to the taking of rational military actions.
While America may believe that might is right, — for the rest of the world, might may simply mean ostracizing the US and the need to eschew America and its hegemonic goals entirely.
America is running out of friends and partners, fast. As for allies? I’m not sure that term even applies anymore.
Isolationism and protectionism may become conferred on the United States, which for Trump could signal having virtually no coercive ability whatsoever as the world, irrespective of a nations or blocs of nation’s ideology. When it comes to ignoring America’s wishes, the world is finding a new level of comfort.
Not trading with the US may be the preferred relationship going forward for the majority of the world’s trading nations, as America is as likely to once again, stab that nation in the back.
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