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February 1, 1979, an elderly man, a darkly austere imam, dressed in a black robe, stepped out of a chartered aircraft at Tehran airport to a rapturous reception from a crowd of nearly one million Iranians. The world had no idea that this man, Ayatollah Khomeini, would soon disrupt the lazy rhythm of the global order to which the western world had got so fond of since the end of the Second World War. The Ayatollah, who would soon elevate himself to the status of the Supreme Leader, was untutored in the norms and rules of the civilised world. He was deeply resentful of a global order that had allowed a despotic Shah to write his own rules of oppression and repression.

Armed with the adoration of a wrathful following, the Ayatollah would order the seizing of hostages at the American embassy—in violation of the sanctity and inviolability accorded to foreign embassies. America had been chosen as the enemy of the Iranian people and he, as the custodian of the faithful, decided that he was entitled to inflict revenge and humiliation on the Great Satan. And he—cocooned in his own righteousness and his theological dogmas—would arrogate to himself the right to issue a fatwa of a death sentence against a writer, in a distant land, because the novelist had seemingly written something blasphemous. The imam had instigated a debate as to who would decide and define what a world order should look like.

On January 21, 2025, another man, dressed in a blue and red tie, would reclaim his place at the head of a column of wrathful followers. Within hours of being sworn in as the 47th President of the United States, this man, Donald Trump, would signal to the world that he, like the Iranian imam, was equally disdainful of the global sensitivities—of allies and foes alike—and had little use for “established” conventions and protocols of the international rules of conduct. Like the Ayatollah, Trump has arrogated to himself the right to place himself above all constitutional prescriptions or proscriptions because he embodies the American Zeitgeist.

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Just as the Ayatollah thought that as the Supreme Leader he had a licence to rearrange Iranian society and the people in whatever way he wanted, Imam Trump believes that he too has the authority to re-configure the American republic as per his whims and fancies. That, of course, is the battle for the American citizens and democratic institutions to fight; more consequentially, Imam Trump has instigated a debate over the rules and conventions of the global order. Trump has triggered the vast grid of geopolitical and moral adjustments in chancelleries around the world.

Should the United States get its way, what is there to prevent Imam Trump from turning his attention to Kashmir?

Nothing can be more illustrative of the new immoral ruthlessness that Imam Trump has introduced in American foreign policy conduct than the outright thuggery in his approach towards Ukraine. According to a front-page report in The Wall Street Journal on February 21, 2025, American officials have demanded that Ukraine hand over its mineral rights worth hundreds of billion dollars to the United States. According to this story, US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kiev and handed him a piece of paper to put his signature to sign away the mineral rights. Very much in the nature of a Tom Hagen, the consigliere, making a demand in the name of Don Corleone in The Godfather, the US Treasury boss told the Ukrainian leader: “You really need to sign this” otherwise “people back in Washington would be very upset if he didn’t.” And, when Zelenskyy demurred,66br cassino asking for time to consider the American demand, the US National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz, threatened on Fox News that “they need to tone it down and take a hard look and sign that deal”.

To us in India, the American official’s dadagiri should remind us of Robert Clive or Warren Hastings frog-marching the Indian nawabs and rajahs into signing away revenue rights to the East India Company. The American démarche on President Zelenskyy (and his quasi-capitulation) should prepare us for a new era of sanctions, subversions and sermons, aimed at bringing to heel any foreign government.

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Equally, to us, it should be alarming that Imam Trump could unblinkingly decree that Gaza be depopulated of its current inhabitants and the place should be developed as a resort. Unfazed by the comprehensive rejection of his plan by all the stake-players, the Trump caliphate is proceeding ahead. Another report in The Wall Street Journal, datelined Miami, noted that “Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, said he and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, are discussing bringing together real-estate executives from all over” to plan how to clean up and develop a piece of a foreign land. The United States has no sovereignty or even suzerainty over Gaza. The Americans only have the authority of their military power to have their will prevail in that region. And, should the United States get its way, what is there to prevent Imam Trump from turning his attention to Kashmir, another site of perennial conflict?

What is worse, Imam Trump has entered an entente with Russian Czar Vladimir Putin. Till a few months ago, the Americans were hailing Zelenskyy as a re-incarnation of Winston Churchill, a solitary figure standing up to a totalitarian despot; today, the United States and Russia are voting on the same side in the United Nations on Ukraine! What a complete rejection of the Kissingerian notion of the American word, a doctrine that used to inflict enormous misery and deprivation around the world. Now, Imam Trump is behaving as if the established comity of nations and communities is to be carved out among global warlords. What is there to stop him from making a deal with Emperor Xi and ditching India, suddenly discovering that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a “dictator” and demanding that the Indians sort out their border issue with China to the satisfaction of the Chinese hegemon?

More than American foes, it is Washington’s friends and allies who would find themselves at their wits’ end in dealing with the whims and fancies of this Ayatollah in the red tie. Essentially, Trump is the very vainglorious person—identified by philosopher Thomas Hobbes in the 17th century—as the root cause of conflict and turmoil. Hobbes seems to have got Trump right to the last comma: the vainglorious person as “supposing himself above others, will have a licence to do what he lists, and challenges respect and honour, as due to him before others… This man’s will to hurt ariseth from vain glory, and the false esteem he hath of his own strength”.

Our elites, not excluding the ruling coterie and the Opposition leadership, would need to summon our collective resilience and our enduring sense of national certitude to stand up to Imam Trump, as and when he goes sour on “his friend Narendra Modi.” Sooner than later, the new Imam in the White House will try to degrade our national honour and prestige. Make no mistake about it.

(Views expressed are personal)

Harish Khare is a Delhi-based senior journalist and public commentator

(This article appeared as an overlap story in Outlook's March 11, 2025 Women's Day special issue 'Women at Work'. It appeared in print as 'Imam Trump')

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