There can be no doubt that the world has lost all peace and stability. People burn in the fire of political, military and economic conflicts, wars and crises. For the last three-quarters-of-a-century, the US has been the conductor who propels these conflicts into a crescendo, even though at times the sound declined to not-so-aggravating levels. Today, thanks to the current Maestro Donald Trump, we are juddered by ear-splitting declarations and decisions that mirror the magnitude of his self-aggrandisement.
In this editorial, I resume introducing views cited by prominent analysts on what goes on in the world today. I present excerpts from the 14 May episode of Judge Andrew Napolitano’s podcast Judging Freedom with columnist, commentator, and security consultant Phil Geraldi, 79; Executive Director of the Council for National Interest since 2010, and previously intelligence officer with the CIA.
Judge Napolitano: There have been leaks from the White House that President Trump is sick and tired of Prime Minister Netanyahu. There is some factual evidence for this: the US negotiating directly with Hamas, Mike Huckabee being forced to admit publicly that it’s appropriate for the US to send humanitarian aid to Gaza whether Israel goes along with it or not, suspending the sanctions on Syria, and now this very ostentatious Middle Eastern trip which, equally as ostentatiously avoids Israel. What’s your take?
Mr Geraldi: “I’m always suspicious of these kinds of easy stories; one of the interesting aspects of this, it seems to me, is the fact that how much of this have you been able to read in the US media? Not a whole lot; the story is not being covered to much of an extent, where most of the information is coming out of the Israeli media and out of Israeli leagues. So there’s kind of a two-sided game being played here. Clearly, I think that Trump feels that he’s been manipulated and used by Netanyahu, and I think that’s a fair assessment in both directions… But at the same time this is a game of real politics being played here in which both sides are angling for various kinds of advantages. So I think Trump is angry and also the fact that he wouldn’t talk to Netanyahu and said flatly that he doesn’t want to be in contact with him again, and also our Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth cancelled a trip to Israel that was supposed to be this week. So this is a move by the administrations. I think there is fire where there is the smoke, but we have to see just where it goes with this. There are of course the negotiations with Iran which are perhaps one of the key elements of what’s going on in the background of this trip. There also is of course the story that Trump wanted to make a real big splash by basically ending the horror of what is going on in Gaza.”
Mr Geraldi then talked about news of normalising relations with Syria. He said: “I was intrigued by this story about normalising the relationship with Syria. Well there are a lot of problems with that, but one of the biggest problems is that Israel has now occupied a whole big chunk of Syria, pretty close up even to the borders of Damascus, and has been systematically destroying arms depots so that the Syrian government whoever it is will not have anywhere to threaten Israeli presence. So how is Trump going to play with that one?”
Why did Trump meet with al-Golani who is a former official of al-Qaeda, who has killed Americans with his bare hands, and is the head of a terrorist group, who as President of Syria, is killing Alawites and Christians in Syria?
“Again this is a case where either Donald Trump is getting terrible information from the people who are allegedly supporting him in his Cabinet, or there’s some other game being played… There has been talk of pulling all US troops out of Syria and maybe even out of Iraq as well… There’s currently pressure coming from Turkey in the north, and from the Israelis in the south, and the US in the middle, with Kurdish militias under its control. So this is a kind of game where there is any number of players… The actual game is probably something that’s being discussed in closed rooms by the various players.”
Trump dropped this as a tease the other day, it probably gave Netanyahu a heart attack. How realistic would it be if Mike Walz at the UN were to cast a vote in favour of recognising Palestine as a sovereign country?
“I think that would have a huge impact because implicitly it would be that the US would in the Security Council stop covering for Israel in terms of the war crimes that it’s committing, and there would be a lot of countries that seeing that example and recognising that the US has been the one major impediment to stopping the Israeli behaviour a lot of other countries would follow the lead and something might actually happen in terms of the international community to stop the genocide.”
Of all people President Putin talking about Gaza: “Russia has always been in favour of providing humanitarian access and resuming the peaceful process of settlement in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the situation only gets worse, there’s humanitarian crisis that’s only exacerbated by decisions to deny any humanitarian aid or any supplies of necessary goods to the Gaza Strip.” I don’t know if humanitarian aid is getting through, Mike Huckabee made that very ostentatiously public statement about “we can send supplies to Gaza whether Israel agrees or not, but do we know if supplies are getting through.”
“The last report I saw was about two days ago from the UNRWA which basically said that no supplies were getting through, and this has been the case for well over a month, and the entire population of Gaza pretty much is on the verge of actual dying from starvation. So, this is the assessment made by people who are on the ground there. The Israelis have come out with comments over the last two days saying that the ultimate objective of course is to get rid of the Palestinians.”
As we speak the President is in Qatar. What is your take on this donation of a USD400 million Air-Force-One-like jet to the Defence Department, then eventually when Donald Trump leaves office supposedly to the board of governors or directors of the Trump presidential library?
“I would say absolutely that this is in the nature of a deferred gift to Donald Trump. It’s going to be operated by the US government, it’s first of all going to be updated by the Defence Department and then it’s going to be operated by Donald Trump for the next two or three years, and then he’s going to receive it as a gift for one of his entities. I think this is obscene, this is corruption in the extreme and it’s unfortunately something we’ve become somewhat accustomed to.”
Watani International
23 May 2025
