By Philip Yeung
How do you negotiate with a cognitively impaired, mentally unstable and habitual liar?
You can't. But that is who Iran faces in the current conflict. Trump, the mad military adventurist, is the hill on which peace dies.
What Trump posts in his Truth Social in the morning is often negated and discarded by noon. Within a single day, his position on ending the war can shift three, four or five times. Sometimes the repudiation comes from his lackeys. More often, it comes from the warmongering monster's own mouth.
Mentally unwell, Trump is restless and up all night posting crazy messages or memes on Truth Social. His unpredictability makes it impossible for anyone to take him seriously as a negotiator. Dealing with him is dicing with the devil. He is insanity personified.
His flip-flopping is disastrous for diplomacy, but it creates golden opportunities for speculators, especially if you happen to be a member of the Trump family, like his son Donald Trump Jr or his son-in-law Kushner, a piece of plywood, who has seen his net worth jump astronomically in the first year of this administration. These nefarious insider transactions are merely winked at. All the public gets is lip service from Trump's sycophantic officials, but no enforcement action. His administration qualifies as America's most corrupt presidency in which power is parlayed for profit.
Back to the war. How do you end a nasty war when the man who started it plays only by his own rules or whims?
The world is treated to dizzying rounds of flip-flops, ups and downs and bewildering backpedaling. Incompetence is partnered with amorality, lawlessness and unchecked ambition. Trump started the war on an impulse but has no idea how to end it.
Trump is a voodoo priest, a toxic he-devil with the power to plunge the planet into chaos and catastrophe.
It is reported that China has played a secret hand in bringing about the first ceasefire. Perhaps China should now step out into the open and play public guarantor, because Trump's credibility is in the toilet and trusted by no one. His only bargaining chips are bombs and lethal military hardware. Iran is tired of trying to read his wild moods. Threatening to smash every power plant and bridge in Iran is no way to begin bringing peace to a troubled region. Negotiating with Trump is negotiating with a gangster who talks only with his gun.
We hold our breath as Trump jerks the world left and right, with threats and counter-threats flying back and forth. Diplomacy requires a level of decency and trust, but both are absent in Trump. How many more thousands must die before Trump can weasel his way out of a war he cannot win?
Time and time again, the cowardly US Congress has voted not to take away Trump's war-waging powers, content to remain an accomplice after the fact.
The tragedy for America and the world is that we now have a nutcase on the loose, with all the guardrails removed. Even God's representative gets no respect as Trump gets down and dirty insulting the Pope.
Trump is constantly in the news, and the world is constantly in turmoil. He is safe from the 25th Amendment as his cabinet is just a cabal of sniveling bootlickers and self-seekers. He is a supervillain wielding the superpower of a mighty empire. That makes him more terrifying than Hitler, because he doesn't have a fixed agenda. He hits where his moods move him. This year, 2026, feels apocalyptic as Trump's ego pushes the world closer to the edge.
Congress can't save America. Neither can the Supreme Court. And the psychiatrist only has a couch. Only Jesus himself can cure the Jesus pretender who is out to flatten the planet.
It looks like that all we have is just a prayer.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Philip Yeung:
Opinion | Trump as Jesus, Politics as his playground, Wars of choice for his ego
Comment