‘Belittled and dismissed’: How Trump’s leadership style is impacting the war in Iran

Akaash Maharaj of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy reacts to Israel’s defence minister claiming Iran’s security chief has been killed.

As U.S. President Donald Trump calls on NATO allies to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, he is now reaping the consequences of isolating those other countries, one expert explains.

Akaash Maharaj is a senior fellow with the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto. He told CTV’s Your Morning on Tuesday it’s become increasingly clear that while the Trump administration knew it wanted to get into the conflict, it wasn’t certain about why it wanted to do so, or what it wished to achieve.

“If you don’t know why you went into a war, you don’t know when you have been victorious or defeated,” Maharaj said.

Since the start of the Middle East war, Trump has said that he doesn’t need help from allies like Britain and Spain, particularly when they turned down his initial requests for help.

Maharaj said “notwithstanding Trump’s bravado, this is a major issue” that has “thrown the global economy into certain disarray.”

“Trump is now calling for the aid of his erstwhile allies, because his own navy, far and away the most powerful navy in the history of human civilization, has said that the Strait is too paralyzed for them to provide escorts to oil tankers and to other transport ships,” he said.

‘Pummelling the Strait’

According to the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations Centre, more than a dozen ships have been attacked around the Strait since the war began. However, Maharaj points out that Iran continues to move ships through the Strait, along with allowing small numbers of Indian and Chinese ships to pass through. He said would be a “true fool’s errand” for other countries who aren’t on good terms with Iran to send ships through the passage.

“The Iranians are pummelling the Strait with a combination of drones, missiles and sea mines,” he said. “The kind of munitions that are cheap and easy to deploy but expensive and difficult to block.”

NATO states have already assured the U.S. president that they will not get involved with the conflict or deploy their forces. As a result, he’s turned to states like China, which Maharaj said could worsen the conflict.

“I don’t know which would be worse, China rebuffing Donald Trump or China placing Donald Trump under an obligation to them,” he said.

Consequences of bullying

Trump said on Sunday that if allies don’t help secure the Strait of Hormuz, it would be “very bad” for the future of NATO.

Maharaj said Trump is now facing the consequences of bullying his allies.

“Only a few weeks ago he was threatening to conquer Danish territory, and to extinguish Canadian sovereignty,” he said. “It is absurd for him to expect that now the people of Denmark and the people of Canada would send their sons and daughters to die in a war of his creation.”

As the situation continues to unfold, Maharaj said Trump is learning a tough lesson about his controversial tactics as a leader.

“No country in the world is strong enough that it can afford to turn its back on the entire planet,” he said. “He now finds himself having to seek the aid of people whom he has belittled and dismissed.”