In case you don’t know what Taco means - there is really no reason why you should, considering all the many names and acronyms he is being called now - it is Trump Always Chickens Out.
How every apt, but United States President Donald Trump causes considerable damage in the meantime.
Wikipedia dedicates a long page to this, and if you have time to spare, it’s a quick read to get a measure of the man, if you still have not, his insane approach to world politics and his novel, naive solutions.
Basically, he threatens the worst and retreats when markets react.
If that is not enough bite for talk and intrigue, Singapore has put its foot in (the mouth?) by saying it won’t negotiate for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil moves, a brave statement that perhaps indicates they have enough oil to ride this crisis out.
Trump blinked first
But we are running ahead of ourselves, back to Taco. Trump blinked first, backing out from his threat to bomb Iran into the stone ages in an expletive-laden diatribe, exhibiting his true character to the world. But he Taco-ed out.
The fact is that he couldn’t and can’t secure the Strait of Hormuz for safe passage. But to show that he won this engagement, he had to get US ally Pakistan’s help to secure a ceasefire with Iran.
What ceasefire? It’s Trump who has to cease fire together with another ally, Israel, against Iran, and the war is over. However, in international politics, nothing is as simple.
It must appear to Trump that in the public eye of his real and imagined audience, he won this war by getting a ceasefire and reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Status quo, in other words, after he started this war for no real reason.
Deflecting Epstein files
His probable only success of note is to have distracted world attention from the revelations of the Epstein files involving, amongst other things, child sexual abuse, with the New York Times reporting that Trump was mentioned over 38,000 times.
What better than a bombing and strafing spree over an old enemy to put this in the background?
He succeeded after taking thousands of lives, murdering the entire Iranian leadership during peace negotiations, wreaking havoc on 100 million Iranians, causing considerable uncertainty in West Asia, roiling oil and financial markets, and exacting a terrible toll on Iran’s infrastructure.
But he had to succumb to the only weapon that Iran had in its arsenal, including the obvious lack of a nuclear bomb - closing the Strait of Hormuz and finally forcing the US and the world into action by throttling the supply of oil. Now the world hurts.
The US and the world sat up and took notice. Trump must have reached out to Pakistan for a face-saving end to the conflict, which will make it appear that he won and did not surrender to this checkmate by Iran.
Despite overwhelming odds, Iran found the Achilles heel.
Sanctimonius Singapore
Just a day before the ceasefire, when people were already expecting it, along came Sanctimonius Singapore, announcing that it “will not negotiate for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, as doing so would undermine fundamental principles of international law”, said Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan on Tuesday.
Really? Is the murder of the entire Iranian leadership while talks were ongoing with the US for peace in line with the “fundamental principles of international law”, Balakrishnan? Where was Sanctimonius Singapore then?
What about bombing civilian targets deliberately and destroying infrastructure, war crimes in other words? Is that OK with callous Singapore because its ally, the US, is involved?
Must it make noises to support the US in some little way? Isn’t it better to keep quiet when you can’t openly condemn a heinous act?
Some Singaporeans also took it as a swipe against Malaysia, whose prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, said he had negotiated with Iran to allow safe passage of oil to Malaysia through the Strait of Hormuz.
Nurul Izzah Anwar pointedly said the foreign minister’s remarks were both “revealing and regrettable”, adding: “Iran’s controls on the straits are an attempt to seek a durable peace.”
“Malaysia has consistently upheld the principle that diplomacy must be exercised, not abandoned. The prime minister’s engagement on this matter is rooted in safeguarding regional stability, energy security, and the broader interests of Southeast Asia.”
Balakrishnan’s insensitivity is particularly reprehensible when you consider that over 40 percent of Southeast Asia is Muslim and its closest neighbours, Malaysia and Indonesia, are majority Muslim, with Indonesia being the largest Muslim nation in the world.
The US president’s promise to send Iran, with 100 million mostly Muslim people, back to the Stone Age through bombing, will be met with hostility by all civilised nations, let alone Muslim nations, who have been singled out for hate by people like Trump.
If Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz to ensure its own survival, Singapore and Balakrishnan must understand and support its position.
Survival trumps sanctimony. Pushed against the wall and fighting to live, Iran is merely exercising its option to life.
Not one to talk
Remember, this was the same Balakrishnan who, in May 2022, visited a convicted felon in Malaysia who was out on appeal after being found guilty of offences against state-owned 1MDB.
The felon, former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak, is in jail today.
I wrote then that “Singapore should be well aware of the 1MDB scandal because it figured very highly as a place from which much of the money laundering from 1MDB occurred.”
“In fact, Singapore was the first country to charge and jail bank officials for offences committed in relation to 1MDB.”
In the concluding remarks of my book, “1MDB The Scandal that Brought Down a Government”, published in August 2018, I wrote: “All the money misappropriated (from 1MDB) moved at some stage into bank accounts in Singapore.
“The Good Star account, the Blackstone account (into which the Aabar-BVI misappropriation was transferred), and the Tanore Finance account were all in Singapore, and money was disbursed elsewhere from these accounts.”
Why did a Singaporean minister visit a convicted Malaysian felon? Were they betting he would be back in power?
Why this refusal to negotiate with Iran for safe passage? To curry favour with Trump at the expense of its neighbours, who want the Strait of Hormuz opened?
Singapore does not help its own case when it ignores the sensitivities of its neighbours, favouring extreme self-interest instead. Don’t be so kiasu-lah (afraid to lose)! -- Mkini
P GUNASEGARAM says we all know the oppressed from the oppressor.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
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