{"id":198486,"date":"2026-01-29T06:01:05","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T06:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/the-guardian-view-on-trumps-world-from-venezuela-to-iran-to-greenland-the-madness-is-the-method-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T06:01:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T06:01:05","slug":"the-guardian-view-on-trumps-world-from-venezuela-to-iran-to-greenland-the-madness-is-the-method-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/the-guardian-view-on-trumps-world-from-venezuela-to-iran-to-greenland-the-madness-is-the-method-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"The Guardian view on Trump\u2019s world: from Venezuela to Iran to Greenland, the madness is the method – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US president delights in his inconsistency. But his short-term victories have profound long-term costs for his country and the world
T<\/span>he Middle East was braced on Wednesday night, but the anxious petitioning of Gulf states and Iran\u2019s attempts to appease the US president appeared to win out \u2013 at least for the moment. No bombs fell on Tehran. After all his threats, and with military options under discussion in Washington, Donald Trump stepped back<\/a>, announcing that \u201cthe killing [of protesters] has stopped\u201d.
Despite the telecommunications blackout, it seems clear that a ruthless regime has shed still more blood than in previous protest crackdowns. Rights groups say that thousands have been killed and vast numbers arrested; one official spoke of 2,000 deaths. Witnesses compared the streets to a war zone. If the large-scale killings<\/a> have indeed ebbed, that is probably because Iranians have been terrified out of the streets \u2013 for now, at least. Iran\u2019s foreign minister chose Fox News to insist no hangings were imminent, in case the identity of the message\u2019s one-man audience was in any doubt. But while retribution may have been postponed<\/a>, it will not be cancelled as it should be: the calls for the regime\u2019s downfall are seen as an existential threat. The Iranian authorities can wait. Mr Trump will move on.
Even as the threat of reckless military intervention in Iran receded, if only for the moment, the dangers facing Greenland<\/a> were underscored as European troops flew in on Thursday. Meetings in Washington had failed to bridge the \u201cfundamental disagreement\u201d over its future, with Mr Trump reiterating that the US \u201cneeds\u201d Greenland and Denmark\u2019s foreign minister, Lars L\u00f8kke Rasmussen, warning that the president is still set on \u201cconquering\u201d Greenland. Venezuela<\/a> is on the back burner for now, after Mr Trump took his lap of victory for illegally snatching Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a>. But he has already warned Cuba, Colombia and Mexico that they could be next. Alarmingly, the former anti-interventionist has concluded that foreign adventures have fewer costs than he anticipated and more gains. He hopes that menace, spectacle and diversion can work abroad as well as domestically.
Richard Nixon\u2019s \u201cmadman theory\u201d was that presenting him as uncontrollable and volatile would\u00a0keep adversaries in line. But Nixon had a clear strategic framework and aims. While the same cannot be said of Mr Trump, it would be wrong to see him as irrational. Despite grandiose threats<\/a>, he has often been cautious in military action. He does not need to follow through\u00a0every time; he just needs people to know that he might. But his causes (resource grabs, imperial splendour, vengeance, \u201ccivilisational\u201d supremacy and self-glorification) are alarming, his idea of victory is short-termist and egocentric, and caprice rules his court. He revels in\u00a0unsettling his inner circle too.
As a leading analyst of Iran noted this week<\/a>, policymaking has shifted from a clear, deliberative, strategic process to bureaucracy mobilising in response to off-the-cuff presidential comments. Post-Maduro, Mr Trump is emboldened \u2013 and more likely to miscalculate. It\u2019s telling that Iran\u2019s regional rivals were key in holding him back from a\u00a0strike, fearing the destabilisation of the region, the\u00a0strengthening of Israel or perhaps the emergence of a still more hardline regime in Tehran.
Addressing the French army in his annual speech\u00a0on Thursday, Emmanuel Macron<\/a> spoke of a brutal world \u201cwhere destabilising forces have awakened\u201d, with \u201ccompetitors [Europe] never thought it would see\u201d. He did not need to name names. Permacrisis is not just the cause and result of Trump \u2013 it\u2019s his method too.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section, please click here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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The US president delights in his inconsistency. But his short-term victories have profound long-term costs for his country and the worldThe Middle East was braced on Wednesday night, but the anxious petitioning of Gulf states and Iran\u2019s attempts to appease the US president appeared to win out \u2013 at least for the moment. No bombs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":198487,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-198486","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}