US President Donald Trump may have done the global community of nations a favour with his military invasion of Venezuela.
He has placed a firecracker under the much-vaunted concept of a “rules-based world order”.
It is now time for world leaders to pause and reflect.
Does the concept actually work or is it time to press the reset button?
Political analyst Kio Amachree makes the point that for 80 years since World War 2 the international political system “rested on a fragile but essential idea: borders are not changed by force, leaders are not kidnapped and power is constrained by law”.
“(But) When Trump treats international law as an inconvenience rather than a guardrail, the message is clear to the rest of the world: act first, justify later and dare anyone to stop you.”
And “Dare anyone” is clearly what Trump is up to.
At his press conference after the kidnap of President Nicolas Maduro, he nonchalantly announced that his administration would “run” Venezuela.
Picture that.
A head of state decides one morning that he will violate the territorial integrity of another sovereign State, remove his counterpart by force and “run” the government of an independent nation.
That’s Trump for you.
He is like the drunk guy with the biggest pistol in the bar.
In terms of the US War Powers Act of 1973, a sitting president may not commit the country to an armed conflict without the “statutory authorisation” of Congress.
On Trump’s orders, the US military has been bombing so-called “narco terrorists” in international waters in what some US lawmakers say are unlawful extrajudicial killings.
Congressman Adam Smith of the armed services committee expressed his fears that there may be more to come after the Venezuela invasion as Trump and his sycophants implement their strategy to dominate the western hemisphere, the so-called Monroe Doctrine.
American author Chris Hedges writes: “Violence does not generate peace. It generates violence.
“If there is one lesson we should have learned in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, it is that regime change spawns Frankensteinian monsters of our own making.”
Respected academic Professor Jeffrey Sachs says said Trump, with his unlawful actions, has positioned the US as a “global thug”.
So who is going to stop the global thug?
Russia is knee-deep in its invasion of Ukraine.
Does it hold any moral authority to admonish Trump over Venezuela?
China is champing at the bit itching to take Taiwan by force.
India is just about one incident away from formally declaring war against eternal enemy Pakistan.
What about the multi-lateral structures?
The bad news is that almighty Trump is thumbing his nose at all of them.
If the “rules-based world order” actually worked the United Nations Charter would have come into play.
It is supposed to prohibit the use of force against the territorial integrity of any state, except in self-defence or with explicit UN Security Council authorisation.
When former US president George Bush conducted his version of regime change in Iraq he at least first made a case to the UN.
He sold them the rationale of Saddam Hussein ostensibly developing weapons of mass destruction, which of course never existed.
For his part, Trump has little regard for the UN and what it stands for.
The last time he addressed the General Assembly he rambled on about the poor state of their headquarters where the escalators barely worked.
And it’s not only the UN that he does not have time for.
He is fighting at every turn over policy differences with the European Union, his own NATO allies.
He is also sanctioning judges of the International Criminal Court for issuing a warrant for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes.
The man is like a runaway train.
So who has the ultimate power to stop him?
My submission is that it’s the US Congress.
They are the institution that is currently failing the world community.
Trump has, by all accounts, not only violated the US cnstitution and undermined the rule of law, he has also exhibited disdain for the oversight authority of a Congress led by his own party.
Senator Cory Booker blamed the Republicans, who he accused of behaving like “partisan puppets”.
They “looked away in cowardice and submission” when Trump was “repeatedly exceeding his authority and breaking the law”.
He warned of the “corrosive collapse of our constitutional order”.
Over the decades the US has positioned itself as the world’s police officer, going around bombing sovereign nations to impose democracy and what they call “our way of life”.
Americans will have to deal with the Frankenstein monster they created at home before they can continue pontificating to the international community about democracy and a constitutional order.
And the Congress is the institution with the authority to do it.
— Mandla Tyala, Nelson Mandela Bay
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.