Thomas Friedman Column | Trump Netanyahu Putin Global Leadership Mistakes

Thomas L. Friedman, three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and columnist for ‘The New York Times’

Trump, Netanyahu and Putin are leaders with very different personalities, but they have one thing in common – all three have the misconception that they are the smartest people in any gathering. All three have gathered an army of sycophants around them, so they are embroiled in such wars from which there seems to be no clear way out.

First of all let’s talk about Netanyahu. The signs of losing his balance – and taking the Mossad leadership along with him in the same direction – are clearly visible in his two decisions. First, to assume that Israel can topple Tehran’s regime through airstrikes alone. Second, to believe that he can choose the next leader of Iran.

In 1982 I watched how Lebanese Christian militias convinced the Mossad that Israel could install anti-Palestinian leader Bashir Gemayel as president in Beirut through a rapid military campaign. Since then my belief about the Mossad has been that if you want someone killed in Beirut or Tehran, call the Mossad. But if you want to understand the political-social trends of Beirut or Tehran, don’t go there. The reason why he is expert in the first task, makes him weak in the second task.

Mossad is extremely capable of locating and eliminating Israel’s enemies. A major reason for this is that it is adept at recruiting disgruntled citizens in Lebanon, Iran, the West Bank and other parts of the Arab world. The problem is that these same people often exaggerate the weakness of their government and give the impression that it would be easy to topple it. The result is that people like Trump – who have no understanding of history – assume that if the Mossad is capable of carrying out assassinations, it is equally capable of predicting what is going to happen the day after they are killed.

This is why during the meeting held at the White House in February, when Netanyahu and Mossad Chief David Barania said that if Israel and America together assassinate Iran’s top leaders, the government there will fall and good people will take power in its place, Trump took it seriously. They assumed that Iran would also come into their hands in the same way as Venezuela had come into their hands.

Trump and Netanyahu are not the only victims of such blunders. Putin also believed his own belief that the people of Ukraine were eager to become part of ‘Mother Russia’ again and that the Kiev government would easily fall. Putin’s most fundamental mistake was to assume that Ukrainians and Russians are one and the same people and that Ukrainian independence is merely an artificial concept created by the West. As in the case of Iran, Russian intelligence agencies relied heavily on pro-Russian sources who told Moscow what it wanted to hear, rather than providing an assessment of reality.

Netanyahu may have achieved strategic successes against Hamas, Hezbollah, and Tehran, but he has not succeeded in translating them into a new strategic reality for Israel. Trump weakened and isolated the US by deciding to attack Iran without any allies, without international legitimacy and without an alternative plan.

At the same time, he made Iran understand the importance of two such cheap and effective ways by which it can cause widespread disruption – first, control over Hormuz; And second, to target America’s Gulf-based allies. And Putin has turned Russia’s fragile democracy into a police-state whose economy depends on petroleum. Today Russia is nowhere to be seen in the AI ​​revolution. These three leaders have reached a closed street from where they are trying to take help of bombing to get out.

Trump, Netanyahu and Putin – all three have the misconception that they are the most intelligent people in any gathering. All three have gathered an army of sycophants around them, so they are embroiled in such wars from which there seems to be no clear way out. (from The New York Times)

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