Through belligerent rhetoric, imperial manoeuvres, and a policy of strategic chaos, Sahib Mustaqim Bleher contends that Trump’s America is less an aberration than the clearest expression yet of Machiavellian rule by a wealthy elite. But Trump’s chaotic politics represent not just the ruthless logic of empire — they also signal its slow unravelling, where Machiavellian ambition collides with growing resistance and ideological blindness.
Following a theatrical election campaign, as soon as Donald Trump took office for his second term, he started ruling by executive decree, apparently shaking up America to repair years of alleged neglect under his predecessor, senile genocidal Joe Biden, in order to Make America Great Again and put America first. The turbulent weeks which followed and reverberated across the globe made it seem that once he had become the outlaw turned sheriff, Trump was that proverbial lone ranger shooting from the hip. I’d like to argue, however, that there is method to his madness and that this change of ruling style – from democratic pretence to bold dictator – indicates an important shift in American politics itself.
After scratching their heads for several days, commentators began to realise that Trump’s negotiating style was deliberate and some remarked that he intentionally meant to confuse in order to create uncertainty and make it more difficult for others to plan their strategy. Trump’s approach to doing business is familiar from the bazaar: ask for an exorbitant price at the outset and start heckling, preferably with the buyer surrounded by your intimidating crew who prevent him from simply walking away and who tell him not to turn down such a good deal; eventually the buyer will walk away, paying an excessive price for the goods he didn’t need or want but thinking he got himself a bargain. Since this approach has not previously been applied to international politics, it created shock waves and, so far, it has worked: the USA did not annex Panama, but Hong Kong owners CK Hutchison gave in and offered the ports at either end of it to BlackRock (or as CNN ironically put it: BlackRock agreed to buy it from them!). This, by the way, also gives us a hint whom Trump is really doing business for – rather than dismantling the deep state, he is one of its most aggressive agents.
Turning to USA’s neighbours Canada and Mexico, as well as Britain (“our relationship is very special”), they had high tariffs imposed on them in order to be bullied into agreeing to bilateral trade deals they would not even have considered had they been sober. British prime minister Starmer is selling this as an achievement to the British people who are, supposedly, also mightily pleased with the extra billions given to Ukraine following the withdrawal of US funding. And on the US domestic front, laying off scores of workers in an alleged downsizing of bureaucracy is intended to ensure that the remainder stop asking for their employment rights. However, it might eventually have the opposite effect with domestic politics heating up and derailing this coup d’état by the hidden American ruling class.
Trump’s confrontational style wasn’t limited to trade; the same aggressive, transactional approach shaped his dealings with military alliances and foreign conflicts, redrawing America’s posture on the global stage.
Trump’s offer to do a peace treaty with Putin, pulling support from Ukraine and showing short shrift to Zelensky sent shock waves around Europe where everybody had been jolly happy to wave blue and yellow flags in support of the American proxy war fought at the interface between Europe and Russia. Suddenly it dawned on them that they had all been let down. In reality, it was a sober admission by the United States that it could not defeat Russia and that, having sufficiently weakened it, it would allow it back into the fold of the self-styled international community – double-speak for the American sphere of influence. A deal was made where Russia abandoned Syria to American-sponsored jihadists for the benefit of Israel and was given a favourable settlement on Ukraine in return. Difficult to explain to the unsuspecting public, so who better to do the job than unpredictable Trump, giving Zelensky a dressing down for not wanting to leave the limelight so soon on this political comedy stage.
As for Syria, it is distressing to observe that so many Muslims in the West still refer to this sell-out or take-over as liberation and a blessed revolution. All the American-armed thugs, now terrorists with ties and high office, were ever good at was killing Muslims – not even a word of criticism of Israel which has since effectively annexed large areas of the country and benefited from the cutting of the supply line from Iran to Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Cui bono or “by their fruits you shall know them” is sadly not an approach Muslims apply when falling for propaganda.
Another objective achieved through the proxy war in Ukraine was weakening Europe as a potential rival and this is now being accelerated by Europe plunging its nations into further debt in order to prop up military spending. The “cost of living crisis”, the term chosen by the political and media establishment for the betrayal of their people will look benign once this latest race to armament takes effect. By the way, the fact that America is now holding direct talks with Hamas, albeit with little success, is an indication that Israel’s genocidal campaign, too, was always an American war.
Effectively, the New America is applying Machiavellian power politics and has that unsatiable ambition for acquisition which Machiavelli claimed as the driving factor of human action. According to Machiavelli, when an opponent seems to be making an irrational move, one should be very suspicious, because this behaviour always hides some stratagem. For Machiavelli, morality has no place in politics, and neither does it for the American empire of today (if it ever did!). The ends justify the means, no matter how unethical they may seem.
What then are those ends? To understand American politics in our age, one needs to understand both its history as a settler colonialist enterprise and the fact that its power structures have long been influenced by Zionism. This in turn requires a deeper understanding of Zionism as an ideology. As David Miller argued consistently since his dismissal from Bristol University was overturned as having confounded anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, support for Zionism is deeply embedded at all levels of the political and social fabric of Western “democracies”. The influence of the Zionist movement goes well beyond “mere” lobbying, formidable as this is in itself. Large sums of money have been spent to influence politicians and administrators. In this context, it is also worthwhile taking a look at multinationals (such as BlackRock) who have built business empires spanning everything from consumer goods to media networks, with budgets exceeding those of many nation states and thereby exerting immense political pressure as a result.
Many have not fully understood the true nature of Zionism and assume it is a political Jewish movement founded with the objective of protecting and saving Jews from persecution. In reality, there is nothing actually Jewish about Zionism. It started out in the 19th century as a secular movement strongly opposed by practising Jews at the time. It developed into a Machiavellian movement (bereft of ethics or morality!) to establish the state of “Israel” – itself part of the ongoing recalibration of Western colonialism. According to the World Jewish Congress, however, anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism because it “denies the historical connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel”.
Let’s unravel that big lie taught in our schools now for more than a century. Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, was born in Hungary; Chaim Weizmann, the first president of Israel, was born in Belarus, Benzion Mileikowsky, the current prime minister of Israel, having assumed the name Benjamin Netanyahu, was born in Tel Aviv as the son of a Polish immigrant. If you cannot see their historical connection to the land of Israel, it is because there isn’t one. Nor are they Jews who simply returned to what once was their homeland a long, long time ago.
Back to the present day: America, having weakened Russia and Europe now wants to turn its focus to China. China remains America’s last and formidable opponent, outdoing it in both trade and political influence, for example in Africa, turning the “Free Trade” doctrine on its head, for it was designed to allow America to trade freely across the globe, not its competitors. China was also mainly responsible for forcing the USA out of Afghanistan which they had previously taken off the Russians. China owns large parts of the American economy, including underwriting its debt, so much so that without Chinese support the dollar would collapse. China had to be scaled back.
Arguably, the Gaza jail-break of 7 October 2023 has catapulted American hegemony planning into a major crisis. All was going well, the Middle East had been pacified, two Iraq wars guaranteed continued access to oil, Russia’s influence had been curtailed and Europe been prevented from becoming a serious player on the international stage. A second Trump presidency would bring back American unilateralism, disentangle it from international bodies and conventions, force its trade terms onto others through punitive tariffs and stem the advance of China both economically and politically. Suddenly, however, its attention had to turn to the Middle East again. Arab regimes had been happy to normalise with Israel in return for development promises, but the Palestinians, squeezed into ever less land where the lawn was regularly mown (an Israeli euphemism for regularly bombing Palestinians to keep them subjugated), simply wouldn’t go away.
In meting out vengeance on an unprecedented scale, Israel inadvertently destroyed the carefully constructed narrative of victim state and only democracy in the Middle East with its enlightened people and the most moral army of the world and instead turned world opinion solidly against it. The cry of anti-Semitism at every turn when Israel was criticised became a hollow tune. Criticism of Israel was shouted from the rooftops without fear of repercussions when only a few years earlier the mere allegation of anti-Semitism had prevented Jeremy Corbyn from becoming prime minister in Britain. Suddenly, the influence of pro-Zionist narratives over people’s minds was diminished, and worse even, it became evident how Israel could act with impunity, committing war crimes, breaking international law whilst retaining the solid support of Western politics and media. Finally, it had become apparent how deep the rot actually went. In spite of “all hell to pay” for Gaza, Israel, spurred on by America, could not eliminate what has become the buzz word of our times: Resistance.
Israel has become a serious problem for American ambitions. The world knows that having Israel as a neighbour is bad news. The world also knows that Zionists (and that includes the American government) don’t keep promises. And thus, the carefully crafted “Grand Chessboard” of Zbigniew Brzezinski (who, as early as 1997, argued that control of Eurasia was essential to maintaining American global supremacy, and that NATO expansion into Ukraine was essential in order to contain Russia and prevent it from forging links with Europe) may well become undone for purely ideological reasons, because the American Zionist elite can’t get themselves to abandon that failed garrison that is Israel. And as a consequence, American policy is being dictated by outside events rather than its own strategy, and its weakness is being exposed by non-state actors, from Hamas through Hezbollah to Ansarullah in Yemen. The shift from soft power to hard power in the American approach to global governance displays a loss of control which will only accelerate. As resentment builds, resistance grows.
The problem with tearing up the rule book whenever the rules don’t work in one’s favour is that others too, stop believing in and abiding by the rules. International law lies buried in the rubble of Gaza. International justice rings hollow. America can no longer portray itself as honest broker or mediator. Resistance, a word hardly heard spoken aloud until 7th October, has become a term of pride for every group fighting injustice irrespective of time and place – Arabs and non-Arabs, Muslims and non-Muslims, Europeans, Africans, Asians, South-Americans are all proud to offer resistance.
And this resistance poses a bigger threat to the American project than even China. America could salvage some of its reputation and regain some of its influence at the political level, having to rely less on military prowess in the process, by simply letting go of its colonial project that is Israel and continue subjugating the world from Washington. But this is the Achilles heel of Zionism, they are not smart, they are dogmatic. Trump is not the only irrational person in the game. And time will tell that by daring it all, they will lose the lot. The light at the end of this tunnel of oppression, which commenced with conquest and colonisation and culminated in genocidal obsession and the majority of people owning nothing nor being particularly happy, is shining ever brighter from here on in.
Sahib Mustaqim Bleher was a founder member of the Islamic Party of Britain and served as its general secretary and education spokesman as well as editor of the party magazine ‘Common Sense’. He is a professor of applied linguistics and translation and works as a commercial translator and interpreter through his own translation company in the UK. Amongst his work are the adaptations of the Qur’an translations of Muhammad Pickthall and Yusuf Ali into modern English and his own Qur’an translation into “plain English”, all published by IDCI in Birmingham.
