STRAIT UP

Trump Doesn’t Deserve a Nobel Peace Prize. He Needs an Intervention

He’s dangerously unfit. Don’t be fooled by the amusing nuttery—this president’s capacity for catastrophe is immense.

Opinion

Somebody needs to take the keys to the car away from Grandpa. If he keeps trying to drive he is clearly going to hurt somebody. Maybe many somebodies. Probably us.

Donald Trump thinks his conduct during the recent Iran crisis should qualify him for the Nobel Peace Prize. But what it really shows is that the sooner this man gets professional care in a room in which there are no sharp objects or nuclear buttons to push, the better off we will all be.

In fact, Trump’s near obsession with winning the Nobel Peace Prize is an undeniable sign of his mental decline—although it is far from the only one. There are few people on this earth less qualified for winning a peace prize.

Trump, Prince of Peace, has actively supported, defended and advocated on behalf of the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine. He has shrugged off Putin’s violations of international law while withdrawing support for the innocent people of the country he has relentlessly attacked and while also plumping for Putin to have a place at the table at the G7.

Trump, healer of global divisions, has provided weapons to Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu for use in Israel’s on-going war against Gaza, weapons that have been used in the commission of heinous crimes against millions of Palestinians.

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The Gandhi-like Trump has even unleashed troops against his own people while threatening to invade Canada, Greenland and Panama. He is seeking a one trillion dollar defense budget and wants to beef up our nuclear arsenals while funding new weapons programs.

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Nonetheless, he has actively campaigned for the Nobel Prize. He has asserted he deserves it because he has brokered “peace” between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, between Serbia and Kosovo, between Egypt and Ethiopia. He has also asserted he helped resolve a confrontation between India and Pakistan but that was disputed by India’s prime minister.

As for his promised effort to end the Ukraine conflict within 24 hours of getting into the office and his ballyhooed progress on a deal to stop the war in Gaza, well, clearly, those have not gone so well. (Pro tip: It doesn’t really help your case when you’re actively on the side of the bad guys.)

Nonetheless, Barack Obama got a Nobel Peace Prize and dadgummit that means the crazy old guy in the White House needs to have one too.

So, in addition to his social media posts touting his qualifications, he has also tried to sell his more recent accomplishments. Take for example, the ceasefire Trump announced his team had brokered on Monday night. He was so effusive in his celebration of the deal that he concluded his social media post about it with a religious exhortation, “God bless Israel, God bless Iran, God bless the Middle East, God bless the United States of America and GOD BLESS THE WORLD.”

Of course when the Israelis and the Iranians kept lobbing missiles at each other after the “deal” was announced, Trump went ballistic himself, asserting that the partners in peace on whose behalf he was invoking the heavens hours earlier didn’t know “what the f--k they were doing.” (His words, not mine.)

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It is too early to say whether the ceasefire, such as it is, will hold. It is also far too early to assess how successful U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran’s nuclear program will be in impeding Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. There are reports that Iran moved its stockpile of enriched uranium before the attacks. Russia has said other nations will help Iran rebuild its program and might even provide Iran with nukes. There is no new nuclear deal with Iran. And of course, it’s anybody’s guess who will violate or pull out of that one first—like Trump the peacemaker did in 2018. (He didn’t like that Obama had struck that deal earlier. He seems to have an itsy bitsy problem with the success of Obama. I wonder what that’s about.)

All of which is to say, it is far too early to say whether Trump is actually achieving “peace through strength” but there is no question that a lot of t-shirts emblazoned with the slogan will be sold before we know.

The vanity and the absurdity of Trump viewing himself as a peacemaker would not, of course, be enough to assert that he had lost his marbles. Close. But not quite enough. However, there is plenty of evidence to support that assertion. Rambling incoherent rants. Slurred stumbling speech. Erratic behavior.

In fact, when it comes to erratic behavior, Trump’s conduct of the war has provided plenty of evidence for that. He came into office as an Iran hawk. Then he went into peacemaker mode seeking to replicate Obama’s nuclear deal. He was against Israel’s attacks on Iran. Then, when he saw they were successful he was for them. Then he joined in on them. Somewhere in the middle he took a break to talk about the big beautiful flagpoles he had installed at the White House. Then, in an Orwellian “war is peace” twist, he said he was attacking Iran in order to bring an end to the fighting. Somewhere in there he started paving over the Rose Garden. Then he was the architect of the ceasefire. Then he was launching foul-mouthed attacks on Israel and Iran. Then he’s the dove of peace again.

Opinion

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In fact, in the handling of this war like the handling of almost all foreign policy matters during this administration, what we have seen from Trump is more symptoms than strategy.

What is worrisome of course, is that Trump is both the most deranged and unfit man to ever hold the presidency and, at the same time, thanks to the Supreme Court, he is by far the most powerful U.S. president who ever lived. While some of his nuttery is amusing—think King Lear on the heath hurling ketchup packets at the heavens—his capacity for catastrophe is immense.

Will it take another war or a military campaign against the American people or rounding up his enemies or more deranged midnight posts on Truth Social or hiring more sycophants who amplify his lunacy to get people to realize that this man is a danger to himself and, more importantly, to this country and to the world? It’s unclear.

And if all that weren’t enough, how crazy do you think it will make Trump when he hears that the U.S. intelligence community thinks the strikes on Iran were relatively ineffective, only setting the Iranian nuclear program back a few months?

What is certain though is that Trump deserves a trip to the boobyhatch long before one to Oslo, Norway to pick up his prize from the Nobel Committee.

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David RothkopfChief Global Affairs Columnist

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