But President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has emerged the best tactician and strategist of the threesome. Always playing the victim, he just pulled off a major tactical link between the two most active and devastating conflicts: the US-Iranian and the Russo-Ukrainian wars. He did so by attacking commercial Iranian vessels in the Caspian Sea, hitting the Anna, killing an Iranian sailor and injuring others.
Zelensky said the vessels were legitimate targets because they were allegedly transporting military cargo. In his illogical sense, the attacks were retaliatory because, by supplying Shahed drones and military technology to Russia, Iran had indirectly attacked Ukraine and had therefore become a legitimate target. The overconfident Zelensky ordered Iran to stop supporting Russia and not to think of retaliation.
But Iran, which has successfully stood up against the mighty United States, has no plans to lay still. Ebrahim Azizi, head of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, responded: “Any attack on Iran always comes at a cost, and that remains true today; the US and Israel are well aware of this. Ukraine, too, may soon come to understand that Iran does not let actions go unanswered.”
But Zelensky may not be bothered where his actions lead, even if it results in universal conflagration, provided he achieves his short-term goals. US President Donald Trump had warned Zelensky to end the unproductive war with Russia. Rather than do so, he took shelter under the European Union to wait out Trump. With the US entangled in its seemingly unwinnable war with Iran, Zelensky took the opportunity to attack Iran and ingratiate himself with Trump and the US establishment.
Zelensky may hope that if Iran retaliates, Ukraine would be brought into the US-Iran war. This may automatically lead to the resumption of US military aid to Ukraine and support it against Russia.
Zelensky’s winning strategy is always to present himself as an underdog and seize opportunities. He was a lawyer who made a profession out of clowning. From this, he starred in a television series, Servant of the People. In it, he played the role of a high school teacher who complained about corruption and became Ukrainian president. In reality, he transformed his theatre outfit into a political party and ran for the presidency.
In the elections, he gauged the populace was not interested in war, so he campaigned on a platform of peace while then President Petro Poroshenko wanted the conflicts to continue. But once Zelensky won, he went to war. For him, deception is part of governance.
When the Russo-Ukrainian war took off fully, peace talks were held in Belarus. Ukrainian negotiator Denys Kireev assumed Zelensky’s rhetoric about peace was genuine, so he made a case for a peaceful resolution of the war. On return to Kyiv, he was seized on March 5, 2022, and summarily executed. Zelensky had also garnered votes in 2019 promising to serve only one term. Two years after, he said he was no longer sure. When his term expired in May 2024 he neither stepped down nor conducted new elections; as long as the war lasts, he would be president and rule by decree. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, like Zelensky, has employed war to stay in power, and in his specific case, out of jail. He is facing criminal charges in three cases including bribery, fraud and breach of trust, and international crimes.
Netanyahu, a most resourceful warmonger, is at war in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon. Even when the US-Iran peace agreement covered Lebanon, Netanyahu insisted Lebanon could not be part of the agreement. He has the distinction of willfully and deliberately attacking the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and killing seven without suffering consequences. The 1949 Geneva Conventions, Common Article 3, and Additional Protocols criminalize the intentional killing of civilians in war. Now, that is Netanyahu’s specialization. He willfully massacres civilians. While bombing babies in Gaza hospitals, he was reminded it was a crime; Netanyahu replied that the command centres of Hamas are located under the beds of the babies and incubators. He never provided a single proof.
President Trump is not as cunning as Zelensky, but warlike as Netanyahu. In the past nineteen months since he returned for a second term, he has been involved in conflicts from Iran to Venezuela, where he abducted that country’s President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. After claiming this was to bring Maduro to book for alleged drug trafficking, he has been unable to bring him to trial as the charges are fabricated. He has now promised to begin the trial on June 1, 2027, that is eighteen months after abducting him. Mr. Trump is engaged in a devastating war with Iran. The question is, why does the US want to obliterate Iran? Why does it think it has the right to fly fifteen thousand kilometres to the Strait of Hormuz and assume it is its God given right to control it?
Trump is also trying to drown Cuba in the ocean by deliberately starving its people and refusing them basic needs like fuel and electricity, and vowing to punish any country that trades with it. He promised that Cuba would crumble within one month. Seven months later, to his shame and that of his allies, that country continues to survive and fight.
Part of the ‘ifs’ in human history is: if Zelensky, Netanyahu and Trump had not existed, would the situation of the world have been the same, better or worse? Is it a historical coincidence that all three heads of state are ruling at the same time?
What is not in doubt is that there is regression in the world. When, in World War I, about twenty million persons died, humanity shouted in unison “Never again!” That never again shall human beings engage in such mindless slaughter. To guarantee this, the League of Nations was established. But a little over three decades later, humanity engaged in worse slaughters. This time, over 85 million were killed. As a guarantee, the United Nations was established in 1945. A number of conventions were made primarily to ensure peace, sovereignty of peoples and nations, and human rights. But today, humanity is moving back to the pre World War era when there were no agreed universal rules, might is right, and it is every one to himself and God for us all. Today, humanity lies prostrate. Strongmen and nations roam around as terrorists and bandits playing God. The strongest is the Zelensky, Netanyahu and Trump triumvirate.
