Opinions #30/24

International politics is indeed experiencing turbulent weeks. The concentration of over fifty pre-election consultations scheduled for this year predicted a lively period, but the present offers us much more. In the West, that is, in the USA and Europe, all principal leaders are facing new challenges as they try to find a difficult balance. True victors, like the vanquished, seek to create new alliances, coalitions, majorities. The psychodrama unfolding in Washington, DC, has taken a sensational turn. Joe Biden approached the Democratic Party convention in Chicago in August under the worst possible conditions for himself and his party. Pressure on him to surrender from key Democratic representatives, congressmen, and his campaign financiers became inevitable. But the Biden clan’s attempt to resist the request to leave – wife, son, sister, daughter-in-law, grandchildren, etc. – was formidable to the very end. Vice President Kamala Harris enters the race with the support of some top Democrats and several hundred delegates, but there will be many pitfalls on the way to her becoming the official nominee. First of all, it is Trump who fears the arrival of another candidate other than Biden. “Miraculously saved” from a failed attack, The Donald senses an impending return to the pinnacle of power that will have the unique flavor of unprecedented revenge. Almost a sure win against Biden, whereas with any other candidate he would still have to fight. Very illustrative is the phone conversation in recent days, in the wake of the Butler assassination attempt, between Trump and Robert Kennedy Jr., an independent candidate favored by a young and progressive electorate but who also finds support among Republicans. Trump’s invitation to come together to do “big things” is symptomatic of the tycoon’s concern, but is not an impromptu move. A year ago, Steve Bannon, a controversial adviser to Trump during his presidency, floated the idea of a Trump – Kennedy Jr. ticket to dry up the electoral base of mainstream Democrats. It’s actually a time when everyone is looking for everyone else. Just as Britain’s new Labour Party Prime Minister Starmer, who wants to restore ties with the European Union eight years after Brexit. “Global Britain” has proven to be an unrealistic and failed geopolitical project. To try to get out of the ford in which the country of kings, princesses, and court scandals has found itself, Keir Starmer does not hesitate to lean on the head of the right-wing Italian government as well. With Giorgia Meloni, Downing Street’s new tenant wants to renew the “special relationship” established between the Italian Brothers leader and his predecessor, Conservative Rishi Sunak. Just as Meloni, the winner of the European elections, was isolated in Brussels. The paradoxes of a troubling and disturbing policy that by general disorientation plays two games at once: chess and the board game of Risk, often mixing pawns and cards. Thus, the echo of another ovation for another speech by Zelensky, this time a guest of the first meeting of the new British government, has not subsided yet, as the Ukrainian president himself had to invent a new approach to his American ally. The timing and tone of his phone call in the days after the assassination attempt on Trump indicate his concern about currying favor with the tycoon. The favorite candidate to return to the White House is not an unconditional ally of Ukraine, like Joe, who for years received millionaire salaries from Kiev for his son Hunter. Trump’s only real European friend is Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has already begun to weave a potential solution to the conflict that primarily combines the causes and interests of the USA, Russia, China, parts of Europe, and only to a small extent Kiev. Scenarios in action, exacerbated by escalation in the Middle East. Where Netanyahu is playing the dreaded game of extended conflict with Iran under the Shiite pretext of the Yemeni Houthis to quietly continue his war against the Palestinians. An overall picture in which, for the first time since World War II, the voice of Paris is not heard. The effect of the turmoil that followed the results of first European and then French early political elections. A new and unusual situation that is the focus of Marc Lazar’s analysis, which identifies Macron as the main person responsible for the ungovernability and weakness in which France finds itself. In the “world factory” that is now the Asian continent, it is the Indian vote results that are driving interest. With outgoing Prime Minister Modi’s victory less triumphant than expected and with his surprise trip to Putin’s to Moscow at the center of Daniele Mancini’s reflection.