You think things can’t get any worse and then they do!

In a week that surely marks a gutter-hugging low point in international affairs, there is much cause for worry and grief. From Donald Trump’s spiralling outbursts, threatening to attack Iran’s bridges and power plants, to his “a whole civilisation will die tonight” statement, there seems nothing he will not say or threaten to do.

Confusion and mayhem have been a hallmark of the Trump regime – but this week is a little different. Don’t forget Steve Bannon’s “flood the zone” technique, where wave after wave of news stories are issued by the regime at such a dizzying pace, you cannot keep up. Abominations go unnoticed as the next one crashes over you.

So what’s different this week? Well, the chaos was not all caused by the regime: some of it has been reactive, even panicked, and this has been building for some time. For months, Americans have been making fun of the Trump turn-round. Financial markets have coined the expression ‘TACO’ (Trump Always Chickens Out) in relation to constant tariff changes.

It is hard to entirely discern how much of this is semi-planned chaos, but there has certainly been an escalation of own-goal damage in recent weeks. It seems that even those living in a bubble of self-delusion have spotted that things are not going so well.

The ceasefire, no ceasefire is a classic example. National and international media were scrambling to find out if a ceasefire really is a ceasefire when one side has conducted 100 attacks in 10 minutes, and killed more than 300 people, and injured 1165 in Lebanon. Outlets were asking: was Lebanon in or out of the terms of the ceasefire agreement? Whose terms were the real ones? Confusion reigned, and on the ground that was totally understandable. But politically it seemed pretty clear what had happened. Israel didn’t want Lebanon in, Iran did, the Americans were scrambling to make it look like they weren’t a side-show in their own war.

So how do we stop from being sucked down into such moral depravity? We seek out clarity and leadership that can chart a way out. We organise and stay the course. We do not give in. We make it our business to understand the nature of the evil being done, but we stick with the high road.

On Sunday, Jocelyn Chey will delve into the fascinating issue of how China is responding to the global tumult – calm and strategic are two words that come to mind. David Armstrong’s Asian Media Report delves into the extraordinary role Pakistan has played in recent days on the ceasefire. Also this week we are very pleased to see Ross Gittins back in the saddle after a life-threatening illness. His straight-talking intelligence has been missed.

My best bit reaches for the heavens this week, with reports (in Sunday’s P&I) that earlier this year the US regime tried to pressure Pope Leo XIV to toe the line in his public statements. That’s right, the Pope – the first American-born Pope, bought up on Chicago’s southside, of Italian and French immigrant parents. That Pope.

The exact details are (unsurprisingly) contested, but everyone agrees that the Pentagon called in the Pope’s top American diplomat and words were exchanged after the January state-of-the-world address. Some say there were not-so-subtle threats. Others says that, in response, the Pope cancelled a planned 4 July trip to the US, and will spend the day in Lampedusa, a haven for immigrants, instead. Whether or not this is true, it is clear the Americans chose the wrong man to try and bully.

Last week he called Trump’s civilisation threats “truly unacceptable", and earlier he urged people to contact their political leaders and congressional representatives and to remind them that attacks on civilian infrastructure are “against international law" and a “sign of the hatred, the division, the destruction human beings are capable of …”

Pope 1, Trump 0.

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