Together we are in a position to… end decades of suffering, stop generations of hatred and bloodshed, and forge a beautiful, everlasting and glorious peace for that region and for the whole region of the world.”
Such was the soaring promise of US President Donald Trump as he inaugurated his new Board of Peace on the stage of stages that is the Davos Economic Forum this week.
The world of all too much suffering and strife badly wants to believe him.
But for many observers and officials in capitals the world over, it is yet more proof of Trump’s drive to dismantle the post-war international architecture and replace it with new institutions – dominated by him.
“We will not let anyone play us,” Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned tersely on social media.
But from Trump’s biggest backer in Europe, Viktor Orban, came effusive praise: “If Trump, then peace.”
What exactly will this Board, headed in perpetuity by Trump himself, do? Could this really be a bid to build a UN mini-me?
