scorecardresearch
Friday, March 29, 2024
Support Our Journalism
HomeDiplomacyBob Woodward’s White House expose just made the India-US talks more interesting

Bob Woodward’s White House expose just made the India-US talks more interesting

Follow Us :
Text Size:

The book quotes US defence secretary Jim Mattis as calling Trump a fifth-grader. What does the chaos in the White House mean for India?

New Delhi: US defence secretary Jim Mattis, known as India’s best friend in Washington DC because of his keenness to grant Delhi a waiver on impending US sanctions against Russia, is said to have been quite irritated with President Donald Trump during a nuclear standoff with North Korea this January.

“The President acted like – and had the understanding of – ‘a fifth or sixth grader’,” Mattis told colleagues, according to renowned journalist Bob Woodward, who recounts this anecdote in an explosive book called Fear that will hit the stands 11 September. Woodward’s newspaper, The Washington Post, published extracts from the book Tuesday.

A quintessential reporter who first put the fear of god into Richard Nixon’s Washington DC when he broke the Watergate story in the early 1970s with Post colleague Carl Bernstein, Woodward’s scathing account about the neurotic and dysfunctional Trump presidency has already put Fear on the top of the Amazon bestseller chart.


Also read: In historic US-India talks, focus is on China & not Russian missiles Modi govt is eyeing


Mattis will land in Delhi Wednesday night for the highest-level dialogue between India and the US, the 2+2 foreign and defence minister conversations, which will take place Thursday.

According to another anecdote from Woodward’s book, in April 2017, Trump told Mattis that he should start making plans to assassinate Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. “Let’s go in,” Trump said, adding a string of curse words.

After Mattis hung up the phone, he told one of his aides, “We’re not going to do any of that. We’re going to be much more measured.” Mattis then prepared a note on airstrikes on Syrian military targets that Trump agreed with.

Mattis issued a statement Tuesday denying he used “contemptuous words” against his President.

“While I generally enjoy reading fiction, this is a uniquely Washington brand of literature, and his anonymous sources do not lend credibility,” Mattis said.

Trump, predictably, issued his own denials on Twitter:

And later, again :

The world is watching

Certainly, India, like the rest of the world, is watching the latest flame-out by the world’s most powerful man with both shock and incredulity.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose personal relationship with Trump has been somewhat rocky over the last year, will expectedly follow this story closely.

The PM will meet Mattis and Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, after their talks with external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman Thursday evening.

Another of Woodward’s telling anecdotes encapsulates the struggle for influence between the most powerful country in the world and the rest of the world.


Also read: Things on the table for 2+2 talks: Trump’s enthusiasm, visas & India’s Republic Day invite


In this reported conversation between Trump’s former lawyer John Dowd and Robert Mueller, the man leading the investigation into the alleged collusion between Trump and Russia in the 2016 election, the former says he is not going to sit by and let Mueller interview Trump for his investigation.

“I’m not going to sit there and let him look like an idiot,” Dowd is quoted as telling Mueller. “And you publish that transcript, because everything leaks in Washington, and the guys overseas are going to say, ‘I told you he was an idiot. I told you he was a goddamn dumbbell. What are we dealing with this idiot for?’”

Dowd, who resigned soon after that conversation with Mueller this March, is absolutely right.

The context for the 2+2 conversation between India and the US has changed overnight.

While both sides will still dive deep into the most important challenges confronting them — China, India’s missile deal with Russia, Iran oil and bilateral trade — both sides know that something has changed.

For example, the psychological advantage that comes with the assertion of power has slipped a bit.

As for India, it will enjoy the bargaining that comes with the knowledge that its partner on the other side of the table also has feet of clay.

Subscribe to our channels on YouTube, Telegram & WhatsApp

Support Our Journalism

India needs fair, non-hyphenated and questioning journalism, packed with on-ground reporting. ThePrint – with exceptional reporters, columnists and editors – is doing just that.

Sustaining this needs support from wonderful readers like you.

Whether you live in India or overseas, you can take a paid subscription by clicking here.

Support Our Journalism

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Most Popular