May and Might
ANY pundit of contemporary politics expecting a good night’s sleep during the past fortnight had not contended with US President Trump, UK Prime Minister Theresa May and with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman. Their countries cover three time zones, more than half of the world’s working day. Between them, they have ensured that no one anywhere in the world gets any peace or rest.
President Trump lives besieged in the Trump White House Towers. Despite the protective moat of privacy he has built around him, his enemies have managed to penetrate his stronghold with wounding but not fatal barbs.
The latest attack came from his former FBI head James Comey, staggered in three separate volleys. The first was in the form of a statement issued by Comey ahead of his appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee. The second was his public testimony on June 8, and the third the evidence he gave in camera the same afternoon.
Each word of Comey’s reeked of insubordination aforethought. He knew that every word of his would undergo the finest mesh of scrutiny — by the Senate committee itself, by the press, the attorney general’s office, by the White House, and by Trump’s personal legal counsel. Not surprisingly, Comey’s carefully crafted statement reads like a case study on how to traverse a minefield barefoot.
The issues are too complex to be handled by an insecure leader.
Comey began by telling the committee, just as he tried to warn Trump (then president-elect) on Jan 6, of “Russian efforts to interfere in the election” and “some personally sensitive aspects” of information about Trump himself collected by US intelligence agencies, “even though it was salacious and unverified”.
He recalled the telephone call he received from Trump two months later: “On the morning of March 30, the president called me at the FBI. He described the Russia investigation as ‘a cloud’ that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country. He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia.” An intriguing admission by a US president.
If Trump is a president with a murky past, Theresa May is a prime minister with a bleak future. Exuding an overconfidence bordering on hubris, she called for a snap election.
The British electorate punished her by reducing her majority, forcing her to appeal to the 10-MP-strong Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland to help her form a government. On her knees before the DUP, May now has to approach Europe on crutches.
It is quite possible that the Conservative party will oust her before Brexit negotiations begin to jell. There’s too much at stake. The issues are too complex to be handled by an insecure leader looking over her shoulder to check whether cohorts are still behind her. This is not Brexit with determination; it is survival in desperation.
The EU’s genesis lay in the 1957 Treaty of Rome. Neither that nor any subsequent treaty contained a prenuptial agreement, which is why Great Britain’s divorce is likely to create such a messy precedent. Matters as sordid as the UK’s disengagement from the EU budget have financial implications for about 60 billion euros and involve the division of shared assets and liabilities, the relocation of various citizens, the renegotiation of at least 50 important free trade agreements, collaborative defence, shared security and the impact on UK’s land borders including Northern Ireland (home of the DUP).
Today, on the brink of Brexit, Britain needs not May but Might. William Wordsworth’s lament about London in 1802 comes to mind: “Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:/ England hath need of thee:/ she is a fen/ Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,/ …We are selfish men;/ Oh! raise us up, return to us again;/ And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.” Experienced subcontinentals might paraphrase that differently: ‘Mountbatten! England hath need of thee.’
The late King Ibn Saud (founder of the House of Saud) was once asked who was the greatest Englishman he had ever met, to which the canny king replied without hesitation: “Shakespeare!”
Had King Salman followed his father’s preference, before boycotting Qatar, he might have thumbed through the old man’s copy of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, annotated by Samuel Johnson. In a note to the play, Dr Johnson quotes a fable: “Every man has a bag hanging before him, in which he puts his neighbour’s faults, and another behind him in which he stows his own.”
Ironically, Emir Tamim bin Hammad al-Thani of Qatar was invited as a neighbour and GCC member to attend the Riyadh conclave last month, where he enjoyed a private dialogue with President Trump. Today, Qatar is accused of sponsoring terrorism. Lordy, like James Comey, the emir must wish he had taped their conversation.
The writer is an author.
Published in Dawn, June 15th, 2017