“War is peace,” wrote George Orwell in 1984, imagining a world where words are hollowed out, logic is perverted and conflict concocted to sustain domination. The 1949 opus is defining global affairs in 2026. The era of giant statesmen is consigned to history, replaced by intellectual pygmies who now write the rules of the game. Orwell’s dystopia appears eerily real, emerging as the operating system of geopolitics.
The world is lurching through an international disorder that profits the powerful and vaporises the vulnerable. At the epicentre of this modern construct is US President Donald J Trump, who famously promised to end the war in Ukraine in a day. That promise is now 487 days overdue. His presidency, betting on grandstanding to deliver, has wagered on misplaced notions of swift victories.
The Trump playbook has alienated allies and friends like India and enriched adversaries like China and Russia. Liberation Day tariffs targeted Canada, Mexico, India and the EU, while China cocked a snook at Trump. The US now has to refund $166 billion collected as tariffs—and among the first in the queue is FedEx. Meanwhile, the total US debt soared to $39 trillion. Yet, Trump remains undeterred: a new 10 percent tariff is under litigation, while his team is weaponising provisions to reset the tariff regime.
This global instability is not unfolding in a vacuum. West Asia burns and Ukraine simmers because war-games are shaped by domestic political calculations—in Washington, Tel Aviv, Moscow and Beijing. The decision to wage war or pursue peace is increasingly dictated by internal political calculus. The human and economic costs of these gridlocked conflicts have triggered global anxiety.
Trump loves the word ‘obliteration’. After many Trumpian obliterations, Iran is still in the fight. The objective of the peace talks is keeping open the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before the war. What’s more, Iran and Oman may partner to charge tolls on ships. For all the talk of regime change, the best Team Trump could do was to replace an older Ayatollah with a younger Ayatollah.
It is an accepted hypothesis that the attack on Iran was fertilised during a February 23 phone call between Trump and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. It is no mystery that US foreign policy is largely influenced by domestic politics, which depends on campaign financing—and pro-Israel outfits such as AIPAC are among the leading donors for presidential and congressional polls.
The February 28 attack on Iran was Trump’s nod to the Israeli lobby’s quest. The blame-game, the statements of officials, the resignations of Joe Kent and Tulsi Gabbard spell out the saga. For Netanyahu, who is dependent on the Ben Gvir brand of politics for survival, the war is simply an instrument of postponing the day of reckoning—remember, Trump advocated a pardon when he visited Israel. Netanyahu faces his reckoning, rather ironically, in the Fall season.
The West Asia conflict also intersects with the dollar’s hegemony. Since the 1974 US-Saudi arrangement, Washington has sought to preserve the dollar’s dominance by shaping the architecture of oil trade. Iran, one of the world’s largest hydrocarbon producers, has long been central to this strategy. The trajectory of US intervention in Venezuela—from narcotics enforcement to oil politics—is instructive. Recently, it was US Secretary of State Marco Rubio—not Venezuela’s leadership—who spoke of an oil deal with India. The indictment of Raul Castro suggests Washington may be contemplating a “Maduro model” approach to Cuba, likely to resonate with Cuban American voters.
It doesn’t quite matter to Trump—or thus far, to his MAGA base—that while Trump’s marketing pitch is in superlatives, the outcomes are not. Trump has rained harsh words on Russia and China, but the two are beneficiaries of Trump’s wars. The war in Iran has resulted in the US burning through its stockpiles, raising fears in Ukraine (which gets US arms paid for by the EU) and Taiwan. This has eased pressure on Russia and emboldened China to warn the US over arms supplies to Taiwan, which are on pause.
The war has pushed up crude oil prices, which affect fuel prices in the US. To alleviate the effect, within a month of the strike, the Trump administration lifted sanctions on Iranian oil and extended exemptions on Russian oil for another rolling period of 30 days. Russian oil, once steeply discounted, is now priced at $100 a barrel, while Iranian oil is at $100 and $103 for light and heavy crude. Needless to say, China, the biggest consumer which pays for Russian and Iranian oil in yuans, is a big beneficiary.
This week, Trump exhibited the tremendous clout he enjoys among Republican voters as he exacted revenge on dissidents at primaries and showed he retains 80 percent support within the party. That said, the level is sliding. The killings of children in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran have affected youth support for DJT, which has slid from 48 percent to the low 30s. Not one, but four recent polls find Trump’s ratings sinking—thanks to rising gasoline prices and fewer jobs for the Class of 2026. Angry members of the Republican Party are blocking Trump’s Bills as they worry the Fall season could unseat them.
Wars have no winners. Ceasefires mock the dead. There is no guarantee when the wars raging now will end. Even if they do end this week, the costs will be paid for years—just in West Asia, restoration of oil output could take 18 months and gas over four years. The casting of domestic politics as geopolitics and the obsession for political domination through wars have pushed the world to the edge of a political and economic catastrophe.
Read all columns by Shankkar Aiyar
SHANKKAR AIYAR
Author of The Gated Republic, Aadhaar: A Biometric History of India’s 12 Digit Revolution, and Accidental India
(shankkar.aiyar@gmail.com)