Perhaps the most striking geopolitical development is the erosion of American leverage. As the Sydney Morning Herald put it bluntly: “America has become refusable.” Barely two weeks into his war on Iran, President Trump has been reduced to asking China for help — a remarkable reversal for a superpower that has historically dictated terms in the Middle East.
The article argues that the world’s leaders are “done with Trump’s games,” suggesting a broader realignment in which traditional US allies are hedging their bets and adversaries see an opportunity to reshape the international order. The European-Japanese initiative to secure the Strait of Hormuz, undertaken largely independent of US command, is one symptom of this shift.
In Brussels, Belgian Prime Minister Bart de Wever has emerged as what RT calls “a heretic in the heart of the EU” — publicly advocating dialogue with Russia’s Putin at a time when European consensus has long demanded isolation. While the Belgian PM’s stance is unrelated to the Iran conflict per se, it reflects a growing weariness with ideological rigidity in European foreign policy and a hunger for pragmatic problem-solving as crises multiply.
