Trumpar.a.Lago

Sitting in his Bermuda shorts on a sunbed overlooking the Atlantic Coast, Donald Trump is probably thinking he's had not a bad last two weeks. He launched 59 Tomahawks at a Syrian airbase, dropped a mighty bomb on Isis in Afghanistan - the term "mother of all bombs" is right out of his sort of lingo - he threatened preemptive action against Kim Jong-un and told the Chinese what's what. If it hadn't been for his idiot spokesman Sean Spicer indirectly praising Hitler for never using chemicals against his own people (that's a Spicerism that will never be forgotten), Trump would have had reason to knock back the champagne. Except he doesn't drink alcohol. It's all about being tough, being seen to be tough, speaking tough and looking tough. He's good at that in a sort of apprentice-you're-fired way. But I'm not sure whether Kim Jong-un really cares about how tough Trump sounds. He is, after all, living in a world of his own, surrounded by gleaming missiles and he probably genuinely thinks the United States of America, the world's only real military superpower, is scared of him. Actually, whisper it, the US is rather scared of him because no one, not the Pentagon, nor the CIA, nor Lieutenant-General HR McMaster knows for sure what he's going to do next. Kim threatened thermo-nuclear war, but does he have any idea what that means? All Trump's advisers, like all Obama's advisers before him, are telling him that Kim wants one thing and that is for his regime to survive so that his future children and grandchildren can carry on the dynasty. So, if that is his objective, why threaten thermo-nuclear war and invite an overwhelming response from the US? So Trump thinks on this on his sunbed and decides he got the rhetoric about right, probably frightened Kim and his entourage of yes men, and got them all worried about the vulnerability of their ballistic missiles. Sending the carrier strike group bristling with Tomahawks and anti-missile interceptors was the obvious and easiest option. That's why it's such a joy being commander-in-chief of the only superpower. No other country in the universe can dispatch a carrier with destroyers, cruisers and submarines, and have a whole batch more back home or elsewhere in the world ready to join the armada at a nod from the president. Actually, everyone has been writing enthusiastically about the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group sitting off the North Korean coast, but it turns out it hasn't arrived yet. It was last seen off Indonesia on Saturday. But, never mind, Kim knows it's coming, so if he tries any more missile launches heading for the Sea of Japan, when the carrier really is off the coast, then there still might be a clash. But not nuclear war. That, Kim, old chap, would be very very stupid. Big bang stuff will mean the end of you and the end of the Kim dynasty, and the end of Communism in North Korea, and the end of everything. So no gains there. Even Kim must know that as he combs his weird hairstyle every morning. So Trump can relax for a bit. He has got his choice for the Supreme Court sitting pretty and pronouncing eloquently, he's put Putin into a corner, hit Isis where it hurts, and caused humiliation for Kim. As for Assad, well that's still a tricky one, but I don't think Trump is overly bothered. He may have some chemical drums left in a secret shed, but he doesn't have nukes. In other words, nothing to threaten the US with, and those Tomahawks are a damn fine thing! If only Sean Spicer had kept his mouth shut.