Trump's charm offensive to Iran hits a brick wall

Donald Trump has been consistent with one thing. He has said that he is prepared to talk to anyone if they are prepared to talk to him. Even Robert Mueller!! But his latest offer of talks, this time to President Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian leader, fell on very deaf ears. Well actually Rouhani heard him all right but then got his aides to squash any such thoughts. Brick wall diplomacy. Trump probably thought, if Kim Jong-un realised it was a good idea to talk to him, then why not Rouhani who is supposed to be a reformist leader? You can understand why the Iranian said no no no. He said it would be humiliating to meet the man who scrapped America's participation in the infamous 2015 Iran nuclear deal. You can see his point. But Rouhani might reconsider, who knows. Sometimes you need to talk to your enemy. That's the oldest idea in the book but it can work. The British government spoke to the Provisional IRA through a back channel to try and get peace talks moving. The Spanish government, through intermediaries, talked clandestinely to the ETA Basque terrorist leaders. In the Cold War the US spoke to the Soviet Union. So Trump's offer, while seemingly unacceptable right now, might just be not a bad idea, even for the Iranians. But I bet Trump would shrink from meeting with the dreaded Major General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian Republican Guards Quds Force, the extremely well-funded special forces organisation responsible for Iran's malign and violent activities throughout the Middle East and especially Syria. I can't see Trump ever extending his hand to General Soleimani who only last week said he was fully prepared for war with the US after the president's threatening tweet against Iran. Iran's economy desperately needs relief from US sanctions, but Rouhani knows that Trump will never lift the sanctions unless Tehran agrees to a comprehensive new deal, not just covering nuclear issues but also embracing the activities of General Suleimani and his band of malevolent brothers. But Rouhani can't restrain Soleimani because the Quds Force commander answers only to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader. To the Ayatollah, the US (and Trump) will always be the true Satan. So for now, Trump's offer will continue to hit that brick wall. However, is there a secret back channel to Tehran, involving perhaps the CIA, and, if so, could this be quite active at the moment? Intriguing thought.

Oh dear, politicians who get muddled

The newish UK foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, is the politician who when being interviewed on BBC Radio 4 in a former government role as Culture Secretary, was introduced by the presenter who fell foul of a classic and stupendously rude spoonerism, involving the letter "H" and "C". He and the presenter recovered from that almighty faux pas and Hunt went on to greater things, a decently long spell as Health Secretary and now Foreign Secretary, following the resignation of Boris Johnson. But now he has committed the worse sin of all, by getting something basically pretty straightforward about his wife totally wrong. Visiting Beijing and standing as tall and straight as he could to underline his importance, Hunt referred to his wife as Japanese. Actually she is Chinese-born which I presume he knew when he met her and asked her to marry him ten years ago. Well, we can all get confused about people. I called someone I had known for years George when within a millisecond I knew he was Peter. But to say to your CHINESE host that you are proud to have a JAPANESE wife when you could have gained innumerable brownie points by saying she was Chinese, just like him, is so bizarre there is very little explanation that can sensibly be given without making him sound a total prat. Ok, Hunt speaks Japanese for some reason and was showing off his linguistic abilities to Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, who also speaks Japanese. Sometimes the brain works in mysterious ways and perhaps because he was speaking Japanese he could only think of Japanese things and made his wife Japanese. But, no, that really isn't an explanation. What could the poor wife Lucia Guo have thought when she was informed by her husband that she was Japanese? It's much worse than a spoonerism. But it's a warning to all public figures. Always get your facts right when referring to wives, children and parents. Other mistakes can more easily be laughed off. US Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W Bush both once declared they were visiting a particular country when in fact they were in another particular country. And President George HW Bush famously vomited into the lap of the Japanese prime minister at a state banquet in Tokyo in 1992. But he never claimed his wife was anything but an American.

Trump is a unicorn, apparently

Sean Spicer, much missed former press secretary at the White House, a man with a terrible dress sense whose suits never seemed quite right for his tubby body, thinks Donald Trump is a unicorn. He said so in an interview published today in the Sunday Times to mark his memoir of his short time in the hotspot in front of a generally hostile but amused White House press corps. By "unicorn" I assume he meant the president was unique. Well he certainly is that, and Spicer still seems to hink highly of his former boss even though he was forced out of the press job for making so many blunders at the microphone. The word "unicorn" is somewhat overused these days. You can buy kids' T-shirts with unicorns on the front, so it's a kind of in-word and image. But for the record, unicorn has a number of different meanings, some of which may also apply to the president, but some may not. First of all, a unicorn refers to something that doesn't actually exist. Trump exists! Second, it can be used in a derogatory sense against women, implying that all women are the same and not worth treating with respect. Well, Trump loves women, or so he has told us on many occasions. Thirdly, apparently, it refers to a woman who has a fantasy about forming a physical relationship with a man/woman couple. Trump is not a woman. Fourth, unicorns are considered to have a divine presence and, because they are often thought of as female, are a symbol of chastity. There is no legally safe answer to this one! Fifth, a unicorn is a beast with a single large horn sticking out of its forehead. Same reply as above. Spicer, bless him, trying desperately to remain loyal to the man in the White House, clearly thinks Trump is a unique, legendary individual. By all accounts his memoir is not very good and rather poorly written. But I don't think Trump will be displeased about being called a unicorn, so he might have got one of his flunkies - perhaps Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Spicer's successor - to purchase a copy of the book for some nighttime reading.

Renewed hopes for peace in Afghanistan? I doubt it

Every now and again over the last 17 years, hopes are raised of a peace settlement in Afghanistan. The argument goes that even the Taliban are tired of war and want to do a deal under which they will be represented in government and the fighting stops. We're having just such a moment right now. Under the Trump strategy the idea has been to bomb the Taliban to the negotiating table. Not exactly a new idea. In fact that has been the only idea in the last 17 years. But under Obama the will to continue the whole war thing in Afghanistan became muddled. No one really knew how to bring it to an end, so Obama started calling for a timetable for US troop withdrawal. That was a disaster because it gave the Taliban hope that within a certain timeframe all those pesky foreigners would leave and they could get on with seizing back Kabul. Then Trump turned up and ordered a few thousand more troops back into Afghanistan to help wage war rather than sit well back from the frontline with instruction manuals for the poor Afghan security forces who have lost literally thousands of troops on the battlefield. On top of that Trump sent in more bombers and gave commanders the authority to strike at all opponents - Taliban, Isis and al-Qaeda. The dropping of munitions, as a result, has been at the highest level for several years. So, would this tougher, more bloodthirsty approach drive the Taliban to the peace table? Suddenly the answer seemed to be, maybe possibly. First of all there was that historic event when the fighting stopped for the end of Ramadan, and Taliban and Afghan military got together and hugged and played football. But that was a mirage in a desert. The ceasefire lasted three days, then wham bam, it was back to murder and slaughter. Nevertheless, the peace notion has come up again. It has emerged that US officials met a week or so ago with Taliban "officials" in Qatar to talk peace. The mood had swung back towards ending the war. Or so it seemed. There is a big effort now going on to consolidate this whisper of peace and bring this horrific war to a close. But first of all, who are these Taliban "officials"? We've been here before. So-called officials have turned out to be like seventh cousins twice removed from the real bad guys. In other words, no real clout and certainly not representing the top league of the Taliban. We don't know whose these Taliban were, or even if they were genuine Taliban just off the battlefield and smelling of cordite or minor individuals who live in Qatar and write pen letters to the Taliban commanders on the off chance they might get a reply. You detect a hint of scepticism here. I hope I'm wrong, it would be a great historic event if the war or wars in Afghanistan could finally come to an end. But I truly cannot believe that the real Taliban are remotely interested in a peaceful existence, let alone doing a deal with the hated Kabul government and especially not coming to any sort of agreement with the Americans! I simply don't believe the Taliban are interested. They are playing a game. They want the Americans and others out of their country. Then and only then will they start to think of negotiations, but with Kabul, not Washington.

Leave poor Rod Rosenstein alone!

I feel terribly sorry for Rod Rosenstein. The US deputy attorney general is getting flak from every corner just because he is doing his job as best as he can. Trump seems to hate him and perhaps slightly fear him, the Republicans are using and abusing him to get inside the Robert Mueller special counsel investigation into alleged Russian/Trump campaign collusion and two senior Republicans want to impeach him for goodness sake. It seems to me that ever since he decided to ask Mueller to be a special counsel to investigate the election interference affair, he has been marked down by the president as enemy number two. Enemy number one being Mueller of course. Rosenstein looks a decent sort of bloke, fairly mild looking, the kind of person who might look as if he is not able to say boo to a goose but who is actually incredibly conscientious and quite determined to do the job he is supposed to do as the second most senior official at the Justice Department. He was landed right in it when his immediate boss, Jeff Sessions, attorney general, recused himself from being linked in anyway to the investigation into The Investigation because it was claimed and then admitted that during the campaign he, too, had met the Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, the rotund DC diplomat who had little quiet chats with many people in the Trump campaign. As he was working for the Trump campaign at the time, Sessions, much to Trump's fury who thought he was a friend, produced some Department of Justice regulation which stated he, as attorney general, would face a conflict of interest if he took overall charge of the investigation because he had a personal and political relationship with the individual at the centre of the said inquiry. ie Trump. So in stepped Rod Rosenstein, his deputy, and the flak started to fly almost immediately. He always looks forlorn and fairly miserable when he appears on television, as if he is afraid at any moment he's going to be stabbed in the back. Well, that's exactly what IS happening. These two Republican Representatives, Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan, want him impeached on the grounds that he has failed to cough up sensitive documents about the Mueller investigation to Congress. I assume Meadows and Jordan are plotting against Rosenstein with Trump's total acquiescence. Rosenstein will probably survive. Congress is about to break up for the summer recess, so it might all just blow away. But in the meantime poor old Rosenstein is having a tough time, no thanks to Boss Sessions who is probably patting himself on the back for that cunning recusing moment which let him off the hook now firmly yanking his deputy in all directions.

Former US spy chief versus Trump

I don't know what the protocols are in the US covering former heads of spy agencies, but in the UK ex-chiefs of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, the three intelligence agencies, tend to stay clear of politics once they retire and don't interfere in government matters, let alone criticise the encumbent prime minister or any former British prime minister. They stay in the shadows and rarely make public statements. This is definitely the UK protoco, although some past chiefs have occasionally ventured into the public limelight, notably Sir Richard Dearlove and Sir John Sawers, both of MI6. In the US, however, there seems to be a free-for-all. With the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House, one former intelligence chief in particular has been positively vicious in his attacks on the president. John Brennan, appointed CIA director by President Obama, has regularly fired off against Trump, warning the US and the world of the dangerous tendencies of Trump. All CIA directors are political appointments. They have to be chosen and nominated by the sitting president and then approved by the Senate. But they are not political animals, they are appointed to run one of the biggest intelligence services in the world and are expected to serve the president whatever their individual political persuasion. Sometimes their politics is well known. Mike Pompeo, for example, was formerly a member of the House of Representatives intelligence select committee, as a Republican. But the present CIA director, Gina Haspel, is an out-and-out CIA career intelligence officer, so she has never had to display her political leanings. Brennan served in the CIA for 25 years, so he, too, was a career intelligence officer although he served in various appointments under Obama before getting the CIA top job. In fact, in his time, he has served under six presidents, Democrat and Republican. Whatever his personal politics, he is anti-Trump. He once described Trump's "self- adoration" as "disgraceful". Ouch! More recently he has warned that the US needs strong leadership and has admitted he is worried that the country is in the hands of someone who is inexperienced in dealing with the tough issues of the world. The criticism by Brennan, and others from the same intelligence world, has seriously riled Trump who has threatened to withdraw security clearances for all of them. Actually when they leave government service, they generally no longer require such clearance. But of course there are some occasions when a former CIA director might be invited back to Langley in Virginia, the agency HQ, for ceremonies or even for briefings. I doubt this will stop but the warning from Trump was clearly aimed at getting them to shut up. Brennan is entitled to his views but to my mind a former CIA diector, with all the power that gave him during his time in office, should not make personal attacks against the encumbent president. First of all, in the case of Trump, it will make the president even more suspicious of the intelligence agency than he is already, and. secondly, it won't help Gina Haspel to win the trust of the White House. By all means, make intelligent comments about the challenges facing the president, but personal attacks achieve nothing and politicise the CIA.

Please Trump take a holiday

The whole world needs two weeks off from Donald Trump. A total rest, no Trump tweets, nothing, just peace and quiet and tranqillity. I don't mind where he goes, whether Florida or Timbuktu - does he have a golf resort in Timbuktu? - but it would be kind to all of us, specially his poor exhausted White House staff, if he spent the next two weeks sleeping, playing golf and forgetting that he is the president of the United States. I know presidents are always supposed to be on call for emergencies, but for once, let that Mike Pence bloke do something for his living. Normally his role is to stand behind Trump when he signs his name on some new executive order, looking sort of bored and uninvolved. So let's have a Pence fortnight and a rest, please a total rest from Trump. That's it for today!!!