Is Trump more presidential after Iran attack?

Protesters demonstrate against President Donald Trump and war with Iran, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. UPI-Yonhap

By Oh Young-jin

Has the United States been made to look mightier and Donald Trump more presidential after a U.S. military drone strike that assassinated an important Iranian general?

The answers are yes, in a way that for Trump, the U.S. and the world, it has served a purpose for different reasons. Whether the killing and its purpose are justifiable is a different matter. Global politics are rarely about justice and cause, more about self-interest and one-upmanship.

What Trump got out of the attack is a diversion from the impeachment process that is tightening the noose around his neck ahead of the November presidential election. Internationally, many wonder whether the U.S. has stopped its gun-shy policy that was carried out by the Obama administration and is taken up by Trump. Depending on the outcome of this potentially "aggressive" U.S. policy, the world may become less unstable.

Now, here is the recap.

The U.S. claimed it neutralized General Qassem Soleimani because he was behind hostilities mounted against it.

It came as Iran is emerging as a powerhouse rivaling Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally, in the complicated geopolitics of the Middle East that sits on the world's largest oil reserves. Shale gas has reduced the region's oil clout but the world's energy market is still greatly influenced by shifts there.

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib D-Mich., speaks during a rally outside of the U.S. Capitol, during a house vote to measure limiting President Donald Trump's ability to take military action against Iran, on Capitol Hill. AP-Yonhap

Trump carefully toned down his rhetoric against Iran, while the Iranians were profusely angry but their reaction to the general's death was limited to no-casualty rocket attacks on two U.S. bases in Iraq.

Now, the world has been watching carefully for what might follow. Some people were predicting a full-fledged war like the Gulf War that drove out Iraq's dictator Saddam Hussein from Kuwait that he forcefully occupied and the Iraq War that toppled Saddam. Others forecast the U.S.-Iran tit-for-tat was a one-off event.

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It is unclear which is right for now. Iran may use some of its affiliated terror groups to take revenge on U.S. targets, while the U.S. might pick one of many leads that tie Tehran with terror attacks to go after it again.

For the U.S., Iran offers challenges. Bad blood was there as Trump declared he would seek to make null and void the global nuclear treaty to limit Iran's uranium enrichment program that was signed under President Obama in return for lifting sanctions.

Then, Iran shot down a U.S. drone. But Trump let it go unpunished. He claimed he did not strike back because of potential collateral damage. The world mocked him for not standing up to Tehran and took it as sign of declining U.S. power, rather than complimenting him for exercising restraint. The U.S. attributed an attack on key Saudi oil facilities to Iran but it didn't go after it, even though world oil prices were destabilized.

Trump has been ridiculed by critics at home and abroad for being a loose cannon, belittling traditional allies and bilking money from them under the very parochial slogan "Make America Great Again." By many standards, he has shattered the image of the American president, relegating it to a neighborhood bully.

A man holds a portrait of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the slain chief of Hashed al-Shaabi, an Iraqi paramilitary force with close ties to Iran, as his body arrives in the southern city of Basra after it came from Iran. AFP-Yonhap

His decision to pull American troops from Syria, where they were engaged in a war against the Jihadist Islamic State, virtually tossing the Kurds ― the erstwhile American allies ― to the mercy of the vindictive Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reinforced the allies' view that he is untrustworthy.

Now, the drone attack shifted the status quo.

On the domestic front, Trump's decision was not welcome but it forced a freeze on the news cycle focusing on his impeachment that is heading for a Senate vote amid polls that show the incumbent trailing Democratic candidates seeking party nomination.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi talked about limiting Trump's power to go to war. But what if Trump upped the stakes, say, intensifying the confrontation with Iran? It is public knowledge that politicians ― and by extension voters ― will rally behind a leader when their nation is in jeopardy.

Activists protest against U.S. military action against Iran in front of the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, Friday.

It took the atrocity of Sept. 11, 2001, to put the U.S. on a war footing and the country is now weary from the long, consuming war campaign that has bogged it down since. But wasn't it trumped-up evidence that mobilized the U.S. on the path to the Iraq War?

It can't be ruled out that an incident like that of June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo, could light the fuse for war.

Internationally, Europe complains about the lack of justification for the attack on the Iranian general, but whining has long become the habit of the Old World. China and Russia, the old foes, called for restraint but it was nothing more than perfunctory.

China has been saved by the bell in its trade war with the U.S. but is besieged by a long list of problems that are starting to show as the result of its adoption of a hybrid system ― capitalism and one-party autocracy grafted onto communism. It is highly questionable whether Russia can upset the current balance of power.

As a consequence, the U.S. drone attack has given the world a glimpse of what the world was like during Pax Americana, when it played the world's policeman. Of course, the U.S. global political power has been eclipsed by the multiple wars it has been engaged in without winning, and losing economic power shift to China. It reminds people of the period of "Belle Epoque" ― when the world was much less turbulent, if not more peaceful. Some people may like to go back to it. Could we? Should we? It's in "Cats."

Oh Young-jin (foolsdie@gmail.com, foolsdie5@koreatimes.co.kr) is director of content for The Korea Times.