Trump: Who the heck is this man?

Is US President Donald Trump a master strategist and manipulator or a fumbling fool who has absolutely no clue what he’s doing?

Is he the defender of Western values or is he the one destroying them?

Is he Israel’s critical ally who will deliver great changes or is he using Israel and will leave it more vulnerable than ever?

Is he a man with an important mission for our complex times or is he a self-serving crook who is using all of us?

Is he re-drawing the map of the Middle East, and perhaps the world, or is he the puppet of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese Leader Xi Jinping, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Iranian regime?

Is he the worst criminal or is he a saint?

The answers depend on whom you ask, and they can vary from one extreme to the other. And interestingly, most people seem to have a very definite opinion.

Personally, at the risk of disappointing, I admit that I have no clue, at least not at this time. Maybe he is all these things and many things in between. Or maybe he is nothing in particular.

But here one thing that I know: Trump is in the position that he is in now because so many Western leaders, past and present, have failed us badly. Trump fell into this role by default, by accident of history.

Every US president before Trump failed us by allowing the criminal Iranian regime to go on for as long as it has. Every current Western leader fails us by looking the other way while Trump fights the worst evils of this world.

Maybe the liberal world has lost the will to survive. Maybe we have become so accepting of differences that we can no longer fight the evil that is trying to destroy us. Maybe Trump was the only one left standing because everyone else weaselled out.

Trump may or may not be the Winston Churchill of our times, but sadly, our times have no shortage of Neville Chamberlains.