Could Trump’s bid to become peacemaker-in-chief sideline the struggling UN?

“Together we are in a position to… end decades of suffering, stop generations of hatred and bloodshed, and forge a beautiful, everlasting and glorious peace for that region and for the whole region of the world.”

Such was the soaring promise of US President Donald Trump as he inaugurated his new Board of Peace on the stage of stages that is the Davos Economic Forum this week.

The world of all too much suffering and strife badly wants to believe him.

But for many observers and officials in capitals the world over, it is yet more proof of Trump’s drive to dismantle the post-war international architecture and replace it with new institutions – dominated by him.

“We will not let anyone play us,” Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned tersely on social media.

But from Trump’s biggest backer in Europe, Viktor Orban, came effusive praise: “If Trump, then peace.”

What exactly will this Board, headed in perpetuity by Trump himself, do? Could this really be a bid to build a UN mini-me?

The idea – born last year in US-led efforts to end the war in Gaza and endorsed by a UN Security Council resolution – now has a much greater, far grander, more global ambition. And it pivots around the president.

In leaked details of the draft charter he is the Board’s chairman for life even when he leaves office. Under that charter his powers would be vast: authority to invite member states or not; to create or dissolve subsidiary bodies; and the mandate to appoint his successor whenever he decides to step down, or if he is incapacitated.

If any other country would like to become a permanent member, the price is an eye-watering $1 billion (£740m).

This latest bombshell lands in what is already a head-spinning month. In a few short weeks there’s already been the US capture of Venezuela’s leader, Trump threats and preparations for military action against Iran, and demands to acquire Greenland which sent shock waves across Europe and beyond.

Nineteen countries showed up in Davos for the Board’s inauguration from all corners of the compass – from Argentina to Azerbaijan, from former Soviet republics to Gulf kingdoms. Many more are said to have “agreed to join”.

“In this group, I like every single one of them,” Trump grinned as he eyed leaders and officials whose names are now on this Board or the layers of executive bodies beneath it.

Many more potential members have so far politely demurred.

“This is about a treaty that raises much broader issues, and we do also have concerns about President Putin being part of something that is talking about peace” explained the UK’s Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper.

Trump says Russia is on board although the message from Moscow was that they were still “consulting partners”.

“As the text stands right now,” we’re not joining, replied Sweden.

“The proposal raises unanswered questions that require further dialogue with Washington” was Norway’s diplomatic response.

Even a group of seven predominantly Muslim countries, including six Arab nations, as well as Turkey and Indonesia, made it clear they were in it for a “just and lasting peace in Gaza,” including the reconstruction of the shattered enclave.

However leaked details of the Board’s charter don’t mention Gaza.

For some of the critics, including some countries reluctant to join, it’s a vainglorious project for a president who doesn’t hide his fixation with winning the biggest accolade – the Nobel Peace Prize, which was was won by President Obama in 2009 at the start of his first term in the White House.

World leaders know there may be a price to pay for not joining this new club.

“I’ll put a 200% tariff on his wines and champagnes, and he’ll join, but he doesn’t have to join.” This was the president’s rebuke to France’s President Emmanuel Macron with a threat to wield his weapon of choice.

Only Slovenia said the quiet part out loud. Prime Minister Robert Golob made his concern clear – it “dangerously interferes with the broader international order”.

Trump addressed this concern head-on.

“Once this Board is completely formed, we can do pretty much whatever we want to do and we’ll do it in conjunction with the United Nations,” he explained to the packed hall hanging on his every word.

But he likes to keep the world guessing.

A day earlier, when asked by a Fox TV journalist whether his Board would replace the UN, he replied “Well it might. The UN just hasn’t been very helpful.”

Then he added “I’m a big fan of the UN potential, but it has never lived up to its potential. The UN should have settled every one of the wars that I settled.”

The UN, 193 members strong, has indeed long lost its role as peacemaker-in-chief.

When I interviewed the Secretary General António Guterres in October 2016, on his first day in his first term, just hours after a rare unanimous endorsement by the Security Council, he promised “a surge in diplomacy for peace”.

For the past decade, the UN’s efforts were thwarted by the gridlocked Security Council, the growing number of spoilers and state sponsors in wars the world over, as well as the steady erosion in its own standing vis-a-vis the world’s most powerful players, including the United States.

“We must all welcome the activism of Mr Trump on ending wars,” says Martin Griffiths, a UN veteran who believes this new effort is “obviously a reflection of the failure of the UN Security Council and of the UN writ large.”

But the former Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator cautioned that “what we’ve learned over these last 80 years, through lots and lots of failures and clunkiness, we learned the value of inclusion, of being representative of the global community, not just the friends of Mr Trump.”

Guterres himself recently regretted that “there are those that believe the power of law should be replaced by the law of power”.

Asked in an interview with the BBC’s Today programme about Trump’s constant claim that he’s ended eight wars, he replied matter-of-factly “they are ceasefires.”

Some have already broken down.

The temporary peace deal between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo soon fell apart, Cambodia and Thailand started hurling accusations and more across their border, and India disputed Trump’s central role in ending its conflagration with Pakistan.

But only Trump’s muscular mediation could have ended the 12-day war between Iran and Israel.

His own personal involvement finally secured a ceasefire in Gaza’s destructive confrontation last October which eased both the suffering of Palestinians, and the agony of Israeli hostages. His decision to finally and fully focus on this disaster, partly in response to urging from his closest Arab allies and grieving Israeli families, pushed him to pressure Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and Hamas, to do a deal.

But even the Board’s first test – to move from the first phase of the deal to end the Gaza war – is daunting. Even now, as this new Board slowly takes shape, it includes Netanyahu who has vowed to stop the establishment of a Palestinian state, and Arab leaders who insist the only pathway to a sustainable peace must lead to Palestinian self-governance and the end of Israeli occupation.

And the other big war on America’s – and Europe’s agenda – is Ukraine. President Zelensky has balked at being at the same table as Moscow and Minsk.

Three layers lie beneath this Board, most focusing on Gaza – an Executive Board, a Gaza Executive Board, and the National Committee for the Administration for Gaza.

They bring together a mix of senior American officials and billionaires, as well as respected former politicians and ex-UN envoys who know Gaza well, along with Arab ministers and intelligence chiefs, and Palestinian technocrats.

Even some critics credit the president with putting an age-old battle of a different kind on the table – the incessant demand to reform the UN’s post-war architecture including a Security Council which no longer aligns with the world’s political map of major powers in every region. It’s simply not fit for purpose.

“Maybe an unintended good consequence of what Trump has done is those issues will be pushed back towards the top of the international agenda,” reflected Mark Malloch Brown, the former UN deputy secretary-general.

“We’re coming out of a period of extremely weak UN leadership and I think this could be a call to action.”

Ironically, Trump’s bid to lead the world towards peace comes as discussions gather steam in many capitals to replace Guterres who completes his second term at the end of this year.

The president, who previously declared that he could end the Ukraine war in a day, has learned in his last year in power that peacemaking is a protracted and perilous process.

But today he hailed a Middle East region where only “little fires” were burning now. He promised that a settlement in Ukraine “is coming very soon”.

And he revelled in his new role as would-be peacemaker-in-chief.

“This is for the world” he exclaimed.

Top picture credit: Reuters

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