Dire straits
RECENT events have given a new twist to history. A Chicago-born pontiff from Rome has publicly rebuked an American Christian crusader.
Normally, popes issue insipid encyclicals or harmless homilies. In 1968, for example, Pope Paul VI issued Of Human Life — a justification of the Catholic church’s opposition to methods of birth control. (One sceptic wondered how a celibate bachelor felt qualified to guide married couples on such an intimate matter.)
Previous popes chose not to interfere even when human rights were being violated. In the 1940s, Pope Pius XII refrained from any condemnation of the Nazis or Stalin’s pogroms. Hitler let Mussolini handle the Vatican. Stalin silenced the pope with the cutting question: “How many divisions has the Pope?”
This Easter, Pope Leo XIV felt impelled to speak out against a fellow countryman — the US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth — who had appealed to “Almighty God who trains our hands for war and our fingers for battle” (Psalm 144). On Palm Sunday, Pope Leo XIV, in the name of the same God and quoting from the same Holy Bible, reproached Hegseth: “When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you; even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood!” (Isaiah 1:15).
Did Trump deliberately send Vance to Islamabad to fail?
It is perhaps telling that the recent negotiations between the US and Iran held in Islamabad on April 11 did not begin with a prayer from any faith. It might have given the talks a chance. Instead, the divine and Israel were both noticeably absent.
The composition of the US team revealed non-seriousness. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are Jewish real estate developers from New York. They had disappointed the Iranians twice earlier. They have a record of being midwives who specialise in lucrative abortions. Nevertheless, Iran accepted them, hoping that Vice-President J.D. Vance might bring some gravitas and maturity to the table.
They were wrong. President Trump sabotaged the Islamabad talks even before they had begun by announcing: “If it doesn’t happen, I’m blaming J.D. Vance. If it does happen, I’m taking full credit.” With that, Trump ensured the failure of his VP, just as president Joe Biden, by delaying his withdrawal from the presidential race in 2024, scotched his VP Kamala Harris’ chances.
It has been reported that, during a White House meeting on Feb 12, Vance sided with CIA director Ratcliffe who described Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to attack Iran as “farcical”. Vance told Trump: “This is a bad idea, but if you want to do it, I’ll support you.” He warned that such a war would cause “regional chaos”.
Did Trump deliberately send Vance to Islamabad to fail? Or, subtler still, did Vance (a recent convert to Catholicism) sacrifice himself this Easter so that he could resurrect himself to succeed a damaged, declining Trump? Vance knows he is only a heartbeat away from the presidency, as were H. Truman to F.D. Roosevelt (1945), L.B. Johnson to J.F. Kennedy (1963), and G. Ford to R. Nixon (1974).
Vance disclosed in his final statement in Islamabad that the US had wanted Iran to abjure nuclear ambitions, forever. Was it lost on him that he made this demand in the capital of a country that is said to possess an estimated 170 nuclear weapons and which hasn’t signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? (Iran signed the NPT in 1968.)
Is the ongoing war really about Iran’s nuclear capability? Or the hydrocarbons choking the veins of the Gulf Arabs? Or the dangerous gauntlet run by traffic in the Strait of Hormuz? Or is it Israel’s rapacity for lebensraum?
The US/Israel vs Iran war has entered yet another menacing phase. Trump and Netanyahu will continue the Duke of Wellington’s strategy at Waterloo in 1812: “Let’s see who will pound the longest.” The Arab states are learning that the US-supplied security umbrella has a design fault. It opens during sunshine and closes when it rains missiles.
And in a poignant gesture of remembrance, the Iranians filled the empty seats in one of the three aircraft that flew to Islamabad (two were decoys) with images and satchels of the 168 Minab schoolgirls killed in the first US/Israeli attack on Feb 28. Embattled Iranians are reconciling themselves to the fatalism inherent in their belief: “A man can die but once; we owe God a death.”
Meanwhile, Pakistan has come out tops. For acting as a gracious host to the US and Iranian delegations in Islamabad, it has been provided $6 billion by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to repay a $3.5bn loan recalled by the UAE and to retire $1.43bn in Eurobonds. An insolvent Pakistan no longer finds itself in dire straits.
The writer is an author.
Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2026
