THE odds were uneven: four former US presidents representing continuity pitted against a ruinous incumbent. On June 18, 2026, former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Joe Biden joined Barack Obama at the inauguration of the Obama Presidential Centre and Library in Chicago. President Donald J. Trump was absent.

Trump was in France to attend the G7 meeting in Evian. He arrived there late with the faux apology: “I am the Boss!” — a Trumpism akin to King Louis XIV’s arrogant declaration: “L’État, c’est moi!” (I am the State!).

Later, at a banquet in Louis XIV’s palace at Versailles, Trump with dramatic flair signed the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding. That document should have been printed in vanishing ink, for in Hamlet’s words, it may well suffer being “more honour’d in the breach than the observance”.

Trump’s haste to extricate himself from a war he started at Netanyahu’s Iago-like urging is understandable. Each of his four predecessors had been tempted by Israel’s anti-Iran promptings, but resisted. Trump caved in. He should have heeded Louis XIV’s better advice: “Impatience for victory guarantees defeat.”

No Pakistani leader has thought fit to endow a library.

Trump’s presidential archives........

© Dawn