Donald Trump famously dodged the U.S. draft during the Vietnam War, when his father found him a possibly pliant podiatrist to sign off on a medical deferment: He had bone spurs in his heels.

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Trump has explained they were “temporary” bone spurs and he must be right, because they’ve apparently never interfered with his golf game!

Mulcair: As Carney and other leaders back away, Trump flails in Iran Back to video

It’s not that military service in and of itself would have done anything to prepare him to be commander-in-chief of the largest military in the world. But it may have given him some insight into how difficult war is.

Over the weekend, we found out that General Bonespurs may have exaggerated just a wee bit when he declared victory over Iran, as he asked for other countries, including China, to help him keep the Strait of Hormuz open.

Think about that for a second. Donald Trump wants the armed forces of the communist People’s Republic of China, the People’s Liberation Army, to help the United States of America in its war against Iran, a longtime ally of … China!

When other countries he tried to enlist — including the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan and South Korea — were noncommittal or said a polite “no thanks,” he started threatening NATO.

I don’t think there’s a functioning democracy in the world that disagreed with the stated goal of preventing Iran from developing atomic weapons. But that’s as far as any agreement could go, for two very simple reasons: No country other than Israel was apparently consulted before strikes on Iran began on Feb. 28, and the U.S. has thus far not been consistent in articulating its strategic objectives.

Mark Carney has spent the last two weeks backing away from his initial full-throated support for Trump. I read that original reaction as support for dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, but he left himself no room to manoeuvre.

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British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s more prudent reaction reflected the collective memory of a previous Labour PM, Tony Blair, and his misadventure backing George W. Bush in his war against the fictitious “weapons of mass destruction” in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Starmer eventually waffled and said the Yanks could still use British bases for defensive purposes. Video surfaced last week of Cold War-era B-52s using one of those bases. B-52s are used to drop heavy bombs, as the U.S. did when carpet-bombing Vietnam. There’s of course no defensive purpose to them.

It’s early days, but Trump seems to be experiencing the same type of shock that Russian President Vladimir Putin went through when he realized that his vision of an early total victory in Ukraine was a deluded mirage.

Putin has only grown more deranged as he has watched Russian losses of lives and treasure mount endlessly. He seems to have no endgame.

So, too, with Trump. The giddy videos put together by the White House with clips from various Hollywood movies are cringeworthy embarrassments. They reflect the lack of cogency of Trump, who’s showing increasing signs that he’s now in his dotage.

Carney has just marked the one-year anniversary of his accession to the position of prime minister of Canada. It’s been a long, arduous year during which his experience, expertise and maturity have allowed Canada to play a larger role on the world stage than at any time since the Second World War. His Davos speech in January was remarkably prescient and a source of great admiration for his insights.

The world has a rocky road ahead until Trump gets his wings clipped in the November midterms. In the meantime, the wave of goodwill toward Carney and Canada will continue to constitute the beginning of a reasoned bulwark against the bully to the south of us.

Tom Mulcair, a former leader of the federal NDP, served as minister of the environment in the Quebec Liberal government of Jean Charest.

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