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Goodbye to the good guy
Might Western faith in the march of progress have been misplaced?
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US President Donald Trump is the first successful American politician to voice historical pessimism, says the writer.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Simon Kuper
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It is odd that the European response to being abandoned by Mr Donald Trump was bafflement. After all, he had long signalled that he admired Mr Vladimir Putin and felt unattached to Nato. Yet his plan for “peace” in Ukraine seemed to shock European officials.
It is partly because they had hoped for the best so as to avoid preparing for the worst. But it is also because they did not think the world worked this way: An aggressor attacks a country that was minding its own business and is rewarded.
