Trump: From bombing Qatar to assassinating Kirk

Author: Rami Mahdawi

What has happened in recent days places the world before an extremely dangerous political and military tableau, led by U.S. President Donald Trump and his reckless policies. The bombing of Qatar was not a mere passing Israeli strike, but a strategic decision reflecting a declared American direction based on the use of raw force to reimpose U.S. prestige in the region. At home, the assassination of young conservative Charlie Kirk revealed the other face of that policy, where blood is invested as a tool in the domestic struggle just as it is abroad.

The bombing of Qatar, a U.S. ally, is a resounding message that no one in the region is immune from punishment if they try to stray from the prescribed lines or adopt positions supportive of the Palestinians. Qatar, which hosts major U.S. military bases and is an economic and diplomatic partner of Washington, discovered that this does not provide a protective umbrella if its policies conflict with the shared U.S.-Israeli vision. That strike could not have happened without a direct green light from Trump, who sees igniting fires in the region as serving his strategic goals.

At the same time, the U.S. interior was shaken by the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the young figure who represented a rising voice of the new generation of conservatives. The sniper bullet that pierced his neck in front of his audience at Utah Valley University was not an isolated incident, but a reflection of the climate of incitement and division fueled by Trump himself. The irony is that the president rushed to exploit Kirk’s blood, announcing from inside the Pentagon that he would award him the “Presidential Medal of Freedom” after his death, in a scene that uses blood to cement his image as an indispensable leader.

Linking these two events under the umbrella of Trump’s policy is not contrived. The man who encouraged the militarization of foreign policy is the same one who fed domestic division and made violence a legitimate instrument to achieve objectives. The bombing of Qatar sends a message abroad that Washington will punish any party that dares to show solidarity with Palestine, even if it is an ally. The assassination of Kirk sends a message at home that the conflict between right and left will not be confined to debates, but may reach blood in public spaces.

Trump does not see blood as a catastrophe but as an opportunity. Abroad, Arab blood justifies further intervention and domination; at home, the blood of conservatives is used to mobilize electoral bases and reinforce the image of a president who does not yield to “liberal chaos-makers.” By that logic, Trump becomes the real link between the bombing of Qatar and the assassination of Kirk, because he created the environment that produced both crimes and directly benefited from them politically.

The most dangerous message here is that the world faces an American president who does not hesitate to deploy the instruments of killing—whether by planes and missiles in the Middle East, or through incendiary rhetoric that detonates violence on U.S. campuses.

For the Arabs, the bombing of Qatar confronts them all with a shocking truth: no protection from Washington, no immunity through alliances. Israel strikes where it wishes with a green light from the White House, while the Arab world is left with statements. And in America itself, where democracy is supposed to be a model, a young man in the prime of life falls to a political bullet while the president applauds the scene and turns it into an electoral badge of honor.

We are at a dangerous turning point: Trump, through his policies, links the blood in the Gulf to the blood in Utah. If the world does not recognize the peril of this phase, what comes next will be more violent—whether in the Arab region, which may see more capitals under bombardment, or in the American domestic sphere, which may slide into widespread political violence.

Today Trump is not merely a president, but a bloody project that crosses borders, using killing as a tool of rule. From Qatar to Utah, from Gaza to U.S. universities, the scenes are similar: blood flows, and an arrogant rhetoric declares that only the “strong president” holds the keys to stability or chaos.