Perhaps the most significant statement that US President Donald Trump posted during a busy weekend on his Twitter account was the protest, flamed in capital letters “STOP THE ENDLESS WARS”. What precisely did he mean?

Was it a demand that fighting cease between the Assad regime and its rebellious citizens? Was he alluding to the no less tragic and devastating Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan? Did he mean that Turkey should stop attacking the Syrian Kurdish fighters of the YPG? Was he calling for an end to Israeli assaults on Palestinians and Hamas attacks on Israel? Was he thinking of the Saudi-led mission in Yemen to end the Iranian-backed Houthi rebellion against the legitimate government? Or was he even calling for an end to the Coalition’s fight against terrorists of Daesh (the self-proclaimed IS)?

The answer surely is: none of the above. Trump’s Tweets actually reflect the insular principles of this populist president, principles which helped him get elected to the White House. What he clearly meant was that there should be an end to the endless wars in which the US military has involved itself since his predecessor George W. Bush lit the Middle East powder key with his catastrophic invasion of Iraq.

Bush’s abandonment of the US-led mission to stabilize and rebuild an Afghanistan, traumatized by years of conflict and Taliban misrule, was an egregious error. It is now clear that his failure to see that the triumphant Bonn conference should have left a place for the Taliban, even if they refused then to take it up, condemned war-weary Afghans to yet more misery and bloodshed.

Instead Bush turned to finish his daddy’s business with Saddam Hussein who had survived his humiliating ouster from Kuwait in 1991 after eight months’ occupation. The 2003 assault on Iraq was based on two stunning lies - that Saddam still possessed weapons of mass destruction (he did not) and that he was an active supporter of Al-Qaeda (he was not, having thrown an emissary of Osama Bin Laden out of the country).

Bush’s successor, darling of the liberal establishment Barack Obama, brought hope to the region with his June 2009 Cairo speech, even though he had failed to use his moral authority to condemn and try to stop the appalling Israeli pounding of Gaza. But while his instinct was to disengage the US militarily from Afghanistan and the Middle East, he at least partly respected, in his dithering fashion, America’s responsibilities to its loyal allies in the region.

In this regard, Trump talks the talk, but with the exception of his slavish enthrallment to Israel, has not really walked the walk. His decision to quit Syria does not fit with his vow to contain and reverse aggressive Iranian meddling in the affairs of its Arab neighbors. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been making soothing noises during his tour of Middle East states, including here in the Kingdom, but in the end it is Trump and his Twitter-feed which is setting out the reality of the administration’s growing isolationism.

The President is embarked on a dangerous course, which appears to be informed by a misunderstanding, not simply of Washington’s duties to its allies, but also of the very nature of conflict which might be encapsulated in a tweet saying “YOU NEED TO FIGHT TO END WARS”.