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The National News (2 September 2026)

Sholto Byrnes

By now there is an almost overwhelming consensus that the old international order as we knew it has failed, or is fading away. Inasmuch as America trumpeted that it should be “rules-based”, while constantly carving out exceptions for itself and its allies, that veneer has been fully stripped away.

That process became fully recognisable when former US president Joe Biden stood by while Israel bombed Gaza into rubble, which showed, as Jordan’s King Abdullah observed: “Palestinian lives matter less than Israeli ones. Our lives matter less than other lives. The application of international law is optional.”

Then when the administration of current President Donald Trump illegally kidnapped a head of state – Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro – the collapse was laid bare.

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