World of Wars and Bonfire of G7 Vanities
G7 leaders are meeting this week in Canada.Every year since 2022 the leaders have paraded piety on peace and trade and every crisis is worse. Can the G7 coalesce to deliver?
G7 leaders are meeting this week in Canada. Its ballyhooed heft flies in the face of realities. Global trade is upended. The claim of peace in Ukraine in 24 hours is in a bunker. The talks on peace in Gaza are comatose. Syria, liberated from sanctions, is haunted by killings. Houthis are threatening again. Israel upped the ante this week as it targeted Iran. Every year since 2022 the leaders have paraded piety on peace and trade and every crisis is worse. Can the G7 coalesce to deliver?
Shankkar Aiyar | The Third Eye | The New Indian Express | 15 Jun 2025
Podcast: Global Turmoil and Parade of Piety
A week is indeed a long time in geopolitics. On Tuesday, the world markets celebrated headlines about a trade deal between China and the US. On Friday, world markets plummeted following Israeli strikes on Iran. Real wars tend to make trade wars look insignificant.
This week, the G7, the group of advanced economies, is observing the 50th anniversary of its origin in picturesque Kananaskis in Alberta, at the foothills of the Canadian Rockies. The theme, as always, is lofty: international peace and security, global economic stability and growth, digital transition and global challenges.
The ground realities mock at the ballyhooed heft of advanced economies to sustain predictability and stability. Global trade is upended, thanks to Donald J Trump’s America First tariff policies. Sure, there is a ceasefire on tariffs, a détente with China and talks about talks with other countries. Peace is in pieces. Trump’s promise of peace in 24 hours is consigned to the bunker by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The ceasefire-for-hostages deal in Gaza is comatose. Newly ‘liberated’ Syria is haunted by sectarian killings despite a relief on sanctions — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned the country is weeks away from an epic civil war. On Wednesday, after US declared the “end of bombing”, the Houthis warned of attacks.
This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu upped the ante as he authorised Israeli forces to attack Iran. With it, Trump’s agenda in West Asia — and a possible Nobel honour — was washed off. In a sequence of complex manoeuvres, Israeli forces targeted the leadership of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, nuclear scientists, military units and nuclear facilities.
The sequence is instructive. The audacious attacks were executed just before officials from Iran and the US were to meet in Oman over a new nuclear deal. The US president authorised the talks for the new deal and gave a deadline of 60 days; the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six countries including the US took 20 months.
There is much lather about the changing stance of the US, which reneged on the 2015 deal in 2018, only to re-initiate talks in 2025. History shows Iran’s nuclear programme was born in the US in 1957. America provided Iran with its first reactor and fuels in 1967 during the Shah regime. Following the 1979 revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini opposed the programme and suggested the unfinished plants be used as silos to store wheat. The programme, which was revived after the war with Iraq, has been a target for Netanyahu since 1996.
Be that as it may, the timing of the latest attack merits attention. It followed the expiry of the Trump deadline and a IAEA Thursday report on Iran’s non-compliance of safeguards and non-cooperation. There is a political aspect too — opinion polls showed the coalition led by Netanyahu losing its majority in the 120-seat Knesset.
The imminence of the attack was known. Trump warned Israel not to “blow it” by attacking Iran. Right after the attack, the US distanced itself, stating it was “not involved in strikes” and warned Iran to “not target US interests in the region”. But Trump later admitted “we knew everything” and even said it improved the chances of a deal. While that is debatable, the impact of escalation could be catastrophic. At the UN Security Council, Iran said the US was complicit.
The conflict overshadows all else. The magnitude of challenges, the spectre of a polycrisis facing the G7, is daunting. The timing of the G7 meet in Canada, as its people re-assert their Canadian identity in the face of Trumpism, affords an opportunity for Prime Minister Mark Carney to shepherd the agenda towards resolutions.
He could leverage his stature as a central banker. He has shown sagacity by distancing himself from the past and inviting Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The inclusion of leaders from Australia, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, South Korea, South Africa and Ukraine could enable a coalition of common sense. It remains to be seen if Carney can emerge as a modern-day Lester Bowles Pearson, who won a Nobel for his role in resolving the Suez crisis.
The trouble, though, is the character of G7, which has in the recent past been dominated by the US — effectively, as G1+6. Trump’s uncanny knack to occupy attention makes it more so. The bloc was born out of a necessity to confront the global oil crisis, just as the G20 was formalised in 2009 after the global financial crisis. On both occasions, it was the need of the US which clarified the course of action. It is noteworthy that neither forum has delivered since. Sustaining cooperation calls for recognition of interdependence and participative processes. Can G7 coalesce to succeed?
The past is often the prologue of the future, and is validated by communiqués. The leaders’ communiqué issued in June 2022 from Elmau in Germany, four months into the war in Ukraine, mentioned ‘trade’ 17 times and ‘peace’ nine times. In May 2023, the one issued from Hiroshima in Japan mentioned ‘trade’ 18 times and ‘peace’ 12 times. Last year, the communiqué issued in June from Apulia in Italy mentioned ‘trade’ 20 times and ‘peace’ 24 times, covering the conflicts in Ukraine, Palestine, Iran and Yemen and the Indo-Pacific. Yet, in 2025, the spectre of crises has only expanded.
Ironies fuel cynicism and thrive on hypocrisy. There is no quarrelling with piety, but pious intentions are never enough. If the G7 wants to douse the bonfire of vanities, it must propel solutions.
Shankkar Aiyar, political economy analyst, is author of ‘Accidental India’, ‘Aadhaar: A Biometric History of India’s 12-Digit Revolution’ and ‘The Gated Republic –India’s Public Policy Failures and Private Solutions’.
You can email him at shankkar@shankkaraiyar.com and follow him on X / Twitter @ShankkarAiyar. This column was first published here. His previous columns can be found here.