Let Trump Be Trump

Posted by Tina

Since Donald Trump’s shocking win, his detractors have tried to convince us that President Trump is dangerous on foreign policy…a stupid man who’s creating chaos in the international community. Some actually believe he will blow up the world! See also here and here. The other opinion is that the international community was already sitting on numerous time bombs, most of which were brought on via the previous administration…real crises forming within the last eight years through the policies of an extremely weak president. It’s a wild ride but we need to let Trump be Trump….he’s got a lot on his plate, internationally speaking.

In August of 2014 the National Defense Panel issued a report. It’s findings were, “a scathing indictment of Obama’s foreign policy, national security policy, and defense policy.” The particulars were reported at the Daily Caller:

In particular, the report addresses the need for the administration to return to the flexible response doctrine — a policy where the military was tasked with being capable of fighting two wars at the same time. Given the current state of affairs and the threats posed to our nation, the panel felt that the two-war doctrine was still required to meet our nation’s national security challenges. The man-power reductions and budget cuts are both reflections of this change in policy, so it must be altered before that is possible. …

… In 2012, the Obama administration decided to change the (JFK) two-and-a-half war policy of the Flexible Response doctrine, in part due to the nation’s war fatigue, after having been at war for over a decade, and also in response to budgetary constraints exacerbated by a sluggish economy. …

… Here’s the problem: At the time the Obama administration announced the change in our defense doctrine, the president was also in front of the cameras threatening to use military force in Iran and Syria, announcing a “strategic pivot” toward Asia to counter a rising China, and swearing to uphold our defense treaties with Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, NATO, etc, all while we were still at war in Afghanistan. How can you threaten to take military action that could start a war when you are already fighting one in Afghanistan if you have changed your military doctrine to only fight one war at a time?

Short answer, “You can’t! Not without creating serious problems.” Chaos anyone?

In 2013 Peter Foster asked two important questions in the Telegraph”

How is it that a putative nuclear deal with Iran can be welcomed as a “historic” opportunity in Washington and Tehran, but as a “historic mistake” in Jerusalem and “more dangerous than 9/11” in Riyadh, in the phrase of one leading Saudi Arabian commentator?

At the very least, the breadth of variance in those responses points to the immense stresses being placed on an old geopolitical framework, while inviting the question: is the world a safer place? And will it be safer tomorrow?

In 2015 Mikhail Gorbachev issued a scathing indictment of American foreign policy:

“…America has pulled us into a new cold war, trying to openly implement its general idea of triumphalism. Where will it take us all? The [new] cold war is already on. What’s next? Unfortunately, I cannot say firmly that the cold war will not lead to the hot one. I’m afraid that they might take the risk.”

March 2018, the website, Constitution reported the thoughts of two Obama era foreign policy officials, Barry Pavel and Gary Samore:

…both men now say that the former president’s inaction has made the world more unstable and dangerous. … Pavel, who was the senior director for defense policy and strategy on the U.S. National Security Council staff said, “I think he left a more dangerous world. In Syria, a major mistake was treating it like a humanitarian crisis, when it was a major national security crisis that has caused destabilization on our closest allies in Europe. Syria has been a source of terrorist attacks in Europe and the United States, and future attacks. I worry about that very much. … Potential adversaries know we had the capability, but not the will” to strike out at aggressive actions by certain nations against their neighbors or their own people. Because they knew that the Obama administration would never use military force for any purpose, they felt free to conduct their coercive actions in the South China Seas, the Russians went into Iran and Syria and North Korea accelerated their nuclear arms program.” Pavel called it unfathomable that it wasn’t until this year that U.S. troops arrived in Europe to deter Russia from a repeat of its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. “That should have been done in 2014,” he said. “We could have reinforced NATO to reassure our allies that we had their back, or we could have given the sovereign country under attack from Russia legitimate defensive weapons.”

Gary Samore concurs with his former colleague. Samore who served for four years as Obama’s White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction, argued that while a softer response was the right way to go with Iran, it was counterproductive to in the case of Russia and Syria. Samore also praised Trump’s decision to strike Syria for using chemical weapons against their civilian population. “I applaud Trump. It was the kind of strike that Obama was planning – a limited military attack against the airfields in order to deter Assad from carrying out additional chemical weapons attacks, but he decided not to use it. Obama made a huge mistake by saying he was going to go to Congress for authorization, it turned out he did not have the votes. Trump was very smart to do it without congressional support,” Samore said.

Today in The Hill, “Informant provided FBI evidence Russia aided Iran nuclear program during Obama years,” by John Solomon and Alison Spann:

A former undercover informant says he provided evidence to the FBI during President Obama’s first term that Russia was assisting Iran’s nuclear program even as billions in new U.S. business flowed to Moscow’s uranium industry.

William Douglas Campbell told The Hill his evidence included that Russia was intercepting nonpublic copies of international inspection reports on Tehran’s nuclear program and sending equipment, advice and materials to a nuclear facility inside Iran.

Campbell said Russian nuclear executives were extremely concerned that Moscow’s ongoing assistance to Iran might boomerang on them just as they were winning billions of dollars in new nuclear fuel contracts inside the United States. …

… He said he became concerned the United States was providing favorable decisions to the Russian nuclear industry in 2010 and 2011 — clearing the way for Moscow to buy large U.S. uranium assets and to secure billions in nuclear fuel contracts — even as he reported evidence of Moscow’s help to Iran.

Evidence of Russian collusion? For now we’ll call it the “We can all be friends” foreign policy approach. Whatever! Obama’s presidency did make the world a much more dangerous place. And that is the world that Trump faces as our new president. It’s been a little over a year and even Trumps most ardent critics have admitted his success. Example:

December 2017, Peter Bergen of CNN, “Trump has scored some successes in foreign policy”

An apparent admirer, Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger predicted foreign policy success for Trump in the Western Journal: “The man is doing changes like never before and does all of it for the sake of this nation’s people. After eight years of tyranny, we finally see a difference. Every country now has to consider two things: One, their perception that the previous president, or the outgoing president, basically withdrew America from international politics, so that they had to make their own assessments of their necessities. And secondly, that there is a new president who’s asking a lot of unfamiliar questions. And because of the combination of the partial vacuum and the new questions, one could imagine that something remarkable and new emerges out of it. … Trump puts America and its people first. This is why people love him and this is why he will remain in charge for so long.”

The left doesn’t get it. Most probably never will. But the rest of us do and we also know about the dangers left in the wake of our former president.

The world is paying attention and learning to respect the man that makes them want to be better leaders by pressing them to keep their commitments and agreements. He’s rough around the edges and he doesn’t back down, but, if the nations of the world show they are willing, he’ll make a fair deal with them. Peace is better than war. Trump works hard toward peaceful resolutions.

Let Trump be Trump!