WILL TRUMP’S LEGACY BE TO START A WAR WITH THE MID EAST?

…Is this the proper image of our current president?

Trump is being totally manipulated by his White House advisers.

With all that I have written about President Donald Trump and his actions and lies to date, a reader sent me a question.   The question was : “You obviously don’t approve of the president.  But how would you describe Trump as our president in one sentence or in one short paragraph?”

Here is my description of our current president in one short paragraph.

“Donald J. Trump is a narcissistic pathological liar, and a braggart that is only interested in that which supports his views and those that are loyal to him.  He however, is only loyal to those that will advance his pursuits.  As a president, he is an uninformed outsider, unconstrained by the traditions of former US presidents, or any of the views of the “establishment.” Unfortunately, he’s also unconstrained by even a basic understanding of history in general, nor does he have any interest in knowing what motivates both friends and foes, of him or of the nation. He has no commitment to the kind of values that the United States has attempted to support throughout the world.  What is left for us as our president, are his own inclinations, impulses and his obvious prejudices, especially against anyone that isn’t a white Christian. If he were a man of unusual wisdom and creative vision, perhaps I could stomach some of his actions.  But I just can’t, because he is Donald J. Trump.”

As an example of just one of the issues I have with the president, President Trump has recently commented to his confidants about withdrawing from a longstanding defense treaty with Japan.  In his latest complaint, he sees the agreement as being unfair to US security pacts.

Trump regards the accord as being one-sided because it promises US aid if Japan is ever attacked, but doesn’t oblige Japan’s military to come to America’s defense. This treaty was signed more than 60 years ago and it forms the foundation of the alliance between these two countries that emerged from World War II.

Because of Trump’s lack of interest in history, when this treaty was signed, Japan was in no position to help “protect” the United States against our major nuclear foe at the time, which was the then Soviet Union.  Instead of being an equal partner, Japan agreed for the US to station defensive missiles in Japan and to station many of the US Naval Fleet in Japanese harbors at no cost to the US.

Trump is also against our long-standing security agreement with Japan because they aren’t paying us enough money. “Trump regards Japan’s repeated efforts to move a large U.S. military base in Okinawa as a sort of land-grab,” Bloomberg reports, “and Trump has raised the idea of seeking financial compensation for American forces to relocate.”

It has been suggested that if the Japanese are smart, they will  arrange a licensing agreement for President Trump to slap his name on a high-rise hotel there as a way of maintaining the alliance. Or maybe, like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, they will write him a “beautiful letter” showering him with praise to get what they want that way.

By not being a president without any US historical history or even interest, what he is doing is, he is making our allies highly uneasy as he steadily creates a foreign policy that undermines pretty much every goal that the United States has had for decades.

Oh yes, Trump seems to be working hard to avoid getting caught in an Iraq-style war quagmire, although with advisers like John Bolton and the secretary of state Mike Pompeo, they might not  keep him from still initiating a large-scale catastrophe.  In any case, Trump’s foreign policy today is essentially a series of small-to mid-scale errors and screw-ups, while he degrades the US position piece by piece.

Our president has no grasp of what the nuclear agreement with Iran consisted of except the fact that it was negotiated by the Obama administration.  For that reason alone, Trump abandoned the treaty even though Iran was doing what it was supposed to do.  Trump then imposed strict sanctions against Iran regardless of Iran’s following the rules.

This president is only dimly aware that the hawks (Bolton & Pompeo) within his administration are interested not just in keeping Iran from having nuclear weapons, but also their missile program, plus that Iran must abandon its strategy for influence in the region.  Oh, and that ultimately the current Iran regime must eventually be overthrown with the help of the US.

Of course, the Iran regime will be willing to buy into the Trump hawk advisers program……..RIGHT!!!

Trump seems to think that by threatening and beating his chest, he’ll get Iran to bow down and promise never to develop nuclear weapons, etc.  But those people around him, who are encouraging him to take increasingly ridiculous actions, have even much more ambitious goals.

So, for pushing his strong-arm approach, Trump of course, went to his favorite communication tool, Twitter.

Trump tweeted: “Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration. No more John Kerry & Obama!”

You could just see John Bolton nodding his approval. Trump’s national security adviser knows that every new threat increases the chances of a response from Iran, which can then be used to urge Trump to take military action, because if he didn't, Trump would be looking “weak.”

Trump doesn’t seem to realize that he is being totally manipulated by his White House staff.

The best case scenario besides war is just Trump’s bluster and fist shaking as we are destroying Iran’s economy and pissing-off those younger Iranians that don’t support the current regime.

The worst case is of course, another mid-east war, and it is obvious that Iran is not another Iraq.  A war with Iran would be much worse than Iraq.  They could easily cut off the 17 million barrels of oil a day that is shipped through the Straits of Hormuz.  There are countries outside the middle east that rely 100% on the oil that goes through that Persian Gulf strait.

The reality is that Trump is all impulse and reaction, and he has no clue as to what America’s long-term goals should be.

But it’s not just this situation with Iran.

Take Cuba for instance.

Trump continues to create hostility and despair in Cuba.  Of course, because it was supported by Obama, Trump undid the Obama administration’s policy of opening up ties and encouraging economic development in Cuba.  The result is more misery for the average Cuban for no purpose whatsoever.

In another case, any ability the United States might have had to act as an honest broker between the Israelis and Palestinians is now gone by having his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as the key adviser on Israel.

And let’s not forget our continuous trade war with China that has so far done nothing but cost the American consumers to pay for his tariffs.

Other reasonable countries around the world now view the United States as erratic and totally unpredictable.  Trump has done more to ruin the reputation of the US that will take decades to undo, if that’s even possible.

As some examples, the image of the United States has plummeted.  That is especially among our most stalwart allies. According to the normally accurate Pew Research Center, from Obama years to late 2018, favorable views of the United States fell 27% points in Germany, 26% in Canada, 25% in France and 11% in Britain.  The 25 countries surveyed had a median loss of 70% of citizens saying they had no confidence in Trump to do the right thing in foreign affairs.

There are some that say, “Well, at least he hasn’t started World War III yet.”  This is true so far, and it’s possible that in all of the ways that Trump has degraded and diminished the United States’ position in the world, perhaps it will be easier to undo than we think.  At least, we can hope so.

But personally, if we are lucky and he doesn’t start a giant cataclysmic war, I still think for this country, it’s still going to be a long road back to where we were back in 2016.

Copyright G. Ater 2019