Donald
Trump’s trip to the United Nations this past week highlighted not the only the United
States’ retreat from its position as a powerful global political actor, but the
chaotic state of current American foreign policy. Because the US holds the current Security
Council presidency, Trump chaired the UN Security Council.
Apart from the embarrassment of being the first American president to have UN members laugh at his exaggerated boasts about his accomplishments in office during his General Assembly speech, Trump’s Security Council performance accentuated the deep flaws in his foreign policy positions. What does the Trump’s appearance tell us about how the United States is negotiating the current world order?
Apart from the embarrassment of being the first American president to have UN members laugh at his exaggerated boasts about his accomplishments in office during his General Assembly speech, Trump’s Security Council performance accentuated the deep flaws in his foreign policy positions. What does the Trump’s appearance tell us about how the United States is negotiating the current world order?
Before
analyzing the specifics of US foreign policy under Trump, it should be noted
that populism and international affairs don’t mix. Populists eschew institutional relationships and circumvent established rules and regulations, whenever
possible, as they attempt to solidify ties to their sociopolitical base. International treaties and institutions, such
as international codicils on human rights, the United Nations, and the International
Criminal Court, run counter to the personalistic and disruptive and chaotic
condition of populist domestic and foreign policy.
A
populist, Trump’s foreign policy from day one of his presidency has
demonstrated his refusal to respect international treaties to which the US is
a signatory and an internationalist approach to solving global problems. Trump pulled out the Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP), whose formation was designed to curb unfair Chinese trade practices
and curb its global and military influence in the Pacific Basin, supposedly one
of the core goals of Trump’s foreign policy.
Trump left the Paris Climate Accord, cancelled the Nuclear Weapons
Treaty (JCPOA) with Iran and members of the European Union, bullied Mexico and Canada to rewrite to
abandon the NAFTA Trade Agreement, and has disparaged
NATO.
Trump's behavior is classic populism. Exaggerated
rhetoric (enhanced by 21st century social media), bullying, the
misrepresentation and distortion of facts, if not outright lies (The Washington Post has documented 1000s
of lies by Trump since he became president), and sycophantic behavior towards
other populists who are either authoritarians or share authoritarian tendencies
like Trump.https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/13/president-trump-has-made-more-than-false-or-misleading-claims/?utm_term=.99ca6116fe78
Populists
are invariably narcissists (think of Rodrigo Duarte in the Philippines, Viktor
Orbán
in
Hungary, Andrzej Duda in Poland, Matteo Salvini in Italy, Recep Tayyib Erdoğan in Turkey and the list goes on). Their tendency to personalize every policy
issue, namely how does it reflect on me, undermines their ability to make
well-thought through and reasoned decisions. Instead, the key question invariably reverts
to: how does this issue and the decisions I
make affect my political popularity
and power? Decision-making is about the
populist leader, not about a nation-state’s national interest.
Some
analysts have argued that not all is bad in Trump’s foray into foreign
affairs. Didn’t he arrange a summit meeting
with Kim Jong-Un, the leader of one of the worst rogue nation-states in the
world? Didn’t he facilitate the meetings
currently underway between Kim and South Korean president Moon Jae-In which seem to be leading to a possible rapprochement between the two states?
The political
reality of the Korean Peninsula is much more nuanced and complex. While it’s true that Trump’s personal
diplomacy led to a meeting with the North Korean leader, the meeting was all
show – “meet and greet” - and has yet to produce any substantive results (aside
from Trump having dispensed with epithets like “Rocket Man” when referring to
the North Korean leader). Economic
pressures, not Trump’s mix of threats and compliments, led Kim Jong-Un to reach
out to the prosperous south, one of the world’s industrial and high-tech powers. He knows that North Korea must introduce limited economic reforms and provide a
higher standard of living for a population which has, during Kim family rule since
1953, suffered famine and starvation on numerous occasions, if North Korea is to remain a viable nation-state.
The
purported goal of Trump’s engagement with North Korea to eliminate its nuclear
weapons has led nowhere thus far. North
Korea continues to demand economic concessions before it will consider nuclear
disarmament. It’s no exaggeration to say
that, in the game Trump and Kim have been playing, Kim has outfoxed Trump. Clearly Trump has been played, his Tweets claiming
otherwise notwithstanding. Trump's recent statement that when Kim and he met in
Singapore, “we fell in love,” only further diminishes his already limited
gravitas and respect for the United States in the eyes of the North Korean political elite.
Trump’s
engagement with North Korea tells us much about another critical area of the
world, the Middle East. Trump’s “reality
show” and “let’s make a deal,” approach to foreign policy can best be described as
the “foreign policy of narcissism.” By
this I mean that Trump approaches complex world problem using a simplistic “business
model” where he posits that he and he alone - the all-powerful entrepreneur –
can, through the negotiating skills he developed in the business world, achieve
major foreign policy victories.
POTUS’
approach is based on identifying his opponent’s key foreign policy goals and
then moving to “cut a deal” with that political leader which somehow is said to
serve the United States’ foreign policy interests.
The problem with this approach, as the Singapore summit with Kim Jung-Un
makes clear, is that it leads nowhere (just like a reality TV show). The
ubiquitous use of the pronoun “I” in all Trump’s Tweets and foreign policy
statements underscores the narcissistic frame through which he views the world.
US policy in the MENA region
Nowhere is
this “foreign policy of narcissism” more apparent and self-defeating for all
parties than in the Middle East. Trump’s
efforts in the region involve no comprehensive strategy but instead reflect his assumption that leader-to-leader negotiations can solve all problems,
especially if he is the one doing the negotiating. Given the chaos in the White House, which countless books, reports and insider commentary have documented, this is the type of policy that appeals not only to
a populist but a man with a short attention span who has no interest in
learning about the complexities of world affairs and international relations.
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| Trump and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu at the United Nations |
Thus far
Trump has focused on two key leaders in the region – Saudi Crown Prince
Muhammad bin Salman - AKA MBS - and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump has also reached out to a second level cast of characters, including Egyptian
President 'Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi, Qatar’s Amir, Shaykh Tamim bin Hamid al-Thani,
and, before a crisis developed over Turkey’s jailing of an American evangelical
minister, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Trump points
to his one-on-one diplomacy in the Middle East as having achieved successes. Haven’t Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait and
Qatar purchased more US fighter jets, supposedly creating more American
jobs? Aside from this one “accomplishment”
(and most analysts, including myself, would argue that the last thing the MENA
region needs is more weapons), what can Trump point to?
His
withdrawal from the JCPOA – the Iran Nuclear Weapons Accord – is dangerous as
it threatens to jump start a nuclear arms race in the MENA region which begins
with Iran and Saudi Arabia but later would develop to includes Turkey and possible
Egypt. Trump’s policy towards the JCPOA
is to impose new and repressive economic sanctions on Iran this coming November.
However,
his policy is about to go nowhere as the European Union and Iran are poised to
reach a “go-around” agreement which will circumvent the impact of US
sanctions. As China and Russia are ready
to fill the financial breach created by US sanctions, Trump will come up short and once
again have egg on his face given an ill-conceived and ineffective foreign
policy decision. Thus, the sanctions’
economic impact will most likely come to naught.
What the reimposition of sanctions does achieve is to pump new blood into the ultra-conservative and
reactionary forces in Iran – both so-called clerics and members of the
Revolutionary Guards - who are fighting tooth and nail to prevent any meaningful
reforms, especially an opening in the political system. Radical actors, such as Revolutionary Guards
commander Qassem Suleimani, have been given a gift by Trump, while Iranian moderate
reformists, in particular President Hassan Rouhani, find their power circumscribed as
hardliners accuse moderates of supporting the Great Satan.
Yemen has
been described by the United Nations and numerous international aid agencies as
the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
As the result of another ill-conceived Trump policy (and one initially supported
by Barack Obama), the US continues to support indiscriminate bombing of
civilian targets in Yemen leading to the injury and deaths of thousands of
Yemeni civilians, including large numbers of children.
Numerous analysts have pointed to a dire outcome of the Yemen conflict if conditions continue. Not only will innocent civilians continue to die, but the country's infrastructure is being systematically destroyed. A failed state in Yemen will not only wreak havoc on its citizens but replicate a Somalia-type situation where terrorist forces, such as the already extant al-Qacida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) will find fertile ground to recruit large numbers of destitute Yemeni youth.
Numerous analysts have pointed to a dire outcome of the Yemen conflict if conditions continue. Not only will innocent civilians continue to die, but the country's infrastructure is being systematically destroyed. A failed state in Yemen will not only wreak havoc on its citizens but replicate a Somalia-type situation where terrorist forces, such as the already extant al-Qacida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) will find fertile ground to recruit large numbers of destitute Yemeni youth.
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| Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman and Donald Trump |
Having lauded
MBS as the greatest thing since motherhood and apple pie,
Trump is loath to criticize the Saudi Crown Prince or curtail his military
adventurism in Yemen. Rather
than move beyond the stereotype of the Houthis (bad actors themselves) as “Iranian
puppets,” which is an exaggeration, no effort has been made by the Trump administration
to bring the warring parties to the negotiating table, a task Trump finds distasteful
in any event.
In the
Israeli-Palestine dispute, the Trump administration, assisted by Jared Kushner, "gave away the farm." The US moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, helped
Prime Minister Netanyahu and his right-wing cabinet remove East Jerusalem from
the bargaining table, solidified the right of Israeli settlers to continue to
seize Palestinian lands on the West Bank and offered the Palestinians a small fragmented
“Bantustan” type nation-state, one in name only, that Trump et al knew the
Palestine National Authority could never accept.
Apart from
delivering the coup de grace to an already moribund two-state solution peace proves,
Trump gave Netanyahu more than he could ever dreamed of politically, and received nothing in return. The point here is that Trump could care less
about Jerusalem and Israel. His decisions
were solely designed to solidify support
among his right-wing evangelical base in the US. As a colleague, who is an Orthodox Jew, recently told me, his response to a Christian evangelical who said he strongly supported
Israel was the following: “You members of the Christian Right want to have all us Jews concentrated in Israel so that, at the Second Coming of Christ, we we'll all perish in one place!”
In Syria,
Trump has completely abandoned any effort to bring the crisis to a peaceful
end, the recent mission by former Ambassador James Jeffries notwithstanding. In Idlib, it was the Russians and Turks who prevented
an all-out offensive the genocidal Bashar al-Asad regime against the one province which remains free of the control
of in Damascus (and it has been noted on
numerous occasions, there are far more children in Idlib, most of whom fled
there with their families, than there are terrorists).
The 2000
US troops in northern Syria who are helping protect the Rojava Kurds, who were
critical in defeating Islamic State forces in the city of Raqqa and destroying its
so-called Caliphate in Syria, are under threat of attack by Turkey’s army and
affiliated radical Islamist militias, such as the “Free Syrian Army.” Turkish supported militia fighters have already killed, raped
and engaged in wide-spread theft in Afrin, the Western-most city in the Rojava
region.
What has been Trump’s response to the efforts of the Rojava Kurds? He suggested that, now that the Dacish
is completely defeated, which it is not, US forces should be withdrawn from
Syria. Only the intervention of Secretary of Defense, James Mattis (said to be
on the way out after he US November elections), prevented Trump from following
through on his initial decision.
Trump doesn't have a clue that the Rojava Kurds have built a multi-ethnic and religiously tolerant
autonomous region along the Syrian-Turkish border. Neither does he know how brutally the Rojava
Kurds were treated under the Bashar al-Asad regime which denied them citizenship, stole their land and imprisoned and tortured them at will, Because it’s costing the US money, Trump is
ready to dispense with loyal allies.
This is not a policy which will encourage cooperation with the United States in
the future.
In Iraq,
millions of Iraqis are still without permanent housing, health care facilities,
education and municipal services in the wake of the war against the Dacish
in 2016-2017. As reconstruction efforts
stagnate because the Federal government in Baghdad lacks the estimated $88-$100
billion which is the cost for rebuilding Mosul, once Iraq’s second largest city, and the
devastated north central region of the country, the Trump administration is doing nothing to raise international funds for reconstruction.
We are seeing a rise in IS attacks once again around Kirkuk and in the north-central region of Iraq. The longer Iraqis who were displaced by the IS and war which defeated the terrorist organization's "Caliphate," the greater the tendency of Iraqi youth, who have no jobs education and hence no future, to be enticed to assist in IS attacks, especially if there is financial compensation for their efforts.
Trump's "policy" in the MENA region, and the international arena generally, is the antithesis of the type of approach needed to address the myriad global problems which threaten the world, nor the last of which is global warming and environmental degradation. A "go it alone" policy only throws more oil on the fire. When will the American people begin to demand that their political leaders take seriously the argument that, only though an internationalist approach, can these problems be addressed.
For those who continue to cling to an outmoded "Realist" approach to foreign-policy making, beware of which you are advocating. Without dealing with people's real issues - material well-being, health care, housing, education and social services - matters are only going to get worse. The world cannot afford any more narcissists when it comes to addressing global problems.
We are seeing a rise in IS attacks once again around Kirkuk and in the north-central region of Iraq. The longer Iraqis who were displaced by the IS and war which defeated the terrorist organization's "Caliphate," the greater the tendency of Iraqi youth, who have no jobs education and hence no future, to be enticed to assist in IS attacks, especially if there is financial compensation for their efforts.
Trump's "policy" in the MENA region, and the international arena generally, is the antithesis of the type of approach needed to address the myriad global problems which threaten the world, nor the last of which is global warming and environmental degradation. A "go it alone" policy only throws more oil on the fire. When will the American people begin to demand that their political leaders take seriously the argument that, only though an internationalist approach, can these problems be addressed.
For those who continue to cling to an outmoded "Realist" approach to foreign-policy making, beware of which you are advocating. Without dealing with people's real issues - material well-being, health care, housing, education and social services - matters are only going to get worse. The world cannot afford any more narcissists when it comes to addressing global problems.
