Trump’s dangerous ‘good cop, bad cop’ foreign policy
Foreign leaders and local interlocutors, a.k.a. pundits, might as well take a vacation for the next few minutes until President Trump’s next foreign policy “strategy” surfaces from deep within his amygdala.
For to presume a strategy when Trump toys with potentially lethal nations — threatening to tear apart the nuclear agreement with Iran or putting North Korea on notice that doom may befall it any moment — is to imagine that a toddler has given grave consideration to the gravitational aspects of toppling his brother’s Lego edifice.
Theories, nevertheless, abound as the world wonders, no doubt with fear and loathing, what the president of the United States is going to say or do next. It does seem at times that Trump won’t be satisfied unless and until he has managed to prompt a nuclear confrontation with some nation — or two.
One theory goes that by talking tough, Trump is alerting the world that the United States is no longer the weak sister, if I may use an old expression, it had become under President Barack Obama. The world will tremble at the thought of engaging the United States except to please her, goes such thinking.
Let me clarify: Trump is rattling his borrowed saber because that’s what he does. The bully in chief no longer has to file lawsuits to try to evict widows from their homes for monetary gain. Now he has a military — the world’s most powerful, to be precise — and can decide over chocolate cake to fire missiles at Syria.
Another extant theory concerns the contradictions within his administration. While U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley talks tough on Russia, Trump protects his benign bromance with President Vladimir Putin. This surely has nothing to do with a recent Reuters report that a Russian government think tank came up with a plan to influence the 2016 election.
One at least finds solace in Trump’s recent conclusion that NATO does, in fact, matter. But what happened to the candidate who criticized opponent Hillary Clinton for being too hawkish, and who said we can’t fight two wars at once? How about World War III?
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, meanwhile, pounds Iran with one fist, saying it’s not complying with the nuclear agreement fashioned by his predecessor, John F. Kerry. With the other, he pens a letter to House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) saying that Iran is in full compliance. Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, rather than quaking, tweeted Friday: “We’ll see if US prepared to live up to letter of #JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] let alone spirit. So far, it has defied both. Should I use my highlighter again?”
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