Trump Takes a Running Whack at the Liberal Interventionists – The Nation.

Fox News host, Bill O'Reilly interviews President Trump before Super Bowl LI, Sunday, February 5, 2017. (Fox News)

Do not say Donald Trump the candidate hid his foreign-policy plans under a bushel, or that President-elect Trump did not hang in when faced with instant and severe resistance from the high priests and priestesses of the Washington orthodoxy. Trump said all along he intended to take a running whack at our liberal interventionists, who have reigned without serious challenge the whole of the postCold War era. Now President Trump is going about his business.

So are the liberal interventionists, but we will get to that later on.

If Trumps policies abroad as we have them so far were stars in the sky, Greek shepherds would have no name for them. They do not make a coherent constellation. There are problems, naturally: Trump is not a progressive renovator of American foreign policy. But let us be clear on one point straightaway. The prevalent notion that Washington had it right on the foreign side before Donald Trump came along is beyond foolishthe indulgence of policy people who cannot think, media people too anxious about their jobs to think, and others who let these two sorts think for them. Once that is clear, so is this: There is continuity, inheritance, in Trumps policy mix, and in such cases he hurtles down the same wrong road Barack Obama took. When Trump departs from Obama and his predecessors, he is more likely to go in the right direction, although he does not as often as he does.

A few commentatorsthose refusing to surrender to the created reality within which this nation is trappedanticipated what we now witness in Washington. We cannot yet make out where Trump the grand strategistahem!will take foreign policy. Consistency is not this mans strong suit, and many questions are raised. But things come gradually into focus, nonetheless.

Hostility toward Russia is the linchpin of liberal interventionismfont of fear, paranoia, and security obsessions.

Trumps foreign-policy people are all in place and getting on airplanes. State and defense scrap over Asia policy, per usual. (And the latter will probably prevail, per usual.) Michael Flynn, the retired general serving as national security adviser, seems to hold the Iran file, and I will return to that. But here is the big latke: The Russia portfolio sits on Trumps desk. Relations with Moscow shape up as something like his premier foreign policy. If this is so, it is a good call. To be noted: Ever-mounting hostility toward Russia is the very linchpin of liberal interventionist thinkingfont of fear, paranoia, security obsessions, blame games, and all else with which we insist on crippling ourselves. In this they are more or less one with standard neoconservatives or traditional conservatives such as John McCainodd but no surprise. A brave prediction: Trump has a fight on his hands that will last as long as he stands his ground.

In my read, Trumps January 28 telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin was the biggest development in the foreign-policy sphere since he took office. Two reasons:

There have been signs since that Trump does not intend to flinch. In one of those klutzy moves Ukraine-watchers have come to expect, hostilities broke out in the eastern region within hours of the Trump-Putin exchange, and if you take this as coincidence, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to show you. There is little questionbeyond our shores, that isthat this was Kievs provocation, the gambit being to foil Trumps dmarche. Trump did not fall for it. When he spoke by telephone to Petro Poroshenko a week later, Ukraines so-called president, lets call him just for fun, got no joy. We will work with Ukraine, Russia, and all other parties involved to help restore peace along the border, Trump advised. Just right, Mr. President.

Trump is likely to oppose foreign adventures, which puts him up against the imperial edifice and all its janitors.

Now to Nikki Haleys address to the UN Security Council, also subsequent to Trumps conversation with Putin. You may have read that Trumps UN ambassador hit Russia hard on UkraineCNNs headline. Or maybe The New York Timess report to the effect that Russia sanctions are firm. See? Haley is loyally hostile. A breach in a discombobulated administration must be in the offing.

This is what I mean by created reality. While repeating the official position as it now stands, Haley said she regretted the incessant hostility of Samantha Power, her impossibly righteous predecessor; supported Trumps dtente line; and urged a settlement in Ukraine according to the 2015 cease-fire accord known as Minsk II. She was perfectly legible on these points. Here is an astute commentary by Alexander Mercouris, an analyst of Greek background who writes often for publications that do not enjoy the imprimatur of the orthodox. If you decline to read such publications, fine: Remain in Washingtons fog on Ukraine if you like.

The fallout since the TrumpPutin exchange and what followed has been considerable, as anyone could have predicted. And from all that has been said, we can infer a couple of other things about Trump.

One, he is not an exceptionalist. This is big, well beyond a conceptual abstraction. In substance, he is likely to oppose imperial adventuresa logical corollary of his America First theme. This, too, puts him up against the imperial edifice and all its janitors: the generals, the defense executives, NATO brass, the think-tank set, the press. OK, he has just said in so many words: Lets see about all these interventions.

Two, as of the morning press programs last Sunday, Trump and Vice President Pence have begun tearing the lid off one of the mythologies that wall in most of the American citizenry. Trump belched in chapel when Bill OReilly said on Fox News, But Putins a killer, and the president replied, What, you think our countrys so innocent? Scurrying to avoid this very fine questionI have not yet seen a single replythe press contorted this matter into one of equivalence and Americas moral superiority, with Trump and Pence accused of denying the latter.

It is excellent that a president at last puts the question of American innocence very publicly before us.

Who would have expected this?

Some retired general asserted on television afterward that Trumps remark was the worst thing a president has ever said. Wow. Serious contenders are overlooked, but that is another conversation. One could not disagree with the general more diametrically. It is excellent, excellent, that a president at last puts the question of American innocencethe answer to which must be self-evidentvery publicly before us. We as a nation have flinched from this for decades and so landed ourselves in all kinds of disgrace before others. As to moral superiority, this is for the record: Americans have no claim whatsoever. Who can take the ensuing outrage seriously? Are we all aging residents in a rest home?

One more matter in this line: Putins a killer. I do beg pardon. Apart from the sheer nonsense of OReillys assertionHitler! seems to have lost its appealAmericans ought to stay away from this one. How many millions must weyes, we, all of usaccept responsibility for in this century alone (as compared with how many imperial wars Russia has waged at what human cost)? Bringing it down to the ad hominem, as the press loves to do, how many ticks did our just-departed president make on the assassination lists placed on his desk every Tuesday morning?

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Here I have to single out John Dickerson, who, when he is not toasting marshmallows with the rest of his Scout troop, hosts Face the Nation. His grilling of Pence last Sunday was without parallel as measured by shame and shock value. After Pence protested, There was no moral equivalency in what the president saida self-evident pointDickerson sent my mind back to old footage of the McCarthy hearings: Do you think America is morally superior to Russia? But America is morally superior to Russia, yes or no? Shouldnt we be able to just say yes to that question, though? That America is morally superior to Russia?

What is this? Not journalism, that is for sure. Read the transcript. Everyone has changed places. This is where American liberalism comes out. Behind the insistence on moral superiorityanyone know what that is?lies the liberal interventionists righteous agenda abroad: regime change, assassinations, Special Forces deployments, covert operations, and so onall in the name of doing the good we are on earth to do.

Think about these two things: Since 2001 there has been no substantial break in the premises, direction, or objectives of American foreign policy. In the same period, the American press has eagerly assisted in creating the phantom realities necessary to sustain this policy. Shame and banishment for anyone who speaks of reality without quotation marks.

Elsewhere in the news, as they say, there are many other things to think about. For now I will mention two, and briefly.

Trump said he would deep-six the Iran nuclear accord, and he is going to try. The proposal is to renegotiate, as with the North American Free Trade Agreement. Compounding the case, Treasury announced new sanctions a matter of days after Iran conducted another ballistic-missile test late last month. As of today, Michael Flynn announced, we are officially putting Iran on notice. It has no meaning, as many have remarked, except to notify all that Washingtons longstanding hostility has not gone anywhere.

Not good, but nothing new: This is mere continuity. The Obama administration set about sabotaging its celebrated accord with Tehran as soon as it was concluded. Obamas people drafted the sanctions just announced. In my read, this question will resolve itselfbarring a calamity, of course. Obama and John Kerry, his secretary of state, broke their picks claiming the missile tests violated the nuclear pact and thensecond tryan earlier UN resolution. They do not. As to a renegotiation, Iran is on record rejecting the thought, and five other nations are signatories. Theres not a chance in hell they will go back to the table, either. Sooner or later Washington will have to accept, as most others do, Irans right to defend itself against a nuclear-armed neighbor governed by, arguably, the most dangerous man in the Middle East.

Across the Pacific, Defense Secretary James Mattis just toured Japan and South Korea and vigorously reassured both of Washingtons continued commitment to the security role it assumed more than 70 years ago. In Seoul, where a proposed missile-defense system is a highly contentious political issue, Mattis was pointed as he urged it upon a nation nervously eager to avoid escalation. Predictable: This is what the Pentagon does, and the Pentagon has run policy in Asia for all of those 70-odd years.

Look a little more closely. Mattis, who famously knows war firsthand, favors diplomacy over it. In this he is a vast improvement over his quietly paranoid predecessor, Ashton Carter, who never missed a chance to sabotage John Kerrys diplomatic efforts across either ocean. Without saying so, Mattis also countered the reckless threats to China dispensed by Rex Tillerson during his confirmation hearings as Trumps designated secretary of state. For once and for now and maybe not for long, we are marginally better off with the Pentagon running policy across the Pacific.

Mixed picture so far: Some good things in Trumps foreign-policy chest, some middling things, some bad. Here is what I want to know: Why does one look to a figure such as Donald Trump as the best chance out there for a new direction? Who is responsible for this? Somebody failed to report for duty. Who?

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Trump Takes a Running Whack at the Liberal Interventionists - The Nation.