Righting Ship
The president’s vastly improved foreign policy
IN the media’s two warring camps, President Trump is either a new messiah or Satan incarnate. One destructive result is that we see little serious, politics-free analysis of the president’s foreign-policy and security initiatives. Yet, these are the issues that’ll shape not only our own future, but the world’s.
Trump got off to a bad start, but his performance has improved notably. On the downside, he’s unnerved our closest allies. On the upside, he scares our enemies — a welcome change from Barack Obama’s eager capitulations.
Let’s start, though, with a frank look at the president’s straight-off-the-bench mistakes. Topping the list is Trump’s still-unexplained affinity for Vladimir Putin, America’s most fervent and skillful enemy. Our president still won’t call out Putin by name for his vicious behavior, and that feeds suspicions. By praising Putin, the president hurts himself.
A second unforced error dating back to campaign days was the series of gratuitous insults thrown at our closest allies and concurrent attacks on NATO — the most successful peacetime alliance in history. Trump’s initial views appear to have been poisoned by pro-Russian campaign aides, such as Paul Manafort. Heeding better men these days, the president understands we need allies — but needless damage was done and must be repaired.
The third mistake was threatening to tear up existing trade treaties, killing the Trans-Pacific Partnership outright and withdrawing from the Paris climate accords. Treaties can be renegotiated and improved — many should be — but the real “art of the deal” is to get our way without obvious bullying and tantrums. Our security and wealth depend on engagement with the world — and sometimes you have to give some to get some.
But all these problems blew up in the administration’s first months. Since the president cleaned house of inept, destructive advisers, he’s made impressive progress.
Above all, he lets our military fight. Battlefield decisions no longer need an Oval Office blessing. Trump trusts our troops. The result has been impressive successes in Iraq and Syria, with progress elsewhere.
Now the administration needs to turn those operational wins to strategic ends.
In Syria, Trump made it clear there really are red lines: When the Assad regime used chemical weapons on its own population, it got a cruise-missile spanking that changed its behavior.
And a US president is finally standing up to North Korea. Bribes haven’t worked. Negotiations only enabled Pyongyang’s nuke program. Previous sanctions were jokes. Now Kim Jong-un’s getting the message. His outreach to South Korea this week indicates he’s spooked: Trump may be heavy-handed, but sometimes it takes a fist.
President Xi Jinping of China seduced Trump with pomp and circumstance in Beijing, but our president seems to realize he was played: China has continued to cheat on North Korea sanctions and on trade. Trump has said the right things about intellectual-property theft and other issues, but now he needs to live up to his words.
On Iran, the president took a tougher stance from the start. His responses, thus far, to the wildfire protests against the religious dictatorship have been on target — praising the protesters, but not making promises of direct aid we won’t keep. Iran’s people want change, but the regime has the guns and will use them. The best way we can help Iranians move forward in the long term is to bankrupt the regime in the near term. Sanctions work, and more sanctions work better.
Trump also called out Pakistan this week. Long overdue. In Washington, inertia is a powerful force, and we’ve kept on pouring aid into Pakistan, even as it betrayed us right and left, helping terror groups in Afghanistan kill and maim our troops, sheltering bin Laden, sponsoring terror against India and rewarding fanatics. It’s time to throw our full backing behind India, the world’s largest democracy.
And Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a moral and ethical act that broke the chain of lies forged by the anti-Semitic global left. Now Trump’s cutting off aid to the Palestinian Authority. Good. The Palestinians have had 70 years of chances for peace and a state of their own. Time’s up
The bottom line: A presidency that made grave initial mistakes — based on malicious advice from corrupted advisors — has made an impressive comeback. The world still may not like Trump, but he’s done a number of “shocking” things that badly needed doing (now if he’d only smack down Vladimir Putin . . .).
2018 is going to be an ugly year. It won’t merely test this presidency. It’s going to test the world. Donald J. Trump will have to rise to the crisis. For better or worse, it’s going to be his hour.