Ever since he threw his hat into the ring, Donald Trump, now the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, has been branded a political novice.
Trump has been particularly taken to task for his lack of experience in foreign policy, especially when compared to his Democratic rival, President Obama’s former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.
But this anti-Trump argument is far weaker than it looks.
Experience of the wrong kind can be worse than no experience at all. Consider Clinton’s résumé.
Her Russian “reset” helped whet Vladimir Putin’s aggressive appetite, leading to the annexation of Crimea, the bullying in the Baltics and the formation of an anti-US axis with Tehran.
Clinton also likes to claim parentage of the Iran nuclear deal — the biggest diplomatic swindle in modern times. A mistress of window dressing, Clinton also traveled to Burma to conjure a trompe l’oeil of democratization that consolidated the rule of the military with a thin civilian façade.
The way the Obama administration dealt with the so-called “Arab Spring” and its consequences, and the tragic situation in Syria, reeks of failure at every turn. And Clinton was either an active participant or a silent partner through it all.
What does Trump offer instead?
To start with, Trump makes it clear that he wishes to de-Obamaize US foreign policy.
He says he won’t go around the world apologizing to all and sundry for America’s alleged sins. Nor will he insist on flattering America’s Islamist enemies, as Obama did in his dishonest speeches in Istanbul and Cairo.
Maybe because of his diplomatic inexperience, Trump states his objectives clearly where Obama conjures opacity.
Obama says his aim is to “contain and degrade” the Islamic State. Trump says he wants “to utterly destroy ISIS.”
Obama says he is trying to persuade, in fact meaning bribe, Iran to “moderate its behavior.” Trump regards that as a mirage and says “we will totally dismantle Iran’s global terror network.”
For seven years Obama has said he was working with our “Chinese partners” to persuade North Korea to tone down its nuclear ambitions.
In Syria, Obama has spent vast sums training and arming various rebel groups that, like the Afghan Mujahedeen of the 1980s, may end up as enemies of the United States. At the same time, Obama has called for regime change in Syria while rejecting the idea of creating safe havens to protect Syrian civilians from genocide.
Trump says he will begin by finding out “what is really going on.” “We have no idea who our allies and enemies are,” he admits. Also, he won’t “train and arm rebels we don’t know and control.” He favors the creation of “safe havens” to allow displaced Syrians to stay inside their own land rather than defying death to reach Europe.
Obama prefers to pay lip service to NATO while in fact hampering its development. Trump, however, calls for a critical review of the role and place of the alliance in the new international context. The Republican nominee also insists on equitable burden-sharing in the alliance, especially the commitment by all member-states to devote 2 percent of their annual GDP to defense. At present, however, only two of the 28 members, the United States and Great Britain, do so, although some members are richer, per head, than both.
Trump also proposes a thorough review of commitments that the US has made to the defense of 66 nations across the globe. The issue merits closer attention.
In many cases there’s no need for US involvement. In other cases, such involvement may produce more tension. Also, it makes little sense that the United States should pay rent for bases it has set up to protect allies richer than itself, such as the oil-rich Arab states of the Gulf, Germany, Japan and South Korea.
To be sure, America isn’t a mercenary power. But a system of burden-sharing would make it easier to garner popular American support for such a leadership role.
Few would disagree that Obama has done great damage to relations with many close allies, especially in the Middle East. “President Obama has treated Israel horribly,” Trump says. The same is true of Egypt and Turkey — not to mention Great Britain and France, whose leaders Obama has publicly insulted.
Although portrayed as a jingoist, Trump says he supports normalization with Cuba provided the Cuban people get a better deal from their regime. He’s also on record that decisions by allies, notably Japan and South Korea, on their defense doctrines are primarily theirs and not Washington’s. Further, Trump insists that in crises affecting Europe, notably Ukraine, he would favor European allies, like Germany, taking the lead with full US support.
What Trump says is often more important than how he says it. The American public should listen carefully.