It takes a lot of careful study to even approach understanding the Trump Administration’s position on Iran, and even then that position could change wildly at any moment, with any speech. For the European allies President Trump expects to be on the same page as him, this is an exercise in futility.
As Europe tries to figure everything out, President Trump is making it harder, seemingly walking a tightrope on the issue of Iran, at one moment suggesting there “is always a chance” of war with Iran, and then calling for negotiations, even as British officials point out that Trump seems to have “no visible plan” to convince Iran into talks, nor is he in any way setting up a diplomatic process that would allow these talks to begin.
Instead, as on Thursday, he publicly claimed Iran wants to talk, saying “if they want to talk, that’s fine. We’ll talk.” French President Macron called these words “very important.” Yet analysts see this as a hollow offer, saying Trump’s offers to negotiate are little more than a show.
Yet if it’s a show for Iran’s sake, it isn’t working. Iranian officials continue to dismiss the idea of further talks, and see little merit in any engagement with the US after President Trump dishonored the P5+1 nuclear deal. They see everything he’s doing as “psychological warfare,” and it is perhaps not unfair to see it that way.
Macron’s own attempt to court Iran for diplomacy, presumably on the basis of his joint comments with Trump, were hastily rebuffed. Iranian officials argued that expanding talks beyond the scope of the nuclear deal would only raise distrust, particularly since the nuclear deal itself isn’t saved from the US pullout.
And if the show of diplomacy is for the sake of European countries, it’s been no more successful, as those allies can’t make heads or tails of what the administration’s actual intentions are. Though this has allowed President Trump to avoid committing himself to either war or diplomacy, it has also destabilized the situation greatly and risks any number of unanticipated problems.
Macron is useless. I’m surprised he’s held out this long.
Macron is hilarious, because he was elected on the hopes of being something “better”, without much specificity. He’s a grand joke on the futility of democracy. Voters will never understand what they’re voting on.
Macron is hilarious, because he was elected on the hopes of being something “better”.
You could say the EXACT same thing about Trump.
Trump has been better. Most importantly, Trump has brought change. When the status quo is ossified along horrible policy positions, a change agent is positive.
What, exactly, has changed ?
1. He’s encouraged people to question US foreign policy. Conservatives now question Iraq, which shifts part of the Republicans back to the pre-9/11 antiwar orientation.
1b. He’s made the concept of “spend money in the US, not overseas” popular.
2. He helped encourage change in Europe; the right wing parties tend to be less supportive of intervention, though pro-Israel.
3. He’s encouraged Democrats to question the Yemen genocide.
4. North Korea is more accepted now.
5. Assange is now supported again by Democrats somewhat.
6. Maybe he’ll lead to a Tulsi or Yang win, just as Obama led to Trump.
7. Syria: I guess Trump’s anti-ISIS focus is better than Obama’s pro-al Qaeda focus; however, who knows where Trump will go on Syria next. The US should exit; we aren’t exiting.
8. Though his foreign policy has not reflected it, the notion of defending foreign Christians was nice. His refugee policy has somewhat reflected this, however – I think. In Syria, Christians of course still lose.
That’s about all I can come up with right now… I wish there were more.
1. If there were any actual conservatives prior to the Iraq war, they would have already been against it.
1b. Like 95% of Americans always.
2. No, the influx of refugees from Mideast wars was the unifying element in brexit, and right wing Europe.
3. Huh ? Then vetoed it ? Crazy.
4. By South Korea sure, trump hasn’t helped the effort at all. Grabbed a photo op and headlines, has not negotiated.
5. Don’t know how you measure that. You mean, as apposed to the GOP whom want to hang im?
6. We’ll see what happens
7. Sure you wanna bring up Syria as a useful change ? He deployed the marines which rubbled cities all over, upped airstrikes 10fold…am I on an antiwar page ?
8. Everyone save Israel, Saudi Arabia and Raytheon have been either bombed, starved or homeless under trump in the ME. Nice of him to parade a couple Christian’s around for his Christo-facist base. Really think he gives a crap about em ?
6. Maybe he’ll lead to a Tulsi or Yang win, just as Obama led to Trump.
It was Clinton who led us to Trump.
Obama helped; he was polarizing.
Then he should have had led us to Jill Stein instead of someone just as, or more, polarizing.
Swings from one extreme to the other. Currently we’re at “right wing” in political theatre, so the next swing is to the perceived “left”.
The trade tariffs on China and others could ultimately undermine the US empire. Trade deficits are unsustainable, long term, though supposedly they provide more currency for others to trade with and to store. Regardless, it is trade with the US that built and sustains Japan and SK, among others. If the US put US interests first, it would reduce the empire.
So, even though libertarians at this site are panicking, changing global trade could ultimately prove positive.
What I often say about Trump: We don’t yet know the results.
I very much like the change among conservative groups, now, to focus more on providing workers with sustaining wages. Conservative groups used to lack empathy for the poor. Now, they at least pretend to. Whether that ultimately matters remains to be seen, but I hated the capitalism-worship and advocacy for the rich and powerful that previously defined much “conservatism”.
Trump isn’t better than any of his predecessors and hasn’t turned out any different than the wretched woman he beat in the election. The only real change is Trump does it with less dignity.
Amen to that. Change is never a neat or logical process. It is a sound of cracking up in the ranks of ossified order, still trying to glue the cracks. Change is a wrecking ball, not well directed. But has to come. Trump just gave it some vocabulary, and is now being tossed like a driftwood on a raging sea. He has a method, but it does not work, as the waves are too strong to control the direction. This is good for Europe, much too long sleeping in the coziness of Euro-Atlantic alliance. Euro-Atlantic, meet Indo-Pacific, via Persian Gulf/Red Sea conundrum. Choose now. Want to be part of Western Alliance to conquer China-Russia challenge, or stay out of it — becoming part of Russi-China Eurasian integration. If first, man-up, mobilise resources and your orescious polulation (now you have some immigrants to put in uniform. If second, no more economic nor military priviledges. This is the only way US will know where it stands in global confrontation. No point thinking it has all this mighty support behind US, when nobody is ready for a major showdown. In which case, US must secure its own interests the best way it can. It may end up in China-Russia-US deal, unless neocons still believe that Europe can be coerced, as well as Japan and others. Coercion does not bring the hearth into any battle. Such allues are worse then no allies at all.
I hope we see no major conflict. Russia and China as allies is an ironic situation.
Your point on Europe going its own way, diverging from the US, is solid.
It’s difficult for me to understand what’s fully going on. I just don’t know enough. The posters here regularly remind me of my ignorance. But I think Trump’s trade policies are undermining the US empire. It might be better to call it the post-US empire. TPP, as well as TTIP and TISA, were an attempt at a post-US empire I’d say. And I know others here say that post-empire is still on the horizon, but I’m glad TPP was ended.
Yes, those “trade” agreements are in
fact a model for international governance. Each has its legislative component (process for changing rules), its executive component (the implementation), and its judicial component (resolving disputes), as well as permanent bureaucracy. The proposed climate change treaties would go even further— establish global taxation, and governance to distribute funds, reward or punish for performance. The national legislative bodies cannot overrule the bodies set up by treaties. Meaning that a shady process, selecting the actual governing bodies is outside any national democratic control. This is how EU already operates. This is why they hound countries that dare change their own judicial laws if contradicting EU. Like EU commissioners, no election is needed to appoint the individuals nominated by a murky process. Rubber stamp approved by EU Parliament.
I agree that Trump and elite in his corner undermined this “multilateral, corporate led” empire building model. The model is to be supplanted by — what? Assuming that all of our elite is patriotic, and believes in restructuring the state multilateral governance into a system of bilateral relations benefiting American interest. But we know corporate governance has no loyalty. It works only for corporate interests.
So, what is likely to happen to Trump America First? It will be pushed into a different kind of empire, a hegemonic one, with allies and foes being put on notice. Liberal world order multilateralism does not like this — it is exposed. And it in fact lays bare our own weaknesses — so delusional hidings behind multilateral niceties and bleeding US economy — are not possible.
The danger of hegemonic approach is obvious. The failure to get support from others in our Man of La Mancha show can be a two edged sword. On one side — we can be pushed into a war by furious liberal order corporate might, financial being among them. They will profit from it — we will sacrifice anything to “defend” ourselves. On the other hand — missteps in Trump trade war (do not blame, missteps are part of such endeavor), resulting in hardship to farmers, and lost revenue to chip makers and other high tech products. The danger here is obvious — in effort to push back against competitor, we risk cutting revenue to very companies that should be stepping up and catching up in tech war. China can replace immediately Qualcom chips, or Android operating system in domestic market, a loss to our companies. But the bet here is, while stalling Chinese 5G, we will catch up, and corner European market, and few others. Is this a safe bet? I would say no. Yes, companies like CISCO can fake it with 4G plus, but until they get out of dependency in their Chinese and Romanian plants, it will be hard. Others even harder.
There is also a cultural problem. Insults are almost a term of endearment in US, in China, it is a serious, multi-generational issue. Trump has pushed the process, threatening, pulling stunts like tariffs like it is a game. This has upset the apple cart, and will nit be easy to right it. Trump can go another way and patch things up — but consequences will remain.
China is not shying away from war, as stated by their defense minister. We are on war footing in the Middle East. On war footing with Russia — or at least Russia thinks so. We are party to Libyan civil war, party to Yemen war, Afghanistan Neverland, and embroiled in many regime change operations. To count just a few where our State Department currently sends tents — Sudan, Moldova, Venezuela.
Break up of one imperial method can bring about another. But one thing is certain — change is on the way. Or as Chinese curse goes, may we live in interesting times
Change indeed.
Furthermore, I expect the US economy will burst soon. If not, then Democrats will vote in such unproductive expenditure that it does burst. When that happens, real change will take place in the US. Too much spending, too much debt: It can’t continue forever, even if it has for much longer than I expected.
If making people choose between feeding their children and war, I expect empire to become much less popular. Living standards won’t be cut without a fuss.
It has been going on since nineties. But it is getting tough.
The 90s had the tech revolution. Otherwise, there would have been trouble.
Anyway, the market goes up and down. Whenever it goes down again, there’ll be change.
Macron is much worse than that if not outright dangerous. Remember Sykes-Picot, the immensely stupid division of the dying Ottoman empire? Picot was the Frenchman. Ever since the Crusades the French have claimed some form of over-lordship/interest in Syria and have loudly proclaimed to be the protector of the Christians living there. Macron is a straight political descendant of Picot but today his partner is no longer GB (Sykes) but the US (Trump). So what we are looking at is a possible Trump-Macron agreement for the Middle East in which France is the junior partner. Macron is actually a war criminal.
They wouldn’t be protecting Christians. Maybe they’ll be the protectors of ISIS terrorists…
As they did in Libya to oust Ghadafi.
Macron dies not see Paris burning every Saturday, nor does he see other cities protests. He and media do not see the parade of maimed protestors, a living reminder of his ineptitude. But who cares now. The elites that pulked him out of 3-D printer want soeedy reorg of EU to cement their rule.
Who cares, who cares, who cares! Just keep power of power elites. Nothing is ever given up vountarily.
France’s Obama–or Baby Trudeau
They’d likely oppose him were he to want troops out of Afghanistan and Syria. Alternatively, were he to bring troops home from Europe, they’d howl.
I wish Trump did more than tweet possibilities of what he might do… Some of his trade actions have been positive at least.
Tweeting is easy. You formulate a thought based on what you’ve just seen on Fox News, compress it down to soundbite-length, type it out with colorful adjectives and lots of CAPS and exclamation points!!!!, and you’ve just tweeted a bright idea.
Actually having to enact something offically? That requires diplomacy, reasoning, and patience. None of which are the current POTUS’s strong points.
By now Trump’s style of negotiating or trying to negotiate with foreign powers is well known. I call it the “North Korea Style”. You begin with bluster and threats of annihilation. When that produces zero results you make a 180 degree turn and offer peace/talks. When that does not produce any results you are stuck with both and it becomes unpredictable which of the two is in Trump’s mind/desire at any given moment.
Trump’s approach to Iran is “North Korea Style.”
“North Korea Style”….more like “used car style”….this baby has low miles, it’s the best economy car ever, plus, it outperforms most race cars, people say. It’s also the safest car ever in history, no one has ever been hurt in one. No style, just BS on top of other BS. No deals.
What I would hate to see, is European leaders start to follow Trump and blame Iran for this situation.
Trump is totally unpredictable, and I personally think that he is bereft of empathy towards others and would be capable of launching a war simply to satisfy a personal whim.
Would warring on whim be any different from the past 3 US Presidents? I’m fuzzy on Bush I, and Reagan was actually pretty restrained on foreign policy, Afghanistan excluded.
Reagan was anything but restrained in his tenure from 1981 to 1989. Read up on the Heritage Foundation and their plans to target nine nations for “rollback” – regime change – Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Iran, Laos, Libya, Nicaragua and Vietnam.
Pure distraction. Trump either knows what is going to happen (re the attack on Hezbollah) so he’s intentionally distracting, or he simply has been cut out of the loop on the war planning, so he will be forced to react as Israel and the neocons want when the situation is created by Israel.
The latter frankly is the greater possibility in my view. This guy is the most easily led President – as long as you don’t confront him directly, due to his ego – in history.
The fact that Iran is being talked up when the real target has to be Hezbollah is proof that this is all distraction since no war with Iran can happen until Hezbollah is degraded. Israel can not afford it.
And the double advantage is that once the war with Hezbollah is started, it can be blamed on Iran as Hezbollah is claimed to be an “Iranian proxy.” This is a win-win for Israel and the neocons, and is the main reason Trump will be convinced to join in the attack.
What you call “seemingly walking a tightrope” on Iran, I call having no strategic outlook whatsoever, and strictly ‘shooting from the hip’ on every decision based on how the wind was blowing that morning, and whatever ‘Fox & Friends’ had on its agenda.
You mean whatever Wall Street Journal has on its mind. Defending Trump on Russiagate, offering some symbolic “independent” tripe, while lecturing Trump on foreign policy. Stern lecturing, along with experts for every occasion.
Maybe our idiot poodle allies should stop supporting American war crimes altogether. Just a thought.
Iran continues to play this one smart, standing their ground and refusing to take any bait from Trump and Bolton’s bad cop, worse cop cabaret. Let the bastards make fools of themselves in front of Europe while they increasingly look to China for stability. Iran is one cagey card player and Trump doesn’t know Blackjack from Go Fish.
“And if the show of diplomacy is for the sake of European countries, it’s been no more successful, as those allies can’t make heads or tails of what the administration’s actual intentions are”
TRUMP HIMSELF IS CONFUSED.WHY BLLAME EUROPEANS.
Europe indeed is deeply confused… they’d have to be to continue talking about any kind of alliance with the US.
Who can possible know what Trump is going to do. Does Trump know what he is going to do? And this talk of hitting Hezbollah sounds contrived. Does anyone think Hezbollah guys are going to pack some big stadium to assist those who would want to target them?? Multi fourth gen targeting won’t be fun and effortless as it may well bring state actors into the fray. Add the Israeli election and the legal trouble of Netanyahu and it’s quite a unmanageable bit of prognostication. It’s the type of muddle that can render unprecedented results for historians to pick at for decades.. How much collateral damage will hitting Hesbollah cause. Will all the states where Hesbollah has a presence just sit by as their attackers feel around for weak spots… Some people just can’t seem to quit while they are ahead.