If you are Donald Trump, the world appears upside down. It wasn’t always like that. From Trump’s perspective, it is all the fault of the past US presidents for allowing other countries to take advantage of the United States, bringing it to its present state where things are out of control and need to be fixed. And Trump is the strong man who will fix it.
As Trump put it recently, “The world is in trouble, but we’re gonna straighten it out, OK? That’s what I do — I fix things. We’re gonna straighten it out. Believe me.” And where would he start, with so much needing to be fixed? There is China, of course, there are Muslims, there is Islamic state and there are US’s so-called friends and allies who have got used to its protective security umbrella at virtually no cost.
In the Middle East, Iran is proving a thorn given a new lease of life under Obama’s nuclear deal. Imagine its audacity for testing a missile that is a violation of the terms of the nuclear deal, Trump would argue. In any case, the nuclear deal with Iran was a bad idea, because they are not going to abide by it.
And its proof, the argument would go, is the recent test of an Iranian missile as part of its continuing work on a delivery system for its nuclear weapons, which somehow the Iranians, despite the freeze under the nuclear deal, will continue to perfect. Indeed, Trump had promised that as President, he would undo this deal. And the first step, so opportune after the missile test, is to put Iran on notice.
As Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser (now forced to resign under a Russian cloud)reportedly said, “As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice”, describing the missile launch as a violation of the relevant UN Security Council resolution.
Iran denies it is in breach of the resolution and, until the Trump administration took over, it had reportedly test-fired ballistic missiles since the 2015 nuclear deal without any serious reaction. The US is now putting some selective sanctions on Iran to show its serious intent.
It is part of Trump’s commitment, of sorts, to Israel to, more or less, bring back the US’ tough regime of sanctions and possibly some military retaliation. It is not only the ballistic missiles/nuclear question that needs sorting out, it is also Iran’s disruptive and destructive activities in Iraq, Yemen, in Bahrain, in Syria with Hezbollah acting as its proxy and so on — the argument would go.
It is imperative for the US to demonstrate its military strength to reestablish its primacy — to make America strong and great again.In this Iran could be made an example. Some such scenario is outlined in a recent book, The Big Stick: The Limits of Soft Power and the Necessity of Military Force, by Eliot A. Cohen, reviewed in the New York Review of Books. He is all for restoring America’s big power credibility, like Reagan did in some ways, by invading the tiny state of Grenada in 1983. And the recovery of American credibility today, “will probably occur only when the United States actually does something to someone — wiping out a flotilla of Iranian gunboats”, for example. And he wants this done soon before Iran has nuclear weapons, which he takes for granted despite the fact that under the nuclear deal Iran’s nuclear program is shut down for at least
fifteen years.
In his view, “The heart of Iran’s emerging military power lies in its nuclear program” — no ifs and buts about it despite the 2015 nuclear deal which has frozen Iran’s nuclear program over many years. And: “Once Iran does have nuclear weapons… a nuclear armed Iran will, eventually, pose a direct threat” to the US. In other words, Cohen is not advocating this course necessarily for Israel’s security but to remove a potential security threat to the United States.
But Iran is no Grenada. Therefore, the US would need to use massive force to disable Iran, with all sorts of unpredictable results that might get out of control. One that comes to mind immediately is how Russia will react to it, considering that Trump wants the US to become chums with Putin’s Russia. In Syria, for instance, Iran and Hezbollah are an important part of Russian-led operations to save Bashar al-Assad regime from IS and other terror groups. And for Trump IS is a major threat, which Russia is spearheading to combat and defeat. And if Iran/Hezbollah are disabled/destroyed and Iraq is regarded as Iran’s proxy in the region, it would prove a welcome boon to IS and its ideology.
But the US needs to show its power now and then to prove its credibility, as propounded in, what has come to be called, Ledeen Doctrine, named after Michael Ledeen, who is the co-author with Michael T. Flynn of a recent book: The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies. The so-called Ledeen Doctrine propounds that, “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.” But Iran is not a small crappy little country and throwing it against the wall might not be all that easy, leading to a chain of events not knowing where it will all end.
But in this new world of cowboys and Indians, the new frontiers to subdue are not just Iran but much of the world. I examined in my last article how things are heating up in South China Sea, and even poor Mexico is a target. And the European Union is not sacrosanct as Trump would like more cases of Brexit-like defection in its ranks. He is unhappy with Germany as they don’t buy enough American cars and keep expanding their exports to the United States.
At the same time, he is unhappy with Merkel’s Germany for letting in Syrian refugees, thus setting a terrible example and creating more potential for terrorist attacks. In any case, he doesn’t feel comfortable with multilateral institutions, be it EU or United Nations as they are less likely to submit to US dictates. And NATO, in his view during the election campaign, is already obsolete, and they don’t even pay their dues by spending more on defense.
All in all, it is a very dangerous world out there with Donald Trump as America’s President. This is best summed in the words of America’s celebrated novelist, Philip Roth. In an email exchange with a reporter of the New Yorker, Roth wrote, “… what is most terrifying is that he makes any and everything possible, including, of course the nuclear catastrophe.”
The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney, Australia. He can be reached at [email protected]