Make America fail, yet again

Author: Muhammad Shoaib

YOU may disagree with Max Boot, but I don’t. Considering Donald Trump unfit to be the US president is the shortest possible comment on the Trump presidency so far. Trump has proved himself incapable of leading a nation—a nation that led the world for most of the 20th century. The list of foreign policy mistakes is too long, at least for a five months period. From pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to reversing Obama’s overtures toward Cuba, Trump left no instance to show his incompetence for the job. And thus, he’s been successful in failing America again and again.

Consider Trump either unaware or problematic, the Bush family however would be extremely happy with him. People would name Trump—which was Bush Junior a while ago—to be the worst president in the modern era. Trump did his best to do everything that was unexpected, unwanted and, un-American. Starting from the TPP, a 12-nations trade deal, he reversed the progress made in five years through investing American political capital in the Asia Pacific region that would define the 21st century. Chinese must be grateful to the US president for his role in facilitating China’s rise. They would be all alone in an ocean, full of money and progress, waiting to be ruled. Consider it his naivety, but no one expects an American president to know literally nothing sensible about NATO.

The position he took during the meeting with Atlantic allies was the best suitable option for Bosnia and Herzegovina—that is by the way not a member of NATO. Leaving a weakened Europe amid the Russian offensive on its full swing and China’s desire to win Europe at the expense of the US would make no logic. The US success in 2005 in controlling the European allies from lifting arms sale ban on China would be no more possible if Trump keeps pursuing his un-American foreign policy with a golf stick in his hands. The Trump-fans would probably say that he is a realist who does not want the US to lead others’ wars.

That makes sense for a while. But this view loses strength when one comes to know that NATO was a US child, nurtured and nourished by the Americans for decades. Poor children, their fate is no different from each other. The other one is the Paris Climate Agreement. Since the miscarriage of the Copenhagen Agreement, Obama strove to bring the international community on an agreed position—that’s “how do we save the world?” With extensive American political capital invested, the international community eventually agreed on something even if it was little initially. Yet five months after Obama left the office, the Trump-led United States proudly joins Syria and Nicaragua as the leader of “a community of leftovers.”

Trump has a great appreciation for smart people, especially if they are rogue. He will now have the honour. While writing history, people will use only one line in the page to write the names of three losers: Daniel Ortega, Bashar al Assad, and Donald J. Trump. Trump will certainly have the honour to be remembered and attributed with Bashar al Assad. If someone forgets or even does not care about the territories far from the United States, Trump’s Cuba policy is still difficult to digest. In his recently announced fumble—since this act cannot be considered a policy that is supposedly well worked out upon—he has done his best to reverse the gains made by the Obama administration.

Restricting American tourism in Cuba would not work in favour of the US. Instead, what the US needs in Cuba is a policy of integration, reciprocity, and common security. Trump should trust the strength of American values. Once there, these values would certainly shape the choices of the Cuban regime. Even if they don’t, this new policy of opening and integration deserves a fair chance because adopting a 1960s policy in 2017 would not do any better. Worth remembering here is a fact that the US’ Cuba policy in early years of this decade had only one supporter in the UN, Israel. Nonetheless, Trump would be happy with his new success in failing America, yet again.

Another in the row of failures is the GCC-Qatar feud. Instead of making allies work together for the US interests, Trump identified a terrorism-sponsor where the US inadvertently had one of its largest military bases in the Middle East. Not only did Trump’s position make Qatar look a fool but also invited Iran, Russia, and China to meet a friend-in-waiting in Saudi Arab’s backyard. Even so, how odd does it feel when someone thinks, “Why would the US, arguably the leader of the anti-terrorism coalition, work with a terrorism sponsor [Qatar] for so many years?” God knows. Trump knows. If you want to know, you have to be smart and make decisions with little knowledge, as does Donald J. Trump.

No one needs to highlight his “brilliant idea” of imposing a travel ban. Equipped with some serious findings and blessed by the Supreme Court, the Trump administration concluded that the US must ban citizens of some barely integrated countries who might not have killed any US citizen on the US soil in decades. The US judicial system deserves credit in this regard, however. Yet, several observers of the US politics who write and talk about the political gridlock in the country should now think about doing more than what they are doing. Now they are probably expected to think and write about putting a check on the executive powers. Or, if innovative enough, think about a SANITY AMENDMENT that would require making policies, which appear to be made and executed with some common sense.

Muhammad Shoaib is PhD candidate at Area Study Centre, Quaid-i-Azam University. He’s currently a visiting fellow at Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He can be reached at shoaibm37@yahoo.com.

Published in Daily Times, July 4th , 2017.

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