A Canny Old Rug Peddler From Queens

Well there probably is one, but his name isn’t Donald Trump. But over at The National Interest, Leon Hadar assures us that the Donald is indeed Bismarck with a conk¹. Here’s how Leon spins his vision of “TrumPolitik”:

“TrumpPolitik would certainly place more emphasis on strengthening U.S. relationship with the big powers of the world, notably China and Russia, a la the Congress of Vienna system, as well as with regional “influentials” like Turkey, Indonesia and Brazil. Instead of allowing the governments of Southeast Asia to play China and the United States against each other, Beijing and Washington could negotiate above their heads and reach agreements that those governments would have to accept.

“Similarly, the United States has no interest to be drawn into the nationalist and ethnic rivalries of East and Central Europe. That was not why NATO was established in the first place, and there is a certain element of Chutzpah on the part of Germany and other European countries in trying to get the United States involved in their territorial disputes with Russia, while they continue to maintain their bloated welfare states and resist raising their defense budgets.

“But it’s in the Middle East where TrumpPolitik could prove to be the most effective, if, instead of engaging in new crusades to spread democracy, Washington works together with the main regional powers to restore the status quo and maintain the territorial integrity of states like Iraq and Syria, even if that means cooperating with unsavory autocrats and denying independence to the Kurds while placing the Palestinian issue on the policy backburner.”

Well, if wishes were horses, then beggars could ride. Has Leon noticed who Trump chose as his national security advisor? As head of the CIA? As attorney general? As The American Conservative’s Dan Larison points out, Trump’s “team” simply attempts to recreate the Cold War, with the U.S. facing a worldwide conspiracy, composed of not only the entire Muslim world—in itself a grotesque and self-defeating exaggeration—but Russia and China as well. Michael Flynn, Trump’s choice for national security advisor, has written a book with Michael Leeden, The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies. Larison quotes from it as follows: ““We’re in a world war, but very few Americans recognize it. [W]e have to energize every element of national power in a cohesive synchronized manner—similar to the effort during World War II or the Cold War—to effectively resource what will likely be a multigenerational struggle.”

This is the precise opposite of Hadar’s own vision, with which I heartily concur:

“But notwithstanding all the hysteria among western pundits and policymakers, the world isn’t in the midst of a historic crisis, and it is probably more stable than it was in the 1960s and 1970s when American presidents took steps to adjust U.S. interests and policies to changing international realities.”

Unfortunately, Donald Trump is appointing the hysterics, and he talks like he is one himself. Didn’t Trump say endlessly during the campaign that we were faced, not with a mere “historic” crisis, but absolutely the “worst” crisis ever?

Hadar wants to believe that Trump is a canny old rug peddler, who sobs, screams, and swears on his grandmother’s old paisley shawl, and then, after several hours of histrionics, “reluctantly” agrees to a split-the-difference compromise. But that isn’t the way Trump operates. He uses his out-of-control belligerence to bully the people he’s dealing with, feeling that, because they’re “sensible” people (that is to say, losers), they’ll back down. It’s the unreasonable guy who wins. But the theocrats in Iran, and the nationalists in China, play the same game, if less loudly. They won’t lose face just to accommodate Trump’s ego. In particular, it’s clear that Flynn, and many others on the far right, want to have it out with Iran, feeling that here is a “real” enemy, that we can punch on endlessly, in a multigenerational struggle that will, not incidentally, guarantee massive defense budgets, and massive Republican victories, as far as the eye can see.

But Iran has seen this movie, or one like it. Iran took over half a million casualties when it repelled Saddam’s invasion back in 1980, a war that lasted eight years. Iran is ready to fight another one. The American people could not possibly accept casualties of that magnitude. What are Trump et al. going to do? Are nuclear weapons off the table? A chance to prove that Uncle Sam really means business? I with that were impossible, but I don’t think it is.