Amusing, not to mention welcome, if true. My bête noire di tutti bêtes noires has set the Acela world on its collective ear if not its collective rear by his sudden decision to pull all American troops out of Syria, where they never should have been in the first place. You don’t get it, Donald! Obama is supposed to be the coward!
Yes, that’s the Beltway riff, preached even by interventionist skeptics like George F. Will, who snickered at the Obamaman’s “flaccid” foreign policy, even though, when it came to specifics, Will only objected (and rightly so) to Obama’s sins of commission—Libya, most spectacularly (and most disastrously). Ninety percent of DC’s “informed opinion” is compulsively interventionist. Within the Beltway, the question “And do nothing?” can never be answered with a “yes”. We always have to do something.
Well, perhaps Cap’n Two Scoops is finally morphing into Cap’n Stay at Home. After his meeting with no-one’s favorite murderer Kim Jong-un, Trump assured Americans that there was now no danger of nuclear war with North Korea: his new best bud had given his word on it. Since then, there’s been a little back and forth about whether North Korea is actually doing any of the things they sort of said they would do—or the things the Trump Administration sort of said they said they would do—but I always had the suspicion in my mind that Trump might say “Never mind the details. Those satellites miss a lot. The thing is, my buddy Kim says relax. So don’t sweat it. Big Daddy took care of things.” Of course, if Donald were being honest (perish that thought, eh?) he’d say there never was any danger of nuclear war, because North Korea had no earthly reason to attack us (unless we attacked them). But who’s going to look a gift horse in the mouth? Not me!
The downside is, even with “Peaceful Trump”, we’ll still be wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on useless weaponry. But wasting money is better than wasting lives.
Afterwords
What's most entertaining, so far, particuarly given Trump's propensity to reverse course with less than a moment's notice, is the outrage1 this outburst of common sense is provoking among Trump's congressional allies. Curiously enough, the Republican rank in file in Congress refuses to object to anything Trump does with regard to domestic policy, but if he dares to deviate one iota from the Bush-Cheney script of eternal jihad, the explosions are immediate. Trump is doing good and damaging his base at the same time! Pinch me, I'm dreaming!
1. Sample shriek from Victoria "Daughter of Battle" Nuland: "In a single tweet, Trump destroys U.S. policy in the Middle East"
