When Donald Trump became President of the United States in 2017, our country possessed the largest military force in the world and the strongest economy among nations…both by large margins. America’s standard of living was envied by citizens of almost every country, and people were clamoring to immigrate to the U.S. legally or illegally.
And, yet, Mr. Trump’s campaign motto was “Make America Great Again”. One wonders what “great” means, in this context, and exactly when, in the past, America was greater than it was in 2017?
Certainly, our country is not perfect. Far from it. However, in Mr. Trump’s quest to make America greater (richer, stronger, more homogeneous?) do we run the risk of derailing that special something that got us to the top of the heap?
America has had a good run. We’re about 237 years into our democracy, and I’d say that we’ve been in the top rung of nations for the past 100 years. We forged a bicoastal nation, helped win a couple of World Wars, and became a diverse melting pot of creativity. Our democratic form of government became a model for many other countries. We worked with other countries to develop the global marketplace.
Greed?
Is that what is driving the MAGA political model? Is the belief that we somehow deserve more of the pie, that we have somehow been gypped out of our just desserts?
That appears to me to be Donald Trump’s driving belief, as evidenced in his attempts at revised deals with our global trading partners. Rather than being satisfied having so many trading partners, and enjoying a Gross Domestic Product that is about equal to the combined GDP of our three closest competitors (China, Japan and Germany), it appears that he wants MORE…that he wants to rub our trading partners/competitors noses in it, so to speak.
Why? Because we can…or, at least, that’s what Mr. Trump seems to think.
His whole private business model is based on (stupid) aggression, and he is a believer of taking what you want, when you want it. Donald Trump has been a bully for so long that he doesn’t know any other way to deal with problems or obstacles. One just pushes harder, yells louder, and threatens more. Most people or companies eventually fold in the face of this behavior, I guess.
The recent drama with Iran fits this model of “greatness”, I guess.
The United States, Russia, China, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom struck a deal with Iran in 2015 that limited the development of nuclear weapons by Iran in exchange for elimination of economic sanctions by participating countries. When Donald Trump was elected, one of the first things he did was to pull the United States out of the agreement and reimpose economic sanctions, despite the fact that the other signatories stayed in the deal. Then the Trump Administration began a campaign of ever-increasing economic sanctions in an attempt to buckle the Iranian government.
That didn’t happen, chiefly because the country is a tightly controlled theocracy that is supported by a citizenry that is 94 percent Shiite Muslim. Any attack, whether military or economic, upon Iran is viewed by its people as an attack on their religion. So, the Iranian government hasn’t folded and isn’t about to, despite the devastating impact of the economic sanctions imposed by the Trump Administration.
In the United States, the idea of Donald Trump putting his foot to the neck of a Muslim nation wins big points with the MAGA/Christian political base that elected the President. Greatness, in this respect, is apparently testosterone-filled behavior by a bully kicking the ass of a 100-pound weakling in the schoolyard.
In the past week or so, the drama has escalated. An American contractor was killed in Iraq during a rocket attack on an American base. The U.S. responded by bombing Iraqi militia units believed to be supported by Iran. In response, a mob of protestors swarmed the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, set fire to some outbuildings, and held siege for a short time before leaving with no injuries inflicted. President Trump responded by authorizing a drone strike at the Baghdad Airport which killed Iran’s highest ranking military officer and the commander of the Iraqi militia units. The President also ordered that an additional 3,500 troops be deployed in Iraq. The government of Iran, not amused, authorized ballistic missile attacks on two U.S. bases in Iraq. The Iraqi parliament, within days, voted to expel all U.S. troops from Iraq.
As the saying goes, “Same old shit, different day.” We’ve been involved in this tit-for-tat for the past 40 years. Some things never change.
Donald Trump campaigned for President with the promise that he was going to get us the heck out of the mess in the Middle East: bring home the troops, let the Arabs go at it among themselves, not make the same blunders that Obama did, etc., because, as he said, he was smarter than all of the generals.
It appears that he isn’t. (And, it doesn’t help when he occasionally mentions, publicly, that we are over there “for the oil”, and that we should “just take it”. That smacks of colonialism and greed, to be honest.)
For the past seventy years, the Western powers have been micromanaging the Arab countries, trying to develop them into responsible democracies while availing themselves of their petroleum resources and, simultaneously, deterring the Muslim nations from annihilating the nation of Israel…which the Western powers created (out of Arab lands) in recompense for the Jewish Holocaust.
It hasn’t worked.
There’s just too much bad blood: the Palestinians hate the Israelis for taking their land, Shiite Muslims hate the Sunni Muslims, and all of them (Israel included) resent the United States for lording over them with military and economic leverage. The average American citizen despises the Muslims for 9/11 and other atrocities, and American Christians despise the Muslims because they’re…not Christians. Saudi Arabia, the oil behemoth that we curtsy to, gladly accepts our military protection, while it works clandestinely to fund Muslim terrorist organizations like Al Queda, which masterminded 9/11. The Saudis are our ally and our enemy…go figure.
And, so, whither goest the Mideast political policy strategy of the United States? Do we actually have a strategy or policy? Are we staying or going? More importantly, why do we still have troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria? What’s the end-game?
President Trump certainly didn’t create this mess, nor did President Obama, the Bushes, Clinton, Reagan, et al. The problem started with the Western powers playing Monopoly with the residue of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, and then continuing to manipulate lands and people in the Middle East after World War II. What the Western brain trust created, in effect, is tantamount to Johnny Cash’s “Chevymobile”: it looks goofy and doesn’t really work.
Perhaps the people who live in that part of the world should iron out their own problems? They couldn’t do any worse a job. Where do we come off telling them how to run their lives? By what right?
“Because we’re the United Fucking States!” our President might tweet.
(By the way, what does “sanction” mean? It means that the United States will punish you, economically, if your sovereign nation doesn’t do what the American President wants you to do. In essence, a sanctioned country becomes a vassal of the United States, directed from “above” in its military and economic behavior. No wonder the citizens of sanctioned-Arab and -Muslim countries resent America, the “Great Satan”!: they didn’t elect Trump.)
Wouldn’t it be interesting if the United States withdrew all of its land-based forces from the Middle East and let the Iranians, the Iraqis, the Palestinians, the Israelis, the Saudis, and the Turks come up with their own solution? Maybe, after protecting them with our military umbrella and financial support for fifty years, we should cut the cord with Israel and Saudi Arabia…let them fend for themselves. Without the American ”boogeyman” in the equation, maybe a Middle East accommodation among the longtime foes could be worked out, like the European Economic Union?
This is actually what candidate Trump talked about, before he became President.
Then, he reneged.
I think America’s “greatness” has declined since World War II because of our military and political escapades in places like Vietnam and the Middle East. We’ve wasted trillions of dollars and suffered thousands of dead and injured/PTSD American soldiers for little tangible benefit. At the same time, poverty and crime have increased, our infrastructure has deteriorated, and our educational system is producing young people who aren’t competitive. How “great” could we have been had we spent those trillions of dollars domestically and saved those precious lives for more productive purposes?
I noticed this past weekend that Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign theme is “Keep America Great”. That would imply that our President, in just three years, has completed his mission of making the U.S. “great” again.
How exactly did he do that? By scuttling Obamacare? By packing the Federal judiciary with arch-Conservatives? By giving the top 1 percent of American taxpayers huge tax breaks, making them more wealthy? By dismantling regulatory agencies that protect citizens and the country’s natural resources? By ignoring his pledge to support and honor the Constitution of the United States? By using his office for personal and political gain?
Many would disagree that these accomplishments have moved the “greatness” needle. We will find out when we vote in 2020 to either re-elect Trump or move on to someone else.
However, I think that the President could take a giant leap forward toward greatness if he can find the courage to disentangle our nation from the Middle East. It’s a no-win situation over there, the American public is tired of it, and it’s time for those Arabs/Muslims/Jews to grow up and learn to live together.
If Trump can accomplish this, I might hold my nose and vote for him.