There’s a lot to unpack in Donald Trump’s simplistic foreign policy speech delivered today in Youngstown, Ohio. The teleprompter from which he read much of the speech (when not ad-libbing) was evidence that the speech was another attempt at the long-awaited pivot to a more disciplined candidacy. But whether or not Trump lights his hair on fire again with yet another new off-hand disqualifying remark, the speech should be judged on its own merits. Not everything in it was wrong or foolish. Trump is right that the Obama administration has made many mistakes, not the least of which has been the disastrous Iran nuclear deal and the president’s determination to create more daylight between the United States and Israel. He’s also correct about the administration’s reluctance to come to grips with the core ideology of our Islamist enemies. But the problem with the speech is the same with all of Trump’s foreign policy statements in that it was a bundle of contradictions.
The most important of these is his “plan” for defeating ISIS: He wishes to defeat Islamist terror and correctly says the U.S. must not be afraid to call the enemy by its right name. But he also says he will do it without nation building.
Americans are tired of long wars, such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan, and have always disliked the notion of spending tax dollars abroad to help others when they think their own country needs rebuilding. That’s why this is a big applause line for Trump and is even a theme that was often raised by Barack Obama in recent years.
But the problem here is a basic one. Even if we assume that a Trump-led U.S. can muster the forces to defeat ISIS on the ground while also cooperating with nations in the region that are mortally offended by his discriminatory language aimed at their faith, what does he think will happen once that victory is achieved?
Unless the U.S. commits the resources to help the people of Iraq and Syria to rebuild their country as well as to fight the ideological war against Islamism Trump’s speechwriters correctly identify as key to the struggle, there will be nothing to prevent a new Islamist threat from arising in its place. Just as the defeated Axis powers had to be rebuilt after World War II, the places where Islamism has taken hold must also be rebuilt in order to provide some hope for less dangerous future.
That won’t be accomplished by an alliance with Trump’s crush (and campaign manager Paul Manafort’s former indirect employer) Vladimir Putin, since Russia’s goals in the Middle East—the resurrection of the old Soviet empire and the diminishment of U.S. influence and power—contradict those tough, realistic principles Trump claims to espouse.
Nor should we ignore Trump’s continuing obsession with the idea that the U.S. should steal Iraq’s oil resources and use it to pay for our veterans’ needs or to pay for our involvement in the Middle East. He’s right that the old principle of war was always “to the victor belongs the spoils.” But the notion that America’s purpose abroad is the theft of other nation’s property is morally repugnant and a caricature popularized by the same Islamists who hate the West and the U.S. It is also antithetical to any idea of wiping out ISIS since such actions, accompanied by Trump’s backing for Russian imperialism and the preservation of the Assad tyranny in Syria, is what maintains support for that terror group.
Though Trump is also right to call for more stringent measures to vet immigrants to the U.S. and the problematic nature of bringing in Syrian refugees, his ideological war against Islam will also make it harder if not impossible for the U.S. to maintain alliances with Muslim nations against the terrorists. Nor can he credibly claim to be an advocate of American exceptionalism while also supporting actions and his familiar “America First” litany that brings to mind a blood and soil nativism that contradict core American values.
What we heard in the speech was the ongoing and unresolved conflict between Trump’s basic isolationism and his emotional need for bombast and harsh action against those he perceives as enemies. But one can’t win the war he rightly believes must be fought without embracing the global perspective he despises. That’s why his policy is as doomed to failure as that of President Obama who shares so many of Trump’s phobias about the use of American power even if he does so with apologies rather than bravado.