Bahbah: Who is Charting U.S. Foreign Policy Under Trump?

posted on: Apr 11, 2018

By Bishara Bahbah/Arab America Featured Columnist

Who is charting U.S. foreign policy under Trump?

That is a puzzling question on the mind of most leaders around the globe.  Among the vast majority of world leaders, except notably the Israeli prime minister, there is a growing apprehension at the thought that the future of the free world depends on a U.S. president who lacks good judgment, is prone to incoherent behavior and daily disregard of facts.  He is xenophobic and Islamophobic and is often spontaneous in making decisions through his erratic tweets.

Given that Trump is void of any political ideological conviction, his foreign policy positions have oscillated, depending to a large extent, on the advisors with whom he has surrounded himself.

To try to predict Trump’s foreign policy is a fool’s task. However, during his short tenure as president, we can deduce some general outlines of Trump’s past foreign policy decisions and, possibly, but with great hesitation, his future foreign policy moves.

In researching this article, I have been able to identify six centers of influence around Trump.  The impact that each of these centers of influence has had on Trump has depended to a large extent on what is being covered on television by Fox News, his mercurial mood, and who has his ear and attention at any specific point in time.

The six centers of influence are:

1. The “Breitbart Group” represented at its zenith by Steve Bannon who was named early in Trump’s presidency as White House senior strategist.

The Breitbart group, or the alt-right activists, represented by Steve Bannon, are “America First” advocates.  They are white nationalists who despise the neo-cons and reject mainstream conservatism. They advocate an isolationist approach to foreign policy.  Until Trump’s presidency, they were long relegated to the cultural and political fringes of the Republican party.

Their main concern, however, is immigration or, more accurately, as little of it as possible.  They are against an open immigration policy, especially from developing countries.  They would like to see most immigrants come from Europe and its white population.  Despite Bannon’s short tenure as senior White House strategist, he has left a strong impact on Trump especially with regard to immigration. Trump is still and has been a strong advocate of building a wall between the US and Mexico allegedly to stop illegal immigration from Mexico and Latin America. Trump succeeded in getting funding from Congress to increase immigration enforcement on the border with Mexico but not funding for the wall.  And, Trump is opposed to the continuation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program which would provide protection from deportation to some 800,000 illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children and could map out a possible path to citizenship for these “dreamers.”

2. The so-called “grown-ups” represented by the generals, well-known businesspeople, and politicians.  This group includes people such as Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, and the surviving Secretary of Defense James Mattis.

Kevin Lamaroue/Reuters

In his presidency, trump recruited a group of “grown-ups” for his cabinet and as senior advisors.  They were brought in because of their proven experience, the legitimacy that they lent to Trump’s inexperienced campaign advisors, and because Trump’s ego enjoyed ordering around generals. At this point in Trump’s presidency, they have served their purpose and they are dispensable.  All eyes are on the key surviving figure of that group, Secretary of Defense James Mattis.  This group has had no ideological agenda per se except to serve the people of the United States.

3. The Trump “loyalists” who, early on, supported and defended Trump’s bid for the presidency.  Represented by people like Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, Robert Friedman, the US Ambassador to Israel, and Dr. Ben Carson, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

This group of advisors will do Trump’s bidding either out of conviction or for fear of losing their jobs.  They will not challenge Trump publicly or privately, and they are ready to defend his policies to an extent.  Given his racist tendencies, had Nikki Haley kept her maiden name, Nimrata Randhawa, I wonder if Trump would have selected her for the position of US ambassador to the UN.

4. The “family” represented by Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka Trump who were named senior advisors to the president just because they are part of Trump’s family.

Trump, without shame or apology, appointed his daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, to positions of power because they worked and stood by him during the election period.  Neither Kushner nor Ivanka has much to contribute to public policy.  They are there for no other reason than the fact they are members of the Trump family.  What logic dictates that Jared Kushner would be handed one of the toughest jobs in the world of promoting the Israel-Palestine peace process just because he is Jewish?

5. The “financiers” who contributed significant sums of money to Trump’s bid for the presidency such as casino mogul, Sheldon Adelson.

The “financiers”:  The Sheldon Adelson’s of the United States know well the significance of contributing to political campaigns especially if they have an agenda. Given Trump’s financial means, the financiers were important, not so much for their financial contributions, but rather to add legitimacy Trump’s bid for the presidency in the eyes of the American people.  Certainly, Trump would not want to appear as having financed his own presidential election bid.  In return for his support, Trump has rewarded Adelson by appointing a pro-settler American Jew as US ambassador to Israel, recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and agreeing to move the US embassy to Jerusalem.  As a gambling man, Adelson must be feeling that he hit the jackpot to get so much in return for his political contributions to Trump.

6. The “neo-conservatives” who seem to be inching their way, at the present time, into a position of power.  They are represented by old Republican warmongers such as John Bolton, the newly selected national security advisor, and Mike Pompeo, the newly nominated secretary of state.

The neo-conservatives or neo-cons: This group is, in my opinion, the most important and most dangerous center of influence around Trump. The “neo-cons” emerged in the 1970s alarmed by the declining spending on the US military.  They advocate for a strong military and cherish in the idea that the United States is the only superpower following the collapse of the Soviet Union.  They do not shy from flexing American military muscle whether it is in American national interests or not.  They were the strongest advocates of the US invasion of Iraq – an unnecessary costly war that was waged by most accounts at the behest of Israel and its domestic American allies.

For several decades, the neo-cons dominated the Republican foreign-policy establishment and were emboldened after the attacks of 911 on the United States.  With the appointment of hardcore neo-con like John Bolton as US national security advisor and the nomination of Mike Pompeo as US secretary of state and the dismissal of level-headed individuals such as H.R. McMaster and Rex Tillerson, I can foresee a US foreign policy going forward that would be combative and interventionist in nature.

Major Foreign Policy Issues

The major foreign policy issues that currently face the United States include the Iran nuclear deal; the Iran threat to the Arab regimes; the North Korean nuclear program; the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; Russia’s growing influence; and the fate of the US military presence in Syria and Afghanistan.

If our thesis that Trump’s advisors, especially the newly installed neo-cons, will significantly influence his foreign policy, here is what we might see unfolding in the coming weeks, months and, possibly, the remaining period of Trump’s presidency.

• The scrapping of the Iran nuclear deal or, at the very least, the US’s withdrawal from the deal.  Bolton has gone further and advocated, in the past, that the US goal should be regime change in Iran. Bolton has encouraged Israel to attack Iran in order to rein in its nuclear ambitions.
• In contrast to the majority of neo-cons, Bolton does not care about promoting democracy in the Middle East, he is interested in increasing US power by any means available.  He is a strong advocate of a Gulf-Israel alliance against Iran’s expanding influence in the Arab world.  Arab Gulf states should be very wary of Trump.  He sees them as wealthy customers purchasing second-tier military equipment (compared to the ones given/sold to Israel) at exorbitant prices.  Trump has neither love nor loyalty to any Arab.
• On North Korea and, despite the behind the scenes preparations for a possible summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un, the N. Korean leader, Bolton and company would push for tough terms in negotiations with N. Korea.  This would likely result in the failure of an agreement to denuclearize N. Korea.  The failure of such negotiations would then be used to advocate attacking N. Korea pre-emptively.
• On the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the neo-cons oppose the two-state solution and support the US embassy move to Jerusalem.  Bolton has stated that there should be a “three-state solution” in which Gaza would be handed over to Egypt, and the West Bank to Jordan.  This would then leave the status quo as the best option that the Palestinians could hope for. There is no such thing as the “deal of the century.”  History will prove me correct when and if such a deal is revealed, it will be the “biggest bluff of the century.”
• The neo-cons are very critical of Russia given what they describe as the “Moscow-Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah axis.” The US reaction to the recent alleged chemical attacks that occurred in Syria already has the neo-cons imprints.  For the very first time, Trump attacked Vladimir Putin by name in one of his tweets following the reports of the chemical attacks in Syria.
• With regard to the continued presence of US forces in both Afghanistan and Syria, even though Trump indicated that the United States should withdraw its military from both countries – a position advocated by Breitbart, he was quickly swayed by the neo-cons to maintain the US military presence in both countries presumably to give the military more time for an orderly withdrawal. While the United States was still deliberating its response to the reported chemical attack in Syria, Israel jumped the gun and attacked Syrian military installations.  Israel, with the neo-cons’ support, will go after destroying the Syrian regime.  Now that Bashar Assad triumphed over his opponents in Syria, Israel will not allow the Iran-Hezbollah-Russia axis to thrive in Syria.

In short, with his foreign policy continually mired in chaos, Trump has now surrounded himself with a mixture of compliant advisors and neo-con warmongers.  Bolton’s choice as national security advisor is seen as evidence that Trump is looking to pursue a more hardline approach against US adversaries. This is a disastrous foreign policy path that will spell worsening instability around the globe.  One can only hope that, following the November elections, the Republicans will lose the US House of Representatives which would allow the new Democratic majority to begin initiating impeachment procedures against this unstable president.

Prof. Bishara Bahbah was a member of the Palestinian delegation to the Peace Talks on Arms Control and Regional Security.  He taught at Harvard and was the associate director of its Kennedy School’s Institute for Social and Economic Policy in the Middle East

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab America.