Saturday 27 / April / 2024
Donald Trump hammered home his message of change in his presidential acceptance speech on the steps of Congress, promising to break up the cosy Washington establishment that has brought the country low and left it rudderless abroad. And, like it or loath it, one thing is clear: On foreign policy he means it.
His appointments to the “Trident” of Pentagon, CIA and State Department are proof that where there was drift under Barack Obama, he now wants leadership.
Pentagon chief will be retired Marine Corps General James Mattis. “Without a doubt one of the finest military officers of his generation,” is the verdict of armed services committee chairman Senator John McCain.
Having someone running the Pentagon who knows what he’s talking about reminds me of the British Royal Navy’s reaction, at the outbreak of World War Two, on hearing Winston Churchill, at the time a political outcast, and a year from becoming prime minister, was to be chief of the navy. “Winston’s Back” was the simple signal flashed to ships across the world.
Mattis headed Centcom, the sharp end of America’s struggle with terrorism, from 2010 until 2013, until eased into early retirement, insiders say, because Obama found him too “aggressive.” Expect him to charge like a bull at a gate at every objective Trump sets him.
CIA director nominee Mike Pompeo, a Republican representative for Kansas, has made a desk thumping career on hammering Obama for failing to tackle terrorism, calling for Trump’s administration to prioritise"a military, diplomatic and ideological defeat of radical terrorism.” He is an ardent critic of Obama’s only notable foreign policy initiative, the Iran-nuclear deal.
Something I personally disagree with. If that deal is to survive, pragmatists among Washington's and Tehran’s leadership will have to be convinced that they are both serious; in fact, they both may welcome the chance.
Then there is Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, chief of Exxon Mobil, America’s mightiest oil corporation, the man to be responsible for foreign policy. Supporters say he knows how to get things done in some of the toughest parts of the world. He certainly looks impressive.
Drawing it all together as National Security Council chief is another military man, Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn.
Flynn has combat experience at the sharp end, in the 1983 invasion of Grenada, and a lifetime in the special forces, culminating in Obama appointing head of the Defence Inteligence Agency, little brother to the CIA, in October 2012. But less than two years later he suddenly announced his retirement, insiders saying that, like Mattis, he was eased out, either for being uncompromising in his vision or a chaotic management style. He has already reportedly promised the NSC will be filled with “people who have looked down a rifle scope.” Thank God!
Start to see a pattern? All three spikes of the Trident, and the man who coordinates it, are bulldogs. They are also outsiders. Not from policy-making world, but from the cliques that have stifled it under the Obama years.
Trump’s appointment of military men at both at National Security Council and Pentagon plus a prominent and knowledgeable energy corporate CEO at the top of the State Department signals that civilian side of Washington politics will take input from the Pentagon instead of diplomats at 'Foggy Bottom'.
Trump’s men will be more direct than the woolly thinking and timidity of Obama’s people. Starting with Libya, which Obama admitted was his greatest foreign policy “mistake.”
American bombs won the Arab Spring revolution there in 2011 but what followed was chaos, with the arrival of IS and migrant smuggling. Obama’s solution was to back the Muslim Brotherhood but, as in Egypt, this ended in disastrous failure.
The Pentagon has been hinting at a new policy for the past year - which is to back whatever forces are willing to decisively tackle the terrorists. The Muslim Brotherhood failed (or didn't want) to do so, and US support is likely to switch to Libya’s powerful field marshall Khalifa Haftar, now battling IS for control of Benghazi.
France has already backed him so, as has Russia. Expect America to follow.
For Libya, as for the Mid East; expect Trump’s Trident to ape the saying of John F Kennedy - yes, a Democrat - two generations ago, when he declared he would “support any friend, oppose any enemy” in the defeat of communism. Substitute “terrorism” for “communism” and you get the general idea.
The big question is will it work. Trump has already signalled support for Israel and its disastrous settlement-building policy on Palestinian territory, a move likely to inflame, rather than calm, the waters.
But where Obama supplied wooly rhetoric and little else, expect Trump to deploy pragmatism. Where America is threatened, America will retaliate. It won’t be pretty, but the bigger question is will it work. Along with what it means for the rest of the world.
It will certainly bring change. A deal will be made with Russia because it poses no direct threat to the US, and if Europe does not like it, Europeans are free to pay their fair share for NATO, rather than relying on America.
Trump has already reminded China that it needs American markets more than America needs China, signalling his support for Taiwan and other regional allies.
Delivering his promise to “make America great again” depends on defining what this greatness means, and punching through the cosy Washington establishment. The last president who promised big change in DC, from the left rather than the right, was none other than Obama. And his lack of focus saw his officials join the very establishment they were supposed to revolutionise. and the one before that was JFK! - Exclusive to Times of Oman
