Trump Blows Up Foreign Policymaking

Susan Glasser: “We may still be guessing about Trump, but one thing this week’s Iran-war scare has shown is the extent to which the Trump Presidency has blown up the old way of American foreign policymaking, which makes the risk of a miscalculation higher than ever.”

“Consider the damage done to the alliance between the United States and its traditional partners in Europe, who remain outraged about Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran deal they negotiated with the United States and are deeply skeptical of his latest moves. Not only is Europe not inclined to offer a helping hand, but even the old habits and inclinations to consult with each other before major foreign-policy moves have been all but abandoned—and with them, of course, another constraint on the Trump Presidency.”

“The removal of constraints on Trump, domestically and internationally, is what is so striking at this moment when we are all trying to figure out what’s actually happening with American policy in the Middle East. Trump has already shown himself to be unbound by old fears of abandoning political norms… He doesn’t worry about cozying up to dictators or flip-flopping on core principles. He doesn’t care about creating international coalitions or whether his actions are consistent. And with all the turnover on his staff, a normal decision-making process on national-security matters seems to have been abandoned, too.”

“Instead, amazingly enough, we are now at a moment in the Trump Presidency when the capricious President himself is being touted as the possible constraint on his hawkish advisers like Bolton.”