Trump Is Leaving the US’ Allies Coldly in the Lurch
The U.S. president’s irrational rage over the Iran debacle is currently affecting South Korea and Oman. No one can rely on the superpower anymore.
What’s worse than being on the list of enemies of the world’s greatest military power? You’d be tempted to say: being its friend, given Donald Trump’s recent outbursts directed toward states with whom the U.S. is supposed to be allied.
The experience Canada, Mexico and Europe have had under American trade policy, where they’re routinely threatened with new punitive tariffs, is now falling on countries whose security Washington has guaranteed for decades or that are currently supporting the U.S. The U.S. president’s spontaneous decision to significantly scale back the annual military exercises with South Korea because they’re supposedly too expensive and might anger his friend Kim Jong Un has caused massive unease across East Asia. Japan and Taiwan also rely on the U.S.’ military shield — offered to the region in different ways — for their defense. That trust is now being eroded more and more each day. North Korea’s tyrant is being wooed, while democratic South Korea is feeling Trump’s wrath because it, with good reason, refused to get involved in the war with Iran.
There’s no strategy behind this — just the bad temper of an irrational narcissist who has maneuvered himself and his country into a highly awkward predicament through his own incompetence. Even Trump likely knows that the war with the regime in Tehran, despite America’s military dominance, is lost and the country has almost no chance of emerging from this mess with its dignity intact. That makes him angry, unpredictable and dangerous.
Crude Bomb Threats
Oman is now bearing the brunt of this. Trump has hurled crude threats of bombing at the country because the Gulf state is willing to be a mediator in the conflict but refuses to act as a subordinate receiving orders. Omanis don’t have to fear an immediate U.S. strike; Trump was once again just saying whatever popped into his head. But they must also recognize that Trump’s America is utterly unreliable and that this administration is prepared to coldly leave its allies in the lurch at any moment.
Every other Arab country, including long-time U.S. partner Saudi Arabia, should know this by now. And even Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has for almost a decade used his relationship with Trump as a domestic trump card, must fear Trump’s retaliation for having persuaded him to attack Iran. The once rock-solid alliance between the U.S. and Israel is increasingly fractured, and not just among Democrats.
As if from the Mind of George Orwell
Speculation is already mounting that Trump could take a similar policy of appeasement toward Iran as the one he has applied to North Korea: accept its nuclear program and, at the expense of the U.S.’ traditional allies — and of the country’s oppressed populace — offer friendship to the mullahs. What George Orwell conceived of 80 years ago is entirely in keeping with this president’s character.
What’s worse than being on the list of enemies of the world’s greatest military power? You’d be tempted to say: being its friend, given Donald Trump’s recent outbursts directed toward states with whom the U.S. is supposed to be allied.
The experience Canada, Mexico and Europe have had under American trade policy, where they’re routinely threatened with new punitive tariffs, is now falling on countries whose security Washington has guaranteed for decades or that are currently supporting the U.S. The U.S. president’s spontaneous decision to significantly scale back the annual military exercises with South Korea because they’re supposedly too expensive and might anger his friend Kim Jong Un has caused massive unease across East Asia. Japan and Taiwan also rely on the U.S.’ military shield — offered to the region in different ways — for their defense. That trust is now being eroded more and more each day. North Korea’s tyrant is being wooed, while democratic South Korea is feeling Trump’s wrath because it, with good reason, refused to get involved in the war with Iran.
There’s no strategy behind this — just the bad temper of an irrational narcissist who has maneuvered himself and his country into a highly awkward predicament through his own incompetence. Even Trump likely knows that the war with the regime in Tehran, despite America’s military dominance, is lost and the country has almost no chance of emerging from this mess with its dignity intact. That makes him angry, unpredictable and dangerous.
Crude Bomb Threats
Oman is now bearing the brunt of this. Trump has hurled crude threats of bombing at the country because the Gulf state is willing to be a mediator in the conflict but refuses to act as a subordinate receiving orders. Omanis don’t have to fear an immediate U.S. strike; Trump was once again just saying whatever popped into his head. But they must also recognize that Trump’s America is utterly unreliable and that this administration is prepared to coldly leave its allies in the lurch at any moment.
Every other Arab country, including long-time U.S. partner Saudi Arabia, should know this by now. And even Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has for almost a decade used his relationship with Trump as a domestic trump card, must fear Trump’s retaliation for having persuaded him to attack Iran. The once rock-solid alliance between the U.S. and Israel is increasingly fractured, and not just among Democrats.
As if from the Mind of George Orwell
Speculation is already mounting that Trump could take a similar policy of appeasement toward Iran as the one he has applied to North Korea: accept its nuclear program and, at the expense of the U.S.’ traditional allies — and of the country’s oppressed populace — offer friendship to the mullahs. What George Orwell conceived of 80 years ago is entirely in keeping with this president’s character.
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