Trump Foreign Policy
November 11, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
This week, President Trump will welcome Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan to the White House. The visit is a coup for Erdogan. It enables him to show that he got his way in Syria at the expense of America’s main partner in the fight against ISIS, yet remains in Trump’s good graces. Thus, there is no doubt as to why Erdogan agreed to come here. But why did Trump reward Erdogan
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November 10, 2019 — Scott Johnson
On the FOX News Sunday gabfest this morning, Karl Rove made the salient point that I highlighted here, quoting Byron York. Rove put it this way (my transcription): I love, I love the fact that the Democrats are now decrying the president’s decision not to move aid, lethal aid, rapidly to Ukraine. After all, the previous administration, a Democratic administration, did nothing to send lethal aid to Ukraine — and
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November 8, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
I have tried to provide some coverage of the mass anti-Iran protests in Iraq and the anti-Hezbollah protests in Lebanon. Taken together, they can plausibly be viewed as a “revolt against Iran.” Caroline Glick argues that the mass protests are the product of President Trump’s tough economic sanctions against Iran. She writes: The sanctions are one of the causes of the protests in both Lebanon and Iraq. Due to the
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November 8, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Byron York has a valuable column that in its own way exposes the malicious duplicity behind the Democrats’ current impeachment initiative. It appears under the headline “Testimony: How Trump helped Ukraine.” This is the opening: One notable and little-reported conclusion emerging from the House Democratic impeachment proceedings is a consensus among some foreign policy professionals that President Trump’s Ukraine policy has been an improvement over President Barack Obama’s. Ukraine was
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October 31, 2019 — Steven Hayward
Forget the photoshopped medal of honor for the Hero Dog: When the media takes in the conversation below between President Trump and Nigel Farage, they are going to flip out more than a Sea World dolphin on cocaine. I ran into Farage once very early in the morning when we were both checking out of the discreet Washington hotel that we both like to frequent, and although we had a
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October 28, 2019 — John Hinderaker
The London Times is a liberal and virulently anti-Trump newspaper. But its obituary of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi stands in sharp contrast to the ridiculous product of the Washington Post, which we and pretty much everyone else have ridiculed. The London Times obituary is a good reminder of how evil al-Baghdadi was. It begins: The catalogue of car bombs, shooting and suicide attacks wreaked over recent years in the name of
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October 17, 2019 — John Hinderaker
I don’t pretend to understand what has been going on in northern Syria in the last week or so. My understanding is that Turkey has limited objectives in the area that are not entirely illegitimate, that the handful of troops that we had in the area couldn’t have stopped the Turkish advance, and that President Trump pulled our troops out of harm’s way in recognition of the inevitable. But that
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October 15, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
President Trump says he will raise tariffs on Turkish steel due to Turkey’s invasion of Syria. He will also halt negotiations on a trade deal. In addition, certain Turkish ministers associated with the invasion will be sanctioned. Trump notes that “Turkey’s military offensive is endangering civilians and threatens peace, security and stability in the region.” The result, he adds, is a “humanitarian crisis” that “Turkey does not seem to be
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October 13, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, I noted that as a result of President Trump’s decision to pull back U.S. troops from northeastern Syria, raids against ISIS in other parts of Syria have been curtailed. Today comes word of other adverse consequences. One is Turkish atrocities and, perhaps, war crimes. Allahpundit at Hot Air has the relevant links for those with the stomach to check them out. In the age of “America First,” we’re no
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October 13, 2019 — Scott Johnson
I have found Michael Doran to be one of our most insightful analysts of American foreign policy in the Middle East. See, for example, his 2015 Mosaic essay “Obama’s secret Iran strategy” or any of his many other Mosaic essays posted here. Doran does not find the choices available to President Trump in Syria as simple as does the chorus from whom we have heard over the past week. Perhaps
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October 12, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post reports that the Turkish invasion of northeastern Syria has forced the U.S. military and its Kurdish allies to curtail significantly their shared military operations against ISIS. The Kurds, under attack by their deadly enemy, have turned their attention to defending themselves from the Turks. Reportedly, hundreds of Kurdish-led fighters with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have relocated to the front lines of the fight with Turkey, and
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October 12, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Defenders of President Trump’s decision to remove U.S. troops from a portion of Syria, thereby enabling Turkey to have at the Kurds, make a number of arguments in favor of that move. I don’t find any of them persuasive, but some are better than others. The worst argument I know of comes from Trump himself. He points out that the Kurds didn’t help us at Normandy. He’s right, they didn’t.
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October 12, 2019 — John Hinderaker
What the Democrats fear most is happening: President Trump and his negotiating team are reaching wide-ranging agreements with China that will be a huge boon to the United States. In an Oval Office press conference yesterday, President Trump and China’s Vice Premier announced a Phase 1 set of agreements that will be documented over the next several weeks. The video of the press conference is embedded below; Trump’s performance was
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October 11, 2019 — John Hinderaker
Liberals’ foreign policy views are inconsistent, but entirely predictable: whatever a Republican president does, they oppose. Thus, Democrats applauded when President Obama prematurely withdrew American troops from Iraq, enabling the rise of ISIS. But when President Trump pulled a few hundred out of Syria, it was: OMG! The Kurds! James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation and the Institute of World Politics gave an interview to the Daily Signal that gives
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October 7, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Late yesterday, the White House announced that U.S. forces in northeastern Syria will stand down. This clears the way for Turkey to attack the Kurdish forces who fought alongside American troops in defeating ISIS (for the moment). Turkish President Erdogan, no friend of the U.S. and certainly no reliable partner, says that American troops have already started moving out of the area. Approximately 1,000 of them have been stationed there.
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October 6, 2019 — John Hinderaker
Paul wrote here about a selection of text exchanges among American diplomats that Adam Schiff released on Thursday. Politico, a reliable narrator of the Democratic Party line, termed the texts “explosive.” Politico highlights this one, from then-Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker, dated July 25, the day when President Trump spoke on the phone with President Zelensky: Politico tells us that “This is a key exchange that Democrats are likely
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September 28, 2019 — John Hinderaker
It is not news to anyone who reads this site that the Democrats have gone around the bend. But their latest attack on the Trump administration, based on the fact that transcripts of Trump’s conversations with foreign leaders have been kept on a secure server, is perhaps the most insane yet. Conversations between our president and foreign heads of state on a secure server? I should hope so! Where else
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