President Trump’s foreign policy often appears to make little sense, and that’s exactly why it works.
If it wasn’t before, the United States is now “unpredictable,” said Gerard Araud, the former French ambassador to the U.S. Araud was responding to Trump’s decision to order the killing of Iranian terrorist leader Qassem Soleimani — a decision that at first glance seemed to contradict Trump’s vow to end “endless wars.” Trump has said one thing, and then acted in a completely different manner, and now it’s hard to determine what Trump’s strategy is, if there even is one, Araud explained.
“The Americans are now totally unpredictable,” Araud said. “There was no response to Iranian attacks against oil tankers, a U.S. drone, and Saudi oil fields, but out of the blue comes this surprising hit on Soleimani. We are depending on the unpredictable reaction of one man.”
Araud, of course, did not intend to compliment Trump’s foreign policy. But that’s exactly what he did. Trump’s chaos is itself a deterrent, and Soleimani’s death was a clear message to Iran that if the regime tries to act against U.S. interests again, there will be severe, unpredictable consequences.
It’s reminiscent of the old Nixonian “madman theory,” when former President Richard Nixon warned communist leaders that “the madman was loose” and that he’d do anything to win the Vietnam War. It had its faults, of course, but this strategy did help the Nixon administration force the North Vietnamese government’s hand.
Employing this strategy is risky for obvious reasons, and it might still backfire. Iran has promised severe retaliation, withdrew completely from its nuclear concessions (though it’s not as if it followed NATO’s guidelines before), and the U.S. urged American citizens to leave the region. But the good news is Trump has surrounded himself with experienced men who practice more discernment than he does. The bad news is that even they have a hard time restraining Trump from being Trump.
It seems the president has taken the “madman theory” a bit too seriously, taking to Twitter to livestream his thought process to the world and threatening Iran repeatedly.
Not only is this unpresidential, but it’s also foolish.
The thing that makes an unpredictable strategy good is its unpredictability, and vowing to sanction Iran’s economy into oblivion and then letting the regime know in advance that the U.S. has targeted dozens of its cultural sites undermines the whole thing.
At perilous times such as these, people want to know that their safety and well-being are in the hands of a capable man, and Trump’s conduct is not reassuring. Still, there is a benefit to having an unpredictable president. It’s worked with North Korea (to a certain extent) and China, and it might just work with Iran. Let’s hope it does.
