Electioneering is over. It is time to begin consideration of how to translate the winning campaign’s discussions and promises into policy alternatives. While foreign relations did not receive this consideration during the campaign and debates, the successful candidate made certain statements and promises. Some will be dismissed as electioneering gambits, others as genuine. The American people know from experience that their political system does not rise or fall on any one individual, because we have a system that is built on institutions, laws, and on tested traditions. Although our President is very influential in charting directions and proposing policies, and has tremendous sources of power at his disposal, he is not a dictator.
In the arena of foreign relations, we expect President Trump to adhere to a conservative line as outlined in this publication back in May. A conservative foreign policy supports a strong military, but does not necessarily support a large, expensive, or wasteful military. A conservative foreign policy does not support perpetual war, as practiced by the administrations of George W. Bush and Barak Obama. It supports necessary wars, after all other non-violent means to resolve international conflicts are exhausted. A conservative policy respects our men and women in uniform by not assigning them tasks for which they were not trained, such as occupation of foreign lands or carrying out policies of social engineering of other societies. A conservative policy does not believe that we should be waging wars on credit; we should budget for wars, discuss publicly how to finance them, and consider rationally both the costs and the returns on our investment in war. Conservatives should not condone waging war on credit. The U.S. national debt is large and getting larger. Current debt is expected to grow to somewhere between 80 and 200 trillion over the next 75 years. Congress has been lax in disclosing “unfunded obligations,” including the cost of wars. It is important to insist on disclosing unfunded costs, including those of the security state and foreign wars. Even without including the costs of war, conservatives will have to deal in the coming generations with solutions to the national debt issues, likely involving severe increases in taxes and severe cuts in expenditures.
As a businessman, President-elect Trump is known as a pragmatist and a realist. A pragmatic policy is based on facts and on reason. It faces the world as it is, not as it should be. It considers national interest and national power as an aim and means of fulfillment. It distinguishes vital national interests from lesser interests. A rational policy is a realist policy. A realist policy would allow American citizens to pursue safe and productive lives. A realist policy trusts its diplomats to achieve national interest objectives before calling on the generals.
As a realist the President must have a comprehensive view of the country’s national interest. One of George W. Bush’s drawbacks was his vague conception of this idea. Before going into Iraq he could have listened to an Illinois state senator who opposed the coming war because attacking Saddam was not a vital national interest. Then State Senator Barack Obama said:
I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein; he is a brutal man, a ruthless man. But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States or to his neighbors. I know that the invasion of Iraq, without a clear rationale and without strong international support, will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than the best, impulses in the Arab World, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.
As president, Mr. Trump may define U.S. interest wisely and rationally, or he may not be more rational than any other unwise or untrained individual. The public should, as a minimum, be told what or whose interest the President may be serving. The President should protect the national interest, rather that of a given individual, corporation, or even a minority of the nation. If the President, who is charged with conduct of foreign transactions, errs and telescopes the interest of a fraction to substitute for national interest, he should be held accountable.
A pragmatist president would cast a long and serious look at the accomplishments and failures of other recent presidents. Candidate Trump spent much time and effort criticizing Presidents George W. Bush and Barak Obama. We have every rightful expectation that President Trump does not wish to duplicate their errors. One common critique of both presidents is their disregard for constitutional or legislative limits on presidential power to wage war. Much of the blame can be ascribed to Congress in abdicating its responsibility, but the presidents are not without blame. President Bush established and dissolved war-related agencies, and spent tax monies on them, without seeking or obtaining Congressional approval. Both presidents may have violated U.S. and international laws in treatment of civilians in occupied lands.
The most important lessons to be learned from the Bush venture in Iraq should not be forgotten or ignored by President Trump. He and he alone can save this nation decades of regret, thousands of casualties, and billions of dollars. The lessons from Iraq do not require that President Trump become a pacifist or isolationist. They do require that he become less of an interventionist. There is no justification in this century, if there was any ever before, for occupation of other people, destroying other states’ capability to function, dismembering other countries without input from their own people, or dictating who should or should not rule in foreign lands. We as Americans can be proud of our brand of democracy, but we do not have the right, or perhaps the power, to impose our system on others with our guns.
President Trump will inherit at least eight active wars. A rational approach to policy assumes that President Trump will not want to increase this number. His task will be whether to continue Obama’s wars, reduce their number, or end them all. He could have help in making his decisions if he tried the criteria advocated by Barak Obama before becoming president: Is this war posing an imminent threat to the United States? What is the overarching U.S. national interest in this war? Can U.S. objectives be substantially realized without war, destruction, and mayhem? How President Trump answers these questions will go a long way to defining his presidency.
In addition, President Trump will have to follow up on some directions of policy that he emphasized during the campaign. The most important will be how to manage U.S. relations with Russia. He would do well to shift the center of dialogue, at least in U.S. media, away from Vladimir Putin. Our relations are with Russia, not a Trump-Putin preserve. It may be that our media have long described state-to-state relations solely in terms of the individual heading a state. The harm done to our understanding of international relations through personification of conflicts is significant. Libya was more than Qaddafi; Syria is more than Bashar al-Assad; the Palestinians are more than Yasser Arafat, and Iraq is more than Saddam Hussein. Concentrating on one person obfuscates significant issues in any conflict. Opposing a “bad guy” may end up doing more damage to U.S. interests than dealing with him. Improving the atmosphere surrounding U.S.-Russia relations will be welcome, and would likely go a long way to making each American feel safer.
One key issue deals with renegotiating international trade agreements. President Trump will have strong public and political support as he pursues this goal. As he negotiates trade agreement he faces the dilemma of sounding more globalist, which many of his supporters did not like in Mr. Trump’s political opponents. The U.S. cannot retreat from international engagement in trade, or from providing leadership in the areas of international finance and trade. It would be demanding on his administration to actually generate jobs for U.S. workers, as he promised during the campaign. The future negotiating team will have to be exceptionally talented.
Related to this is the matter of a multi-national agreement with Iran, considered by many as Obama’s biggest accomplishment in foreign affairs. It would not be easy to pivot away from the position taken during the campaign, but reality demands that the next administration continue to support the agreement, while also trying to involve Iran in solving regional problems, or expanding U.S.-Iran trade. Regardless of how the future president feels about the pact, its unilateral abrogation will not sit well with other signatories, including America’s strongest allies. It would not strengthen international trust in U.S. commitments, but would begin a downward cycle of action-counter action by Iran. And who knows where that would lead.
Finally, U.S. relations with Europe remain pivotal and must be handled with care. Candidate Trump sent shivers within Europe when he questioned U.S. commitment to NATO. The Candidate may have been correct in questioning NATO’s role and its method of financing, but President Trump would need to come up with plans for the future of NATO, especially if NATO is to lose its anti-Russian reason for existing. A new role for NATO should not include transforming NATO into an arm of European neo-colonialism, or European efforts to subjugate African and Middle East people. New finance models include several that would reduce U.S. burden, but each may involve decreasing U.S. influence as U.S. contributions lessen. But the most difficult issue may relate to placement of NATO troops on Russia’s borders. To improve relations with Russia, it may be necessary to reverse NATO’s forward expansion.
During President Trump’s tenure, some U.S. allies in Europe and the Middle East are more than likely to urge U.S. military action on their behalf, while claiming that their interests are U.S. interests. Thus, being dragged yet again into another’s war is more than a possibility. Saudi attack on neighboring Yemen will end in the Saudis’ claim that America’s interests, be they fighting terror or limiting Iranian influence, demand American military intervention. The new U.S. client state for the Kurds is likely to do the same, claiming Turkish, Iraqi, or Syrian aggression. Other situations are likely to test the new president’s zeal for his allies.
There are other serious issues that received minimal attention during the campaign. One is the India-Pakistan confrontation that threatens to engulf both states in extensive violence, perhaps even including nuclear weapons. The U.S. would do well to remain a friend of both. Economic and security issues relating to China will remain high on the agenda; President Trump will need to navigate the complexity of relations with China with extreme care. Dealing with North Korea will be with us for years to come. Another issue that was mentioned briefly was the issue of peace in the Holy Land. Candidate Trump indicated his willingness to listen to all sides and to play the role of the peacemaker, to be unmercifully attacked for not taking sides. The failure of presidents Bush and Obama in advancing the cause of peace did not make America safer or more respected. For the leader of the most powerful nation to claim that he has no influence on resolving this conflict is an embarrassment to all Americans. The conflict is at the heart of instability in the Arab East, and one of the main impetuses for terrorism. President Trump will assure himself of a historic triumph if he could help resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict.
High on the next president’s list of problems will be the so-called “war on terror.” The war on terror has been a conduit for expanding the powers of government, and for increased allocations to security agencies that are not transparent to the public. Conservatives who believe in an open government, limited government, and in the Bill of Rights, may want to reconsider how this “war” is being conducted. Many recent wars in the developing world have been confused in the public mind with fighting terrorism, while in truth they could be efforts by certain U.S. allies to re-establish their own brand of neo-colonial dominance over countries that were previously colonies of European powers. The Bush and Obama administrations alike seem to have casually opted for supporting the neo-colonial powers, and conservatives would do well to renounce this trend and to assert the proclaimed American view, stated in the Declaration of Independence, that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” meaning that neo-colonial powers have no privileged position in managing other peoples’ affairs. Conservatives can go back to the position adopted by the Eisenhower Administration, that the U.S. would fight fascism or extremism but would not fight to preserve colonial dominance over others. Conservatives can also help ensure that the U.S. itself would not become a neo-colonial power; as Booker T. Washington said, “you can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.”
While engaging in the war on terror, we have to rely on President Trump to make sure that conflict with militant Muslims does not drag the U.S. into a global religious war. Advocates of such a war are among his supporters., and he must resist their urging for religious war. Our president-elect would do well to recall the policy of our first president, who set the basis of his government policy in his August 21, 1790 letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, in which he affirmed what he told other religious organizations; that the new country would preserve the right to worship “each according to his conscience and his god.” In that letter, President George Washington affirmed that “the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.” The president can’t go wrong in reminding those folks that the U.S. is composed of many religions, that Americans believe in the separation of church and state, and that everyone is entitled to freedom of worship. President Washington wrote that this right is not a matter of tolerance of one group to others. Freedom of worship, says the First President, is an inherent natural right. Our policy should not demean the religion of others nor declare another religion as an enemy of the United States. President Trump would be on the right side of history if he affirms that no one has the right to impose his beliefs on others.
Speaking of the war on terror, President Trump may have to walk back some of the statements that Candidate Trump made. As candidate for the presidency of the U.S., he promised to reintroduce “water boarding and more” in the fight against terrorism. As president he will realize that water boarding is not the most efficient way to obtain information, nor is it humane. It also violates both U.S. and international laws.
Candidate Trump promised to garner more international respect for America. Belief in the U.S. as a dominant world power should not drive him or fellow Americans into arrogance, nor generate undue fear. America is “the most influential and productive nation in the world,” as President Dwight Eisenhower stated in his farewell address on January 17, 1961. President Eisenhower continued: “Undoubtedly proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America’s leadership and prestige depend not mostly upon our unmatched material progress, but on how we use power in the interest of world peace and human betterment.”
Dr. Fuad K. Suleiman holds a doctorate in International Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School, Tufts and Harvard universities. He worked for over three decades on behalf of several U.S. government agencies in sixteen Arab countries, most recently Iraq.
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