mwdegutis Loc: Illinois

Jordan Schachtel ~ December 28, 2017
President Trump came into the Oval Office without much experience in the foreign policy realm. However, he has been able to accomplish some major initiatives this year, working toward slamming the door shut on Barack Obama’s disastrous foreign policy.

Here are 10 of President Trump’s best foreign policy moves in year one of his tenure:

1. Sticking it to the United Nations.
The totalitarian menaces at the United Nations are finally facing consequences for turning Turtle Bay into an anti-American h**efest. Last week, over 100 nations challenged the sovereignty of the United States, v****g to condemn America for where it places its embassy in Israel. President Trump and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley decided that enough was enough and that the United States would no longer act as the world’s piñata. They slashed U.N. funding by ten percent, starting next year.

2. Recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
For years, Republican and Democratic administrations have promised to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. And for years, each administration has reneged on those promises. President Trump not only recognized Jerusalem, he has also ordered the State Department to begin the process of moving the embassy.

3. Turning up the pressure on Iran.
In October, President Trump imposed crippling sanctions on Iran’s militant Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The IRGC is charged with exporting Iran’s revolutionary fundamentalist ideology worldwide. It is responsible for sending bombs into Iraq that have taken the lives of approximately 500 U.S. service members there, according to military officials. Moreover, the IRGC coordinates with groups like Hezbollah to plot terror attacks against Americans.

4. Calling out Qatar for funding terror.
The tiny Gulf state of Qatar has become a regional menace. Even though it still hosts an American military base, Doha officials continue to prop up terrorist groups like Hamas, al Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood. President Trump has attempted to hold Qatar accountable for terror financing.

5. Releasing a comprehensive national security strategy.
Just before the end of the year, President Trump released a Reaganesque national security strategy that called for a return to “peace through strength.” It properly identified North Korea, China, Iran, Russia, and Sunni jihadist groups as the top U.S. adversaries, while also including a battle plan for how the U.S. strategy must defeat the ideas of our chief enemies.

6. Breaking free from the “peace process” cartel.
For years, foreign policy “experts” in Washington retained a complete monopoly on how best to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. The wisdom of the peace process cartel was never to be questioned, for fear of being labeled an extremist. Yet decades have passed, and efforts to impose a two-state solution have entirely failed. President Trump has made it clear that he is not attached to any particular ideology. A stalwart ally of Israel, he remains open to a variety of solutions involving disputed territories in the West Bank (or Judea and Samaria).

7. Recognizing the rapidly shifting world alliance structure.
The world as we know it is rapidly changing. Gulf nations are quietly accepting the fact that Israel is here to stay and that teaming up to tackle Iranian expansion is the right move. Western Europe continues to import millions of migrants, who are rapidly changing the culture of countries with thousands of years of history. At the same time, some Eastern European nations remain steadfast to their heritage and to the values of the West, rejecting the importation of migrants. North Korea and Iran continue to get closer to the bomb. Turkey, ostensibly a NATO ally, looks more and more like an adversary each day. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and others are in the midst of an unforeseen battle against Islamic totalitarianism. And the list goes on.

President Trump entered the White House offering a blank slate to the nations of the world. He may find that by the end of his term, the U.S. may have more in common with countries like Georgia and Poland than, say, France and Germany.

8. Defeating ISIS.
President Trump campaigned on delivering a crushing blow to ISIS. He has made good on that promise. According to defense officials, ISIS now has less than 1,000 fighters left on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq.

9. Getting serious about East Asia.
Both China and North Korea have gotten the upper hand over U.S. diplomats and policy makers for the entirety of the 21st century thus far, and even before that. Thanks to appeasement-minded policies of the past several administrations, North Korea now has a sophisticated nuclear program. Additionally, China continues to steal billions of dollars of U.S. intellectual property and government secrets. President Trump has taken a more aggressive line on North Korea and has pledged not to accept a status quo that allows China to continue to leverage its trade relationship with the U.S. and undermine America’s standing in the world.

10. Fighting the bureaucracy.
The unchecked behemoth that is the civil service bureaucracy, which some refer to as the “deep state,” has acted to undermine the president’s agenda time and time again. The vast majority of government employees are l*****t partisans, particularly in the 99-percent Democrat-populated State Department. President Trump recognizes this reality and has constantly raised awareness about the need to call out these unelected bureaucrats who seek to impose their own agenda on America.

We gave you President Trump’s best foreign policy maneuvers, and now it’s time to constructively criticize the first year of the Trump administration. Here are President Trump’s biggest foreign policy missteps in year one.

1. Delivering the Middle East to Iran.
President Trump should be applauded for swiftly defeating the Islamic State terror group. But in doing so, the U.S.-led coalition rolled out the red carpet for Iran to take over the region. The lack of strategic thinking has led to a situation in which the caliphatist regime in Tehran now asserts primary control over Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and other regional actors.

2. Continuing the never-ending whack-a-mole strategy.
President Trump’s new national security strategy promises to rededicate efforts in the ideological battlespace. Let’s hope his team follows through with that agenda. In year one, the president continued to play an Obama-era strategy of jihadi whack-a-mole in several nations. Instead of going after the global jihadist ideology, the American strategy instead targets specific groups.

3. Letting the Muslim Brotherhood off the hook.
The Muslim Brotherhood has become a global menace, serving as the chief incubator for jihadist groups worldwide. Its alumni include a who’s who of terror masterminds, like Osama bin Laden and ISIS “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Yet, for reasons unknown, the Trump administration has not chosen to designate the Brotherhood, or any of its affiliates (other than Hamas), as terrorist organizations.

4. Appointing weak cabinet officials.
New to The Swamp, President Trump appointed cabinet officials whom he thought would carry out the mandate upon which he was duly elected. But in Washington, government officials play by different rules. Rex Tillerson has acted as a rogue secretary of state, while other top officials have attempted to convince the president to betray his chief campaign promises. But the president has largely ignored their advice, as he’s targeted Iran, left the Paris climate accords, and recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, contrary to the advice of many cabinet members.

5. Continuing to stay close with Erdogan’s Turkey.
Turkey has abandoned the legacy of its secular founding and moves further and further toward an Islamic totalitarian model that promotes policies antithetical to U.S. interests. Not only does Ankara routinely violate the human rights of its own citizens, but the Erdogan regime has cozied up with American adversaries such as Iran and Russia.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of our supposed NATO ally, shows no respect for America and its laws. Several times this year, his security detail attacked peaceful demonstrators who were protesting Turkey’s policies. In August, 15 members of his security detail were charged in U.S. courts for committing several acts of violence.

6. Keeping a U.S. presence in Qatar.
Qatar continues to support Sunni jihadist groups and the Iranian regime, but U.S. policy has not reflected the fact that the small Gulf state is acting in opposition to American interests. So long as Al Udeid Air Base remains a central point for U.S. personnel, Qatar can use U.S. backing as a shield while it fans the flames of terror throughout the region.

7. Abandoning the Kurds.
In September, over 90 percent of Iraqi Kurds v**ed for a referendum in favor of declaring an independent state of Kurdistan. At CR, we argued that a Kurdistan in northern Iraq would blossom into a secular, capitalist democracy that would become a stalwart ally of the United States and a partner against radical Islamic terror.

Kurdish statehood ambitions have not come to fruition, after the State Department waged a forceful campaign backing the central government in Baghdad. Now, Iraq remains a centralized sectarian authority that continues to move further into Iran’s orbit.

8. No progress on the wall.
We’re almost one full year into the Trump administration, and there hasn’t been any progress on the president’s campaign promise to build a wall to enhance U.S. border security. An unprotected southern border creates a massive vulnerability in our national security.

9. Letting the courts control immigration policy.
Federal court rulings continue to usurp the commander-in-chief’s power to secure the nation. Some have argued that the president has not taken an aggressive enough line in battling back against rogue courts that are forcing the U.S. to absorb Middle Eastern migrants.

10. Keeping the Iran deal (for now).
Though the commander-in-chief has done a tremendous amount to ramp up the pressure on Iran and its proxy in Hezbollah, President Trump has not yet decided to leave the Iran nuclear deal for good. He faces another waiver deadline on January 15. Will the president continue to punt the decision, or will he axe the deal once and for all?