Trump has only been in office for five months, but he has quickly managed to smash up a bunch of things. One of those things is the relationship with Europe, which has been in place since the end of the Cold War. By walking away from Project Ukraine, he is putting the world on notice that things will never be the same between the United States and the rest of the NATO countries.
Something similar seems to be developing in the Middle East. He went for the homerun shot against Iran, but that failed, leaving the region on the edge of war and Israel scrambling to avoid Iranian missiles. Trump is left with two terrible choices, either of which probably breaks the old order in the region. He can launch and attack that probably fails or cut a deal, either option looks like a loss.
There is the third option to commit to a long air war against Iran, but you do not win wars with just air power. That was the lesson of Iraq. It took a million-man army to topple the regime. Iran is bigger, tougher, and more stable than Iraq under Saddam, so toppling the government will be much more difficult. The long air war would most likely be a very expensive failure.
The way things currently sit, the end result of this Iran - Israel war will be a new security arrangement in the Middle East. Israel will not be able to threaten her neighbors, expecting the United States to cash the checks she writes. That will be a revolutionary change in a region that needs it. Whatever it looks like in the end, it will be the result of Trump smashing and breaking things.
That is the show this week. As with so many other things, Trump is not the man with a plan, but a man with a hammer. He breaks the old stuff, often by his mere existence, but this opens the way for new stuff. He has broken the political order in Washington and now that he has real power, he is breaking the order abroad. He is the Mule, the destroyer of worlds, bringing the end of empire.
This Week's Show
Contents
Intro
Trumps Foreign Policy
Project Ukraine
Israel
China
Fast Versus Slow
Trump’s Legacy
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