Hell Is Repetition:

Trump Foreign Policy Delusions Stretch Back to Obama, Bush, Clinton Eras

Rasa - It is said, if you repeat something enough times, you will learn it. That's how it works. Not for the “establishment foreign policy” in war capital Washington.

News ID: 428077

Date: 11 March 2017 - 23:54

RNA - There, President Donald Trump is doomed to a foreign policy failure that will repeat itself again and again, as did all previous presidents, for US foreign policy delusions are static things, colonial readings of already written papers. Whereas some politicians in other parts of the world are fortunate to repeat a good pattern, in the United States they have the opposite luck. You can surely see by now that by doing the exact same thing Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton did, Trump’s (alternative universe) presidency is still doomed to this same humiliation and error, this same endlessly repeated pattern.

It is wishful thinking, therefore, to expect the new White House tenant to analyze and correct America’s past mistakes before they paralyze his own future and legacy. He won’t kick out the past errors of the “establishment foreign policy”. As previously, the past foreign policy mistakes will always crave for repetition:

1- Things are going south in the Muslim world. President Trump has gone with the Christian-Zionist establishment’s paranoid hatred of Islam. He has signed an executive order banning Muslims and refugees from travelling to the United States. He has also given the go-ahead to the Pentagon regime to escalate the permanent War on Islam, predominantly in Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan.

2- Trump argues that this is for America’s security and that America is “exceptional”. This ruse, this sense of exceptionalism also existed during the Bush presidency, when he bragged about “Mission Accomplished” in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is now a failed state wracked by war. Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya are also major jumping off places for millions of refugees fleeing America’s wars of aggression and deceit.

3- We can trace the roots of this criminal policy in Syria as well; that America’s mission was to “bring democracy and freedom”. The regime change campaign is many times being accompanied by stupendous violence and terror. Those who designed the campaign neither accept responsibility nor change course. This means after Obama the “old hands” didn’t leave war capital Washington.

4- There are no differences between “establishment foreign policy” officials and Pentagon regime war-makers. They are one and the same. They all talk about military escalations in Syria and Yemen; they all lust for land wars with Iran, Russia and China. They argue that they must challenge Iran, Russia and China “before it’s too late”. They warn that accepting spheres of influence in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Ukraine and South China Sea “is a recipe for disaster”.

5- The failed wars on Syria and Yemen have served as an excuse for a frustrated Trump and neocon establishment to break the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 (US, Britain, France, China, Russia plus Germany). He has “put Iran on notice” and threatened to tear up the nuclear deal as he believes “it was a disastrous deal”. Despite that threat, Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the rest of the international community are still forging ahead trying to secure it. Further, Iran has no intention to “renegotiate”. This is because the US owes a lot to Iran in compliance with its undertakings under the deal and any renegotiating or rescinding of the nuclear deal could eventually lead to fresh sanctions being put in place, while setting back the country’s oil and gas sector, with a corresponding knock-on effect on global oil production and supply.

6- For the first time in modern history, Russia has a hostile military alliance on its borders, including American soldiers. Exactly how this gives America “greater security” from its alleged Russian and Iranian enemies in the West isn’t clear. Similarly, the Trump administration gives no evidence of Beijing’s designs on South China Sea, although one assumes he is talking about the artificial islands China has built or the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Since that trade and security grouping includes China, India, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan - Iran has also applied for membership - exactly how China would “dominate” those countries is not clear either.

One wonders through what looking glass the Trumpsters and the Pentagon regime officials view the world. They do not worry about correcting America’s foreign policy blunders – they expect time will bury them. They also worry about not repeating them – the United Nations won’t do a damn thing about it. In the end, though, the war criminals are no match for the international civil society. On Trump’s own account, “The US has squandered trillions of dollars on military operations in the Middle East over the past two decades without winning any of the wars. We never win, and we don't fight to win.”

Perhaps Trump thinks he is different. Perhaps he wants a fresh start only because Obama, Bush and Clinton didn’t sufficiently care for the last fresh starts. Perhaps he is thinks that America’s war machine and institutions are still superior in a multi-polar world. Whatever he thinks, it still doesn’t change the fact that he is equally doomed to repeat the same failed delusion and increasingly the same unenforceable foreign policy of dominating the world.

Trump should be worried. America has had too many “unaccomplished missions”. Constant practices, deliberate repetitions and uninterrupted blunders does in no way mean unlike his predecessors he can still go from zero to hero. Lest he forgets, hell is repetition. He can go over and over and over. That's hell.

847/940