"Let's run it up the flagpole and see if it floats"
16
Dang! I like this quote so much I'm saving it in my OneNotes.
"Color me dubious that a president who has not been able to manage his confrontation with a stripper, or prevent leaks in his White House, can manage a multifront strategy for confronting Iran and North Korea and trade wars with China, Europe and Mexico."
33
When you go for revenge, dig two graves. C.
12
America's nightmare: The constant trashing of the President of the United States by the Left.
7
Obama supported the regime change in Syria and Libya which brought nothing but misery. Sorry Friedman but as usual you are dead wrong.
4
Trump really does not have or believe in grand strategies unless it puts attention on his grandiose ideas of himself. All of his actions since becoming POTUS have been to trash President Obama! In the process he has done irreparable damage to America and our standing in the world!
18
Using his Oxford idioms I would say since Friedman talks through his hat I hope Trump will make him eat it one day!
6
The Iran deal -
- Barack the Desperate's big push to have accomplished SOMETHING, ANYTHING in the international area other than creating ISIS -
- was a disaster from day one.
Not only did Obama NOT ask the Senate to vote on and approve it, thus making it binding, but NO ONE representing the mullahs in the Khameini regime in Tehran ever bothered to sign it.
Any fitie president would have had to ditch this mistake, just as any foture presidnt would have ditched the Paris ''Accords.''
Of course the next patriotic President, Trump, would do away with them. But does he speak with flowery language like Obama? No, he's an honest man.
4
Much of what 45 does is to out-do Obama, who has a Nobel. What worries me is how far 45 will go to appease Un because he believes an agreement to denuclearize North Korea will guarantee him the same prize. (Nobel Committee, if you’re reading, please don’t!)
4
Trump, enjoy while you can and may you have many years of retirement to watch your legacy get torn apart by the next generation of intelligent politicians. Karma is a great equalizer. p9p
10
To paraphrase a calm, but astute commenter, "Trump probably could not find any Arab country on a map, and would not know the West Bank from West Palm Beach. He think he has all the strings while he is being pulled." Delusional, paranoid, and destructive Presidencies are new to most Americans. We are all learning our own miserable fate in due time. Unreasoned government is no government at all. Europe should run as far away as they can for the next three years and just work hard keeping China at arm's length. The mess in the Middle East is all ours now and Trump has never washed a pot in his life.
11
I have a lot of respect for President Obama. He is now a private citizen and should speak out against Donald Trump’s intent to destroy the country. I don’t understand his silence.
Donald Trump is Not Trashing President Obama. He is trashing the country. It will take decades to clean up the mess he will leave behind.
11
There is another dimension of Trump's "un-deal-making" and that is the reaction of China. Let us recall that it was Obama's "deal" with China that created the foundation for the Paris Climate Accord.
And China was a player in the Iran Nuclear deal. And then there was Trump's bad-mouthing of China during the campaign and his effort to start a "trade war" against China.
So, in all of these activities Trump is effectively poking a stick in China's eye. At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I suspect that China is likely behind the "playing of Trump" with respect to the North Korean "summit". They probably schooled Kim Jung Un to throw that "sucker punch" ... and it looks like Trump has gone down for the count.
The media doesn't seem to be paying enough attention to what China may be doing in the background .... in response to Trump's "pullout" of the Iran nuclear deal and other similar situations. That could be the "real" story here .... We'll see.
4
"In late October, in response to questions from The Times, law enforcement officials acknowledged the investigation but urged restraint. They said they had scrutinized some of Mr. Trump’s advisers but had found no proof of any involvement with Russian hacking. The resulting article, on Oct. 31, reflected that caution and said that agents had uncovered no “conclusive or direct link between Mr. Trump and the Russian government.”
The key fact of the article — that the F.B.I. had opened a broad investigation into possible links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign — was published in the 10th paragraph.
2
Saudi Arabia has been criticized for its actions in Yemen, but not “censured.” In fact they have been supported and applauded in official circles. Look at the treatment of the Shiite minority in Saudi Arabia and the majority in Bahrain to see why Shiites in your so-called “Sunni world” welcome Iranian intervention. And remember that it was Saudi Arabia that begat 9/11, Al Qaeda and the numerous forms of Sunni extremism wreaking havoc from Indonesia and the Philippines to North Africa and Europe. Further restrictions on Iranian behavior would be great, but we cannot leave the Arab world at the mercy of the Saudis and their allies.
5
I have my fair share of criticism of MJr. Friedman, but I don't usually find him wrong on the basic facts. This time he is, and he, a supposed Middle East maven should know better.
If there is one Muslim country in the Middle East ripe for democracy it is Iran. In the 1950s Iran had a home grown democracy, and democratically elected Mossadegh, a secular Iranian nationalist who had the temerity to believe that Iran's oil should, first and foremost, benefit its people, not Western oil companies. The US engineered a coup that destroyed Iranian democracy, and returned the country to absolute monarchy. The old rule "you broke it you fix it" should apply. The US broke Iranian democracy, so it has the responsibility to fix it.
To say I'm no fan of Trump is an understatement, but in this case he is right. Obama's foreign policy was a disaster, and created the conditions that enabled the ethnic cleansing of Syria's Sunni population (before civil war were 70% of population, now 50%-55%), the empowerment of Iran, the demise of Turkish democracy at the hands of Erdogan, and the rise of Russia as the regional power.
11
I'm sorry, but what allowed Iran to take over Iraq was the neocon Bush invasion, combined with a total lack of strategy to deal with the after-Saddam Hussein era - including firing the entire Iraqi army all while opening Iraq's borders.
THAT's when Al Qaeda and Iran massively entered the country, remember? And when the highly trained former Iraqi army generals saw the pity state of AQ militants, they've decided to create ISIS.
All this happened long before Obama took over.
What Obama did was to obtain the very first negotiations with Iran, AND to make them abandon their nuclear weapons facilities for at least ten years.
Anyone who can't appreciate what a huge US victory that has been, clearly doesn't know anything about the history of the Middle East.
Apparently you know that indeed, it was US meddling that created the Iranian theocracy in the first place. That's better than knowing nothing. But you fail to conclude the obvious: that for Iran, the only way to be certain to not undergo the horrible war that the US inflicted on the Iraqi people, is to build a nuclear weapons, and as fast as possible.
THAT's why it was so extremely difficult to obtain something like the current Iran deal, which is a clear win-win situation for both the West and Iran.
So how can you call this a "disaster"? Any concrete arguments?
10
You got it all correct excpt that the Mossadegh coup was Britain's idea to prop up British Petroleum's profit picture - after they'd realized how inordinately expensive producing petroleum in Iran was going to be.
This was around the time Great Britain was speedily becoming known simply as ''Britain.''
1
Friedman understands the art of negotiations, which was clear when he wrote that secy of State Shultz would ask an Arab merchant the price of a rug and then say ok, I'll take it. While Shultz was reprimanded for not bargaining, Friedman reprimands Trump for bargaining. (And Friedman et al never gave Netanyahu the freedom to bargain, which was the best, and only, chance for peace via a neo-Oslo.)
Huh?
2
With all respect, you don't seem to get it.
There already has BEEN a bargaining. The result has been that Iran gave up nuclear weapons for an entire decade, which is a huge win for us and a very bad thing for them. In return, we'd end only those sanctions that had to do with their nuclear weapons program, and no longer isolate them diplomatically, which was a serious win for them.
This was actually the very first time that America managed to get Iran to the negotiating table, and to obtain a deal that addresses the most important of our worries (a nuclear arms race in the extremely unstable Middle East).
It was also a step by step approach: first you deal with the most difficult issue to get a deal on (nuclear weapons), and then you PROOF that you can be trusted for 2-3 years, which then lays the foundation for addressing the other things on the US wish list.
For the first time since Iran exists, even US inspectors have now proven, it indeed respects the agreement.
That means that IF American can prove to do so too, enough mutual trust will soon be built to start addressing the other issues.
Trump, however (or rather the neocons now dictating foreign policy in the WH again), decided to go back to the previous, failed strategies (= wanting IMMEDIATELY a comprehensive deal), the main difference being that now he has proven that no, the US cannot possibly be trusted. Signing an agreement as US president actually doesn't mean anything.
So how will this achieve something?
28
Once again we are reminded that we have a tragically unprepared and dangerously unprincipled ‘fake’ president who is an unabashed leech and an unrepentant liar. He should have seen that pulling out of the TPP gives China an open field to play in. He should recognize that withdrawing from NAFTA will harm many of the very people he claims to champion. He should understand that protecting dying industries to preserve jobs restrains the overall economy.
14
This article is pretty much right on, revealing Trump's jealousy and hatred of the nation's first non-white president. But as much to blame for Trump and the Republicans' effort to undue the legacy of Obama are we, Americans, who refuse to call a spade a spade. Trump and his Republican allies are bound and determined to send a message to both minorities and women that only white males can successfully lead the country. That's why it's so important for them to undermine, eradicate, or erase all the successes Obama engineered. That's why they hated Hillary so much, and still revile her today. In the end we all will be the worse. Obama won the election fair and square, with millions of white votes. This is what America is supposed to be about. What Thomas Jefferson and other Founding Fathers envisioned when they created the U.S. Constitution. Mr. Obama put his heart and soul into making the nation better, avoided scandal or disgrace, even though Republicans turned up every stone to find wrongdoing, and left us a proud legacy. His FLOTUS and children were also exemplary. We should not allow Trump and his supporters to rewrite history and make Obama a failure.
18
A small man who represents small men with lots of money.
7
Do you think Russia and China would have agreed?
1
Whenever Trump does that “stay tuned, I’m so unpredictable” thing about his decisions, I always know what it’s going to be—whatever will undo an Obama action. He’s both so predictable and so petty. What a fragile ego. Where Obama was gracious, calm, reasoned, and informed, Trump is rude, rash, impulsive and ignorant. Trump revels in his low-brow crudeness, but what really eats at him is that he can never have the class Obama has. Please do not give him credit for understanding one iota of the issues swirling around the Middle East. When McMasters reduced his briefing to bullets, the order was, fewer bullets.
12
"It is true that Iran has projected its power deep into the Arab world. But that was not because of money it got from the nuclear deal and sanctions relief, as argued by Trump & friends. It was because of the weakness of the Sunni Arab states and their internecine fighting, which created power vacuums that Iran has filled with its network of Shiite proxies."..... Friedman makes some good points, but the above is VERY out of step with the rest of the article. Are we 'blaming the victims here'? After all, these countries were so weak, can we really expect Iran not to take over?.. Yes. Yes, we can; it's called international law. How would Iran have projected power on these Arab states without the money Obama gave them? It's not a 'Trump & friends' conspiracy unless you maintain that giving Iran billions of dollars/euros/francs did nothing to aid their terror activities (hint: it did). Comically, I hear people mocking the North Korea deal (agreed, it won't work) while bemoaning the poor, moderate Iranian clerics simply trying to resist Trump. We literally made a deal with Iran to stop their nuclear weapons program that they said didn't exist! Ok... if it doesn't exist, why not just accept inspections unilaterally? What 'moderate' country wouldn't? These are rogue states people... You can't negotiate with them, you can't appease them. There is only one solution: choke them with sanctions until they die. Sorry to all. Kumbayas, giveaways, and diplomacy won't always work!
3
Problem with sanctions is: they hardly ever work. Usually they prolong the regime they are intended to undermine. What does affect regime change is typically changes within the general population. And those changes usually come from increased economic activity coupled with growth in prosperity. Fifteen years of no sanctions in a country with as much push back against authority as exists today in Iran might have seen great change. Sanctions harden the hard-liners. Always.
3
To the contrary, the sanctions were working very well in the case of Iran. It might harden the hardliners but it will eventually force some change.
2
In fact, Iran has complied with all inspections, including some that were not mandatory as verified completely by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which conducts the inspections. Look it up!
6
"...an outlier region...a toxic brew of religious extremism, tribalism, oil, corruption, climate change and mis-governance..." actually sounds like an apt description of the current White House/administration.
4
Mr. Friedman, you state "Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates get censured for contributing to the humanitarian crisis in Yemen."
This statement is false. Nobody is censuring them. Saudi Arabia and their UAE mercenaries are committing crimes against humanity every bit as bad as those of Bashar al Assad. They blockade food deliveries to a country that is starving and bomb hospitals and schools. These actions by so-called Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are not merely sanctioned but applauded by his eager dupes, Donald Trump and Jared Kushner. Under their misrule, the United States has become the active accomplice of a murderous regime as bad as any on this planet.
Dan Kravitz
10
United States government and it's citizenry have history of speaking with a fork-tongue.
2
It seems to me that trashing a former president and a deal that took a lot of thought and negotiation without understanding the deal, the impacts and the possible repercussions says more about Trump than has been written till now, Mr. Friedman.
Trump is like a petulant five year old who likes to smash things and then wonders why he no longer has toys to play with and no one really likes him.
This is further demonstration of how unsuited Trump is and how undisciplined his understanding of how things work. No strategy, no team, no vision.
Does he think that Iran will cower? Does he not realize that NK will see the US cannot be trusted? Is the plan to make the same deal with NK as with Iran? Good luck with that.
What will be gained I wonder. I see us not being taken seriously but the world being wary of our bluster.
I also think that in the end the world will see how easily it is to play Trump, flatter him and walk away from every deal as the winner.
Trump could have taken advantage from the moment. Instead he looks the fool who keeps crying 'wolf' without actually seeing or smelling one.
3
"Color me dubious that a president who has not been able to manage his confrontation with a stripper, or prevent leaks in his White House, can manage a multifront strategy for confronting Iran and North Korea and trade wars with China, Europe and Mexico."
Mr. Friedman you do not have to be "dubious" of President Trump's ability to manage all of the international problems he has created. All you have to do is remember how he solved the problem he created by sanctioning the Chinese telecom company ZTE. He sanctioned the company on one day and then ask the Treasury Department to look for ways for ZTE to avoid the sanctions.
We will have to wait to see which department(s)/individual(s) will walk behind the elephant sweeping up behind the mess.
4
Thank you, Tom Friedman. You've explained how the US could have saved the deal, maintained our credibility and honor, and not made ourselves outlier. Backing out of the Iran deal without a strategy going forward is more than feckless, it's tragic. Building on the Iran deal and working toward strengthening our peaceful relationship with Iran while standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the other participants was a world-class opportunity. We blew it, bigly.
3
I’m guessing this puts the kibosh on Trump’s “Make The Nobel Peace Prize Great Again” campaign.
4
John Bolton, the war-whisperer, is helping Trump make bad decisions along with Pompeo.
5
Although we shall see, so far your recent projections are wrong, e.g., your adoration of MBS. Trump IS winning on each of the fronts you mention, Iran, Korea, China and Europe and Mexico, so your feckless criticism (driven by your fawning veneration of Obama) is, once again, quite unreliable. The world is not flat.
2
Trump is only winning in the dreams of MAGA-head myopic supporters.
11
No - This is what you call winning?
2
Please list your Democrat presidents who got North Korea to stop lesting nuclear weapons, got China to back down on trade restrictions, and got Mexico to stop or slow illegal immigrours coming up from Honduras.
OBTW, ANY government in Tehran will be better than the despotic killers running Iran today.
BLAME EVERYTHING ON IRAN.
American Foriegn policy in Middle East-- Democrats " We hate Iran and love Israel" --Republicans "We love Israel more and hate Iran much more".
2
There's something basically wrong with a political system whose provincial voter interests can give a golf club king license to be a bull in the global china shop, which will require many years to repair. One step forward (Obama), two steps back.
14
...By the way, since I never receive email notifications anymore for thoughtful comments posted, I should conclude that I don't know what thoughtful comments are, i.e., that this reader's efforts to be useful are always rejected. Sorry to be a disappointment.
1
Now and then you need to reset the checkmark that enables the e-mail to be sent. Look to see if it is checked before your next posting.
Friedman has it all wrong. He is afraid to challenge any Trump assumption. Why is Iran "the most dangerous actor in the Middle East" and not ISIS? Iran did not build and support the hateful Madrases all over the Muslim world that gave birth to Al Qaeda an ISIS, Sunni Saudi Arabia did.
Iran may be projecting its power into some Arab nations in its backyard. So what. Maybe it can bring a semblance of security and an end to suicidal Jihad-ism. It is their neighborhood, like Central America was and is ours.
Even if all of the other signatories to the Iran Agreement agreed to renegotiate the deal in the hope of including a limit on ballistic missiles and an extra 10 years on enriching uranium, why on earth would Iran agree. A deal is a deal. Trump can understand that at least. You can't come back to the table after you signed the deal and ask for more.
It is too late now. The United States is out, the UK, France, Germany, Russia, China, the UN and the EU are in. Trump can resume all the sanctions he wants and the rest of the world, save Israel and Saudi Arabia will ignore them. America First will become America Alone. Nice work Donald.
5
The few "accomplishments" of the Trump administration are thanks to others (Trump, as usual, taking credit).
This is because Trump has only two talents: one, as a sales/con man, and two, as a destroyer of other's accomplishments.
It's a lot easier to destroy, than to build -- and Trump has been a huge failure in that dept (bankruptcies, con schemes, etc etc etc.)---and he can't even do those things successfully!
9
As cynical as it may seem, withdrawing from the JCPA was a major step for Trump's plan to eradicate the world of the presidency of Barrack Obama. Many of the actions taken by DJ Trump to undo the decisions and regulations of the previous administration will incur the greatest damage to his own country, my country. However, blowing up an international agreement without heeding the advice of his peers, other world leaders, has much more far reaching negative consequences. Once again, we are witnessing the little boy who plays at being "presidential."
4
I've been waiting for some observations on the steadily increasing price of oil since Mr. Trump has been in office. The improvement of the overall economy beginning during the Obama years, has resulted in consumers apparently being willing to pay more at the pump. It seems obvious that we need to ask who the beneficiaries are of these price increases? Is it the usual suspects? Is this another pattern?
6
A dream of a demagog/ narcissist that we all are going to pay for with a war!!! How sad......
Excellent summary of Trump's withdrawing from the Iran deal, but then you go on to propose a totally one sided deal where the U.S. and its allies get three things and Iran gets.... nothing. Maybe they get "Trump off their back," at least until the next day he talks to Fox and Friends.
That's not far from Trump's version of 'you give us all we want, we give you nothing.' A real transformational deal would have to include stopping Saudis aggression, including us stopping sending them weapons, and some guarantees- real ones- that neither the US or Israel would either bomb or invade Iran.
Then, with no threat from outside, internal democratization of Iran (already way beyond our pals, the Saudis) becomes possible, though difficult, and foreign meddling becomes less necessary on the part of Iran.
7
I couldn't agree more.
The very reason why Obama had been able, as first US president, to get Iran to the table and negotiate, and then even obtain a win-win deal, is because as a community organizer, he was trained in creating common ground among people who before the talks start don't have any common interests, and without common interest you can't negotiate or obtain a deal.
And the only way to create common ground is to START from the observation that both sides are different, so are living different realities, and having different interests.
Obtaining a POLITICAL deal, rather than a business deal, means having been able to adopt the perspective of the other side long enough to understand HOW to write a compromise deal that benefits both sides.
What Friedman is doing here is akin to the NYT editorial yesterday calling the US a "neutral" mediator in the Israel-Palestinian conflict ... it's forgetting that our actions in the past haven't been neutral AT ALL for the other side, and quite on the contrary, often extremely harmful.
I have a lot of respect for the NYT, but its op-eds and editorials about foreign policy remain astonishingly one-sided and based on incomplete information.
That's also why Obama was able to achieve so much, internationally, and even after the Bush disaster: he truly was a "community organizer", in his heart, and that was his most important skill and experience - including, by the way, when it came to dealing with Congress.
6
Very good point re the difference between political deals and business deals, and Obama's past as a political organizer.
And, of course, I couldn't agree more with your couldn't agree more with me!
Tom Friedman's "Trump's Dream Come True" (May 15) is spot on. Trump obviously wants to white-out everything Obama did (pun intended). No room for gray in Trump's world; black and white decisions will do just fine. It would have been so logical to build on Obama's Iran Deal, except that, to use a mixed idiom, he was able to "kill two birds with one Tweet." There can be nothing logical when Trump's underlying motivations are pathological - the need to disrupt, to divide, to bring disorder to a world hungering for order. Jeb Bush predicted a "chaos president," and we got it. Problem is, there's already enough of that going around -- especially in the Middle East. My favorite of Tom's mixed idioms is, "We'll burn that bridge when we come to it." So which bridge is next? We're already witnessing another bridge being burned, in Israel. Middle East peace? "Fuhgettaboutit" says the Don. You want to throw salt in a wound (no mixed idioms needed), the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem just happens to coincide with, you got it, the first week of Ramadan! And you wonder why they're protesting violently in Gaza? "Two peas in a cess-pod." That's my mixed-idiom for the two leaders who, in this ignominious moment, are shaking hands while the rest of the world is shaking a fist at both Israel and the U.S. As a rabbi said to me, "Only Trump and Bibi could be so insensitive to lives lost and the death of peace."
6
Yes Obama was wonderful, but he's not the president anymore. Memories is all Democrats have, and it shows.
1
Actually it was a hat trick. He trashed Obama, threw our European allies under the bus and did yet another bidding of Sheldon Adelson.
9
Is "color me dubious" another example of a mixed up idiom?
1
Bibi Netanyahu will not be satisfied unless he has the full force of the U.S. Military behind him on his excursions against Iran, I for one don't want my tax dollars or my fellow American Military being used as Bibi's Mercenary Force.
12
Israel is already the 51st state of America, considering how much military aid it receives. Much more than our towns and schools receive?
1
Trump has no philosophy. He is a scavenger, snorting around for bargains. He sells his father's name and success while expanding both through the world of television, which creates personas and discards them at will.
4
Good thing that "Lying in it" is something Trump knows how to do!
3
Why has no one pointed out that it is Israel that is the nuclear armed power in the Mid -East, with a capacity of perhaps several hundred nuclear weapons developed in secret and in stealth decades ago? See Avner Cohen "Israel and the Bomb".
Trump won't be happy until he has eradicated everything that Obama has done, as if Obama was never President! And he is succeeding.
6
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a.k.a. the Iran Nuclear Deal, is 159 pages. Defense Secretary Mattis, who supported it, claims to have read the document three times. Is there some independent, verifiable way to determine if Trump read it even once (and understood it)? It would shock me if he did.
4
" Is there some independent, verifiable way to determine if Trump read it even once (and understood it)? It would shock me if he did"....
.... manage to read the cover page.
2
There in no " treaty" As with most of his other governance, President Obama made it up as he went along.Obama issued executive orders because the Congress and the people would not agree to his bad policies: Iran, DACA, Paris accord, utility regulations, etc. Plus the scandals at the IRS and " Fast and Furious" which the people in his administration were let off the hook.
Trump is tough to take but he always obeys the courts and the law.
3
In 1953 a CIA coup d'état toppled a democratically-elected government in Iran and installed a puppet king who ruled for 25 years. That is the legacy of the US and the root of the current animosity and ubiquitous cries of "down with America" in that country. Based on that history, one has to ask: Is Mr. Trump planning to initiate another regime change in Iran and set into motion another 70 years of animosity and hatred of America and Americans?
I strongly believe that the current regime has survived largely because many Iranians, being extremely nationalistic, are supporting it for they are convinced that the US is planning to invade their country. There is a much higher chance that the Iranians throw out the current regime themselves, if there was no sanctions and if they were allowed to join the international community and improve their economy.
As things stands, the Iranians consider the survival of their country to be much more important than getting rid of corruption or arguing whether a religious authority has the right qualification for managing a country of 80 million in the twenty-first century.
10
Should West Asia then have only nation with nuclear arms? But you are right, Mr. Friedman. Mr. Trump's main goal seems to be trashing Mr. Obama. He cannot get Mr. Obama off the list of US presidents but he can try to get rid of his legacies. Well, two can play this game in a democratic country. Some day, the Democrats will win. We just hope we will go back to the days of "political correctness" as a step towards gracious acceptance of a rainbow USA.
Our only hope is the mid term elections and new strategies for regaining a respected leadership role on the world stage. If the House flips I suggest Democrats follow that age-old strategy "strike while they are changing horses in mid-stream".
5
Mr. Friedman, Iran already has nuclear missiles that can reach the southernmost parts of Europe. Why would it be worthwhile to now demand that they not have missiles to reach Europe? They're going to scrap existing missiles and their technology? Putting the fear of America and its military into the existing government, which is not going to be overthrown anytime soon, and which may well have a desire to go up in flames straight to heaven, is the only way to prevent a nuclear confrontation in the Middle East. Not fantasizing about better deals.
The deadly combination of his massive fragile ego with his also massive deficit in understanding complex matters will not bode well for the rest of us. The only way to reason with him is marginalize him on trade and treaty matters revealing him for the laughingstock and pariah he has become.
5
Trump is showing how good he is at diplomacy, foreign relations, and his unparalleled expertise in the Middle East.
He's equal parts spiteful, headstrong, and feckless.
But he nailed it back when he campaigned; he promised there would be so much "winning," we'd eventually get sick of all that "winning."
With gasoline prices at or headed towards $3.00 a gallon, I for one am weary from all that "winning."
2
Trump can never destroy Obama’s legacy. That legacy was established the day Obama left office. What Trump can destroy is the what resulted from Obama’s legacy, and that will be Trump’s legacy - the destruction of a better world and a dream for tomorrrow.
13
Trump is unfit to be president and his attacks on Obama's record shows just how insecure he truly is.
As to his attack on Iran, he's put the USA in a bad place as no other country will be able to take our word on anything knowing full well we can be trusted, at least while Trump is president.
5
I think that Trump's action will bring the Strait of Hormuz back into the news media. Let's face it folks our only true national interest in the mid-east is OIL and topped off by Israel's backers in the US who fund elections
1
This column contains one error: it lists regime change as a final option for U.S. relations with Iran. Regime change is what Trump and his new minion, John Bolton, say is their aim. The punitive actions they are taking are intended to hasten this outcome.
The downside -- and it is a major, serious downside -- is that fomenting regime change within Iran could result in the deaths of thousands upon thousands of citizens as part of a brutal crackdown. Think Syria and you'll see where this is headed.
Trump's exit from the Iranian nuclear deal will be seen in retrospect as a tragic miscalculation.
2
"Trump’s Dream Come True: Trashing Obama and Iran in One Move"
Mr. Trump is a petty, vengeful, superficial man. To get his petty revenge, not only he is depriving millions of innocent Iranians from their livelihood, but he is endangering the lives of many Americans. It is doubtful that he has the mental capacity to realize that he is risking a major war with foreseeable and unforeseen consequences for the Middle East and the US.
It would be foolish to expect anything else from such an egotistical, mean-spirited man?
14
Trumps only goal as president, is to erase any reminders of the first African American president. Everything he does and says not only falls within this narrative, but is a dog whistle to the racist leanings of his supporters.
17
A vicious evil vengeful man trump
Who will not be happy until he has destroyed every democratic institution here and around the world.
9
I can't wait to read trump's next book, "The Art of the Dealbreaker"
5
Color you dubious? You, sir, may have just gone down as the most dubious person in history. You have hit the proverbial nail more squarely on it's proverbial head than it has ever been hit prior. Proveriably, or non-proverbially. I laughed out loud. Brilliant.
2
Thomas, you are preaching to the choir. The past President May have occasionally looked to you for counsel but the current looks to Sean Hannity. We’re doomed.
5
“It was a transactional deal that kept Iran’s latent nuclear capabilities latent — not a grand bargain, not a transformational breakthrough encompassing all of Iran’s objectionable behavior,” said Robert Litwak..."
Since when has ANY nation been subjected to an agreement encompassing the cessation of ALL of it's objectionable behaviour (much of which, is in the eye of the Beholder)
Many Countries rightly or wrongly, for better or worse...
...have done or do wrong and would never accept another Nation or group of Nations demanding it must cease all of it's objectionable behaviour..
Especially when this Expectational Demand is coming from America despite Iran's adherence to the Treaty /Agreement's onerous demands and requirements.
Vietnam, Korea, Laos, Cambodia, Iraq and Afganistan have had at least 2-3 Million Civilians killed by American military actions mostly initiated and justifying so many fatalities.
Instigating Regime change in Iran and installing the Shah as well as the same covert actions in numerous South American and Caribbean Countries
Breaking the Geneva Convention by use of Torture and denying the earliest Human Right first recognised of Habeas Corpus denied Detainees in a part of Cuba first wrested from Spain in a War waged 120 years ago and not returned to the sovereign Country it legally belongs to.
I would think of all Countries, America has shown , displayed and carried out objectionable behavior that makes all else and others pale in comparison.
8
Let's see, Mr. Friedman, who i have a lot of respect for, as chief negotiator on Iran proposes: 25 years, sanctions on missiles, and let's just talk about confronting Iran on military aggression. Wait, what was that last one?
And how can he (Trump) handle so much at once. First, so much at once is always the case for the Pres. of the U.S. Obama handled it well; that Bush and Trump were both unprepared was evident to all, and yet they were elected. (OK, Bush wasn't and Trump was installed by the Russians.)
Trump has handled Stormy Daniels episodes well. So far only two, and Mc Dougall is actually likable. Recall also that this is someone who cultivated his image as Playboy of the Western World. He comes to us not from the nyt, but the National Enquirer, who apparently thinks of him as a paid source. No surprises here. It might be informative to interview his golf partner, Bill Clinton. What did they discuss? Did Trump surmise from this that he could continue doing what he always did, and still be Pres.
On N.Korea, there have been articles describing how the negotiations might be an opportunity for them to get out from under the boot of China. This would explain the turn around in accepting Kim. They don't want this, and in their way, have explained that to him. What can overcome this is if both North and South Korea want reunification. The mountain moved 3 meters with the last nuclear test. It is no longer operable; they are not giving up anything there.
I'm often amazed, but not surprised, at how easily lying about and hating Pres. Obama comes to Trump.
9
Nancie: You need to understand that Trump and his base are 100% terrified that, as the country becomes less white, they have to find a way to prevent their power from being lost. They see a country where all their tax dollars will go to welfare for minorities. They view Blacks and Hispanics as unwilling to work and only interested in entitlement programs. They are willing to accept ANYTHING from Trump as long as he prevents Blacks from"taking over". Nothing Obama did, with the exception of the red line in the sand over chemical weapons in Syria, would have been viewed the same way if Obama was white. Period. End of story. The demographics will not change, no matter who the president is. The only thing that will maintain the power structure as it currently exists is for minorities to not vote. Which people like Trump will do everything in their power to make certain happens.
2
Much as I'd hoped for better, in practical terms I can't see how apart from nice rhetoric anything Obama did anything to improve the Mideast...that is apart from gaining an inadequate treaty that so far has enabled Iran to run ragged over other crucial areas of the Mideast. His entire record shows little more than stirring rhetoric resting upon nothing solid, whereas his
only military adventurism in Afghanistan appears to have met the same fate shared by most others who've expended energy there.
The overall effect of his presidency was to absent the US as the leading superpower in the Mideast, just as his initial show of weakness with regard to Ukraine immediately showed the Russians what they could get away with in Syria, where he lacked
even the guts to stand upon his own red lines when it came
to allowing Assad to gas his own people. Nor did he ever insist
the Russians desist from exerting excessive control upon others
by supporting one of the most nefarious dictators on earth.
So Trump or not, the place is more of a mess than it was prior to both Bush2 and Obama, the latter complimenting the first's brawn and sheer stupidity with a show of timidity rare for an American president. This wasn't leadership either from within or without, and in this respect I strongly disagree with Mr. Friedman.
3
The foreign and domestic policies of this administration have one common thread - reversal of whatever was accomplished under Obama through extensive diplomatic efforts, scientific studies and the conclusions of experts in their field. He no ideas beyond trashing Obama's legacy of achievements - kill the Iran deal, kill Obamacare, kill environmental goals and regulations, kill TPP and on and on...
9
A variation on the one for Trump...
"I'll double cross that bridge when I get to it."
8
"there was merit in the deal Obama had forged and to be content with limited, but valuable, fixes that our European allies likely would have embraced."
Funny, but Obama and Kerry insisted their Iran deal was the best they could possibly come up with. Now all of a sudden, there were possible fixes after all, Tom? You mean like not allowing Iran to develop its ICBM capability during the 10-year run-up to the sunset clause that frees it from any further nuclear weapons development restrictions?
As for Litwak's transactional deal, how about this? We make a deal with the Kilauea Volcano that it blows ten years from now rather than today, but it's still allowed to trickle destructive hot lava flows into the area in the meantime. Sounds good? Ready to sign?
And as for Obama's assessment that no one in the Mideast can be trusted, imagine what the leaders in the Mideast feel about him? Though I'm sure the Iranians were impressed by Obama's trustworthiness and steely-eyed skepticism when he signed that flawed deal, handed $150 billion in cash to the mullahs (one Iranian dissident asked recently: Name one school or hospital built with any of that cash), not to mention Obama's claptrap about respecting Iran's "equities" in the region - fancy phrase only Obama could come up with to justify appeasement. Hey, didn't Neville respect Germany's equities in their region, too? How'd that turn out?
When it comes to Mideast duplicity and betrayal including the West, just ask the Kurds.
3
Friedman is right. It is a can of worms. But we all end up lying it in that can of worms, not only Trump. So, for heavens sake, Republican Congress, do whatever you can to oust Trump. Until then, pull yourself and us out of that can of worms. Defy Trump! Negate him. Pass a law that reinstates the Iran deal. Rejoin the Paris Climate Accord.
1
There is no strategy for Trump, who is in ridiculously over his head in world affairs, other than undoing whatever Obama did.
Obama was a builder. Trump is a destroyer. Unfortunately it is quicker and easier to destroy than to create, and we are all going to be left with the rubble for generations to come.
5
All the small petty moves by trump only make him look more pathetic and very sad. The reality tv game show host has no clue about almost anything. The chaos, violence, and hatred he creates will come back to haunt him and US. The US has lost much of it's credibility under trump around the world. He has no moral authority, he has no authority at all..What he is trying to do to Obama will be done to him!
2
The range of predictability in human affairs is short. Events frequently develop unexpectedly. People who cannot free their minds of fears and hopes and preoccupations on a narrow set of concerns will suffer from a tunnel vision that makes them even less able to cope than those who can keep their minds clear. Trump is a person who is a slave to his unenlightened instinctive mind. He will always be lost as President because he never learned to master himself.
One of the facts of life is that each of us will find that as we confront socially relevant issues that who are our allies or adversaries will tend to change with different issues. Thus, even those who may seem to be enemies can be friends in other circumstances. It becomes obvious that we should treat everyone according to the golden rule even when they make us angry.
It’s also the case that often good solutions to common problems are offered by people who have disappointed us. If Trump was wise, he’d consider the usefulness of Obama’s deeds on their merits and deal with them accordingly. By doing so he would make his deeds better rather than just undoing anything done by Obama. But Trump is a textbook stupid person.
2
It's not possible to call out Iran for hegemony when their own experience of American hegemony makes it perfectly clear how America behaves. Now they have another example of how America behaves - disrespecting international deals made by previous administrations. Given that our diplomatic clout is gone, our allies distanced and our military options all but non-existent, all we have is economic pressure. Except nobody is ready for $150/barrel oil again, especially the US, leaving us empty handed. How do you make a deal when you have no cards left to play? In Trump's world you bluff, but unfortunately everybody can see his empty hand.
2
And so it goes: you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him gather moss. A rolling stone gathers no moss, but you can't make it drink.
2
It was because of the weakness of the Sunni Arab states and their internecine fighting, .....
Most of the Cold war, Shiaite governments have been closer to Russia and Sunni ones to US. Arab spring was to set it right, via ‘export democracy’ policy of President Bush, as outlined by Dr. Rice in her speech at university in Egypt. But firm US backing to crackdown by minority government in Bahrain and tacit backing to Egypt military ended Russian trust.
Earlier, Russia had extended cooperation when Afghan access via Pakistan was stalled, and as Ukraine elections installed a pro-US government, the Russian effort to safeguard their only all weather naval base with Crimeia takeover did not receive US legitimacy, that Kissinger had supported. Confused Obama Presidency was not playing principled politics nor real politik.
The distrust and confusion Obama policy bred led to Russia veering towards China, and deploying Iran in proxy play, instability in Syria and exodus from there.
Think President Trump now has a fair chance to undo damage if Russian trust can be regained. The stakes are super high for democratic free world. Russia, however imperfect qualifies to be seen as such, and in the global context is also in western world. A sensible policy that enables democracy to thrive in Middle East can be winner, and it needs sensible deal with Russians, that is now doable, provided it is perceived as fair by them. Breaking the Iran deal, after a year wait, creates this possibility.
Russia has not been nor is a democracy, cannot be counted upon to support democracies, and can be trusted to act in their own self-interest by actively destroying the current political status quo in favor of a return to the level of status and world influence Russia enjoyed from the late 1940s to the late 1970s.
Trump, along with a large number of the Republican party, is either a willing participant in this enterprise, perhaps being promised continued support in maintaining the Republican control of the government, or is being led around like a blind elephant.
The time is running out for Americans to maintain the democracy our parents were born with.
1
In addition, the withdrawal from Iran de-nuclearization essentially does to Europe what Trump claims Europe has done to the U.S. within NATO and China has done to the U.S. with trade, namely take all the benefits of the deal without having to pay for it. The Iran Treaty is today still in force. Europe and China have not ratcheted up sanctions, IAEA inspectors are still allowed into Iran if necessary. The withdrawal says to Iran, "I dare you to break the treaty with Europe and China." It might be a safe gamble at least as far as the nuclear deal goes. Likely to have far greater consequences elsewhere in the ME, particularly since Iran deals almost exclusively via proxies who will do all sorts of terrible things in other countries all with only a tacit but not explicit link to Iran.
Well, let's face it - Trump is not the brightest fish in the shed. He lives by the motto, "There's no time to waste like the present" - which explains all that "Executive Time" spent watching Fox and Friends, and all those golf outings - he has hit the links at his private resorts 108 of 480 days in office. Remember when he said he'd be too busy to play golf if he was elected? That was back when he was trying to convince us that he'd be relying on some good old fashioned elbow juice to "fix" the country - guess he's decided that all work and no play is no fun, presidentially speaking.
Trump wants us to believe that the world is our lobster, but the way he goes about proving that seems more like he's burning all his bridges when he gets to them. He just seems to be cutting off his nose in spite of his face, and playing Russian roulade with our American morals and values.
14
"The U.S. and Europe use diplomacy to spotlight and censure Iran’s “occupations” of Syria, Iraq and Lebanon." Iran is merely attempting to expand its sphere of influence, just like Russia, Israel, or China. Or, the US. In this spirit, how about starting with the Israeli "occupation" of the US, where criticism of Israel is heavily managed and controlled? And looks at what this occupation gets us: the illusion that we share values, and the management of our foreign policy in the region. Obama tried to "pivot" away from the Mideast. Now, the Israelis are dragging us back in, to continue the "creative destruction" of Israel's neighborhood.
4
Upsetting the apple cart in the middle of the road as Trump has done in the Middle East does not result in good apple sauce, but only a mess and slippery roads that others will need to clean up to their own hazard.
George Bush was often described as being incurious, something of a euphemism for not very bright. Little did we know that those would turn out to be the good old days compared to the Trump tenure. The Republicans need to kick it up a notch, maybe two.
2
For all of the whining by and about our European allies on the Iran deal, take a look at the FT or local press. None of the Europeans are upset about nuclear proliferation, ballistic missiles or Hezbollah. They are solely upset about the prospect of U.S. sanctions tripping up their companies that are selling to Iran. That's how far their moral authority goes, to their bottom line. I am glad President Trump blew up this worthless deal that tied our hands from a sanctions perspective while funneling cash to fund ballistic missiles and terror groups. "But, but Irans' nuclear program was delayed!" Maybe, but we'll never know because their military installations were not being inspected. I guess we could take their word for it, right John Kerrry?
Anyway, the press totally ignored John Kerry's criminal attempts to salvage the deal in his meetings with his Iranian friends. The media further ignored his Diplomacy Works effort (funded by who?) where Cindy Sherman and a bunch of Obama retreads fanned out across CNN and MSNBC and berated Trump's action while not disclosing their conspiracy to undermine the administration's diplomatic and national security efforts. Selective outrage by a partisan media for sure.
2
Friedman continues the great Netanyahu myth about Iranian "bad behavior". It is certainly true that the current regime in Iran has serious flaws including human rights, but it is in fact a paragon of virtue in comparison to its neighbors.
Saudi Arabia through its madrasas and money to terrorists is the leading supporter of terrorism i the world . It is responsible for the enormous human catastrophe of death and destruction in Yemen, supported by its US "ally and the other despots of the Gulf States. Through deceit, theft , trickery and covert bribery, Israel became an illegal nuclear power and came close to using those nukes in the early days of the Yom Kippur war.
Iran mistreats some of its dissidents, but eliminated the hated secret police mass jailings, torture and killings which plagued the country under the odious regime of the Shah whom the US illegally installed in power after the coup we created to destroy their democratic government.
The remark about Iran controlling the governments of Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq are simply absurd as any examination of the government policies of those countries clearly shows. The US, on the other hand has surrounded Iran in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Gulf States and the Indian Ocean and Israel constantly threatens to use its immense influence to sucker the US to attack Iran militarily.
1
Trump has no idea what the Iran nuclear deal even embodies. He can't read. He won't listen. The most important aspect of the Iran deal for Trump is that it was consummated by President Obama.
5
Trump might dream of crushing Obama, but all he's managed to do is make most Americans miss the former president even more.
4
It’s time to start the anti-war demonstrations: “No War Against Iran.” Since diplomatic options to keep Iran from getting the Bomb have been rejected, there remains one obvious alternative: war. OK, that’s crazy, but considerations of prudence and sanity didn’t keep us out of Iraq, did it?
One of the problems with the anti-war demonstrations against the Iraq war was that we started too late; after the issue had already been decided, the PR campaign to sell the war to the U.S. public had begun, and the machinery of war had already begun moving the troops around.
Let’s not make that mistake again. Start the anti-war demonstrations NOW.
2
A terrible, terrible action to have taken. How sad.
3
Mr. Friedman , in Middle East parlance , you in the States have a single hump camel, Trump. In Israel we have a two-hump camel- Netanyau and Trump. Consider yourself lucky !
4
Mr. Friedmann leaves out the most important reason why Iran has the amount of influence it does in the Middle East at this time. The Iraq War. Once we invaded Iraq and removed Saddam, we removed any impediments to Iran's extending its influence all the way to Syria. Saddam Hussein's delicate balancing act between sunnis and Shiites was a geo-political block against Iran's influence. We cannot expect that Donald Trump's ham-handed bumbling approach to the Middle East won't do anything other than entrench those positions, and perhaps even increase Iran's influence. The Arab states are weak and corrupt, and do not present any type of threat to Iran with or without nuclear weapons. So all the talk from the Trump Administration with regard to regime change is nothing more than gibberish spouted by the historically ignorant.
8
The ludicrous Shia-Sunni schism boils down to whether or not the next bona fide "prophet" must be a direct descendant of Mohammad, or not.
Iran "getting away with murder?" No. Let's be absolutely clear about Iran's involvement in Syria and Lebanon.
Iran was instrumental in the establishment of Hezbollah in 1980. Hezbollah is first and foremost a Shi'a defense force. The Christian dominated government of Lebanon refused to defend the Shi'a population in the south of the country from Israeli bombardment. The Shi'a leaders appealed to newly revolutionary Iran for aid, and Hezbollah was the result. By 1990 Iran had no effective control over Hezbollah, which had evolved into a political party and welfare organization. It still has to defend Shi'a interests, since the national Lebanese government continues to refuse to do so. This includes preventing ISIS/ISIL/DAESH from gaining the upper hand in Syria, since if they took over the government, they would slaughter the Shi'a community, which they consider to be heretics.
Regarding Syria, Iran has an internationally recognized mutual defense treaty with Syria dating from the Iran-Iraq War lasting from 1980-1988. No one else allied themselves with Iran during this conflict, least of all the United States which supplied intelligence information and alleged chemical weapons to the Iraqis in order to prevent an Iranian victory.
Beyond Syria and Lebanon, Iran has had an on-again, off-again relationship with Hamas and has no proven military involvement with the Zayidi (Houthi) forces in Yemen (who are not "rebels." They ruled Yemen from the 9th Century until the 1970s).
3
Trumps agenda is very simple: if Obama was in favor of something Trump is against it. It is lucky that Obama never expressed favorable opinions about motherhood and honesty.
2
President Trump has been working tirelessly since elected to undo all of Obama’s achievements, but is clearly shining a light on just how much President Obama achieved, ironically that is how history will be written.
6
The electoral college president is incapable of thinking about the country or anyone but his grifter family. He got the headlne on Iran and that was enough. He got the headline on Jerusalem and that was enough. God help whatever else catches his limited attention, because it will be limited in scope. It's the headline.
6
Very good article and yet another example of what those paying attention always knew: trump is one colossal ignoramus propped up by one shockingly anarchic Congress.
4
Trump lives in a dream world where the US can exert its will on everyone in the world. The US cannot even get the Taliban out of Afghanistan.
Trump is also a tragic figure that still needs the prove his victory over everyone and everything. Obama embarrassed him in 2011 and Trump still holds a grudge. Trump is truly pathetic.
3
No doubt Herr Trump seethed when BO was President - for two terms no less. A man of color, an African American to boot, as the most powerful man in the world, while he Donald J Trump was clearly smarter and more deserving. So goes the DJT interior dialogue or something close to it. Without doubt, The Donald’s attempts to eradicate all things Obama spring from a cesspool of hatred and envy. Not sad: Bizarre
3
Trump's preference for unilateral relationships rather than multilateral is in keeping with his nature. If he can't thump his suspenders and claim "I did it! Me alone!", he's not interested. Narcissists hate sharing the spotlight with anyone, so now he's where he wants to be: unilaterally face to face with Iran, with no pesky interference from other nations who "don't count" in what serves him for a mind.
1
"Israel gets censured for implanting settlements deep into the West Bank. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates get censured for contributing to the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. But the Iranians have gotten away with murder, mass murder, at home and abroad — with virtually no censure" - you mean apart from the crippling sanctions? Friedman might want to point out that Iran is and has been compliant with international law as far as enriching uranium goes. The other actors mentioned get censured because they are not.
2
"The U.S. and Europe use diplomacy to spotlight and censure Iran’s “occupations” of Syria, Iraq and Lebanon." Iran is merely attempting to expand its sphere of influence, just like Russia, Israel, or China. Or, the US. In this spirit, how about starting with the Israeli "occupation" of the US, where criticism of Israel is heavily managed and controlled? And looks at what this occupation gets us: the illusion that we share values, and the management of our foreign policy in the region. Obama tried to "pivot" away from the Mideast. Now, the Israelis are dragging us back in, to continue the "creative destruction" of Israel's neighborhood.
1
Shiites comprise about ten percent of all Muslims. Sunnis consider them heretics, and vice versa. The relative sizes of tribes is always a factor in their senses of security.
1
Well this column starts off with a bunch of malarkey - sorry Tom, but Trump gave the Europeans months to fix the deal (tighten inspections), which they did not achieve (and Iran refused) before he pulled out. This was widely reported, even in your own publication.
2
Mr. Friedman, as always, a great analysis.
At first, you are only looking at the Iran deal. Then, you realize there is Obama as well in the picture. Trump's unexplainable hate towards Obama, is appalling. And, there is Netanyahu, who despised Obama as well.
By withdrawing from the Iran deal, Trump was appeasing Israel and Netanyahu.
As you have rightly and correctly pointed out, the best approach for the US would have been to propose a supplement to the original agreement, to include changes that would address our concerns.
At the end, what can be happening is that, we will be isolating ourselves from the world stage. Our allies in Europe are already realizing that it is better for them to guide themselves to the future.
Staying in the Iran deal, would have also helped us to place the necessary checks on Iran. That should have been dealt with separately.
As we speak here, the proposed summit between the US and NK is now facing new challenges. Whether the summit will ever happen, is unclear.
What we are learning here is that, when it comes to foreign policy, we cannot make decisions, unilaterally. We need to work with others, importantly, with our partners and allies. That has always been a strong resource, for both the US and the allies. It looks like that principle and belief is on the decline, and moving away, much to our detriment.
Well and truly said.
Let's hope the leavening of praise for 45 helps bring this clear and cogent illumination of what was at stake to his attention ...
Unfortunately, with Trump, the following seems to capture his worldview: "Is solipsism nonsense, or is it just me?"
In any event, this heedless bit of foreign policy mayhem is unlikely to be "water over the Dam bridge."
TF oughtabe in polítics and/or helping /advising.
But a pundit's work pays better and cetera.
Strategy making isn't enough fun.
BHO deserves respect, while DJT is small-minded and obsessive.
Part of DJT's appeal to his base is smearing the Clinton's too.
With enormous polítical power, DJT behaves comparably to a spoiled heir.
But despite all the bad he's foolishly performed, I could not be against a potus who somehow manages to bring the Korean
península to less scary reality than It feels.
The mid-east crises have never felt worse, so I must hope
there's a benign deity, which is irrational but obviously mankinds ole fashioned tragedy/tradition/fate/emotion/religión.
I hereaby nominate my nutty comments for that nutty museum's
cómic sics, because mine are a scream.
Politics is a very expensive vanity for people who can afford it, or an opportunity to stuff one's pockets with graft if one wants the money.
1
I have always thought that Iranians are Persian and therefore ethnically and historically at odds with the Arab world. Does their Islamic tradition override these "facts" or are my "facts" incorrect?
How about 'shooting from the lip?' Seems to fit Trump to 'T.' In view of his actions during the past year, the president has shown himself to be the 'mouth that roared.' Of course, he has perfected the art of the lie. One could go on.
4
Inflammatory pandering, incendiary rhetoric, and scorched-earth policies without a plan to put out the fire? Trump has made his bed and now has to smoke in it.
2
It is one thing to endeavor to eradicate Barack Obama's legacy, but it is an entirely different thing not to have any intelligent or formidable plan to replace that legacy . This president moves on whims and impulses and knee jerk reactions that are based on who he wants to attack and disavow. He is unpredictable at best and divisively destructive at his worst. Having a president like this in the White House is truly the last thing America needs now.
4
Blowing things up, with no alternative, rather than improving and building upon successes was a choice that was made by U.S. in 2016
1
Scrapping the Iran deal and North Korea’s refusal to denuclearize are linked. When Kim Jung Un saw how worthless America’s agreements are, he said I cannot denuclearize.
There is a long line of foolish denuclearizations in return for worthless treaties with the US. Libya—Quadaffi dead. Ukraine—as soon as the last shipment of enriched uranium was shipped to Russia, Russia invaded Crimea and eastern Ukraine.
How can the US ever convince other nations that its word is not worthless?
134
It can't, as long is it remains under the control of a political party that will not ratify or comply with treaties.
22
And with a party that has been strongly aligned with war profiteers, overtly, if not covertly as "industrial capitalists."
Trump has been trying to destroy Obama froim the outset with the birther business and he has continued the process right up to now where he's willing to destroy anything and anybody who gets in the way of this goal. I've lived long enough and traveled far enough throughout this country to know that notwithstanding the open and obvious vehement hatred of blacks by the KKK and the Neo Nazis and the 35% Trump base they reside in, there is another group of about 30% to 40% that are prejudiced against blacks but they just won't admit it, which brings to 60% to 70% the actual number of people in this country who are bigoted and racist against not only blacks but Hispanics also, and it is this group that were largely responsible for putting Trump in office. They are the "good people" Trump was referring to in the Charlottesville riots. They are also the people who will guarantee Republican victories in November. And as usual the media will be looking on from inside their bubble wondering what happened.
4
If the shoe fits, you can walk a mile in it. But you might not get anywhere. Hopefully we can elect someone without such painful, debilitating bone spurs in a few years.
19
Maybe at every press conference, rally, or meeting with the press, we should ask again and again how his bone spurs are progressing. We don't want it to affect his decision making ability. [hahahahahahahaha]
Did you mean Neronian strategy is not a strategy?
2
"Is Trump going to use U.S. forces to push Iran back? No."
With "Bomb 'em" Bolton involved I wouldn't say a definitive no.
3
When are we going to stop beating around the bush and call Trump out for what he truly is: a deeply deranged, psychotic whose delusions of grandeur and erratic behavior endangers not only US but the World.
His most recently hideous example: his refusal to apologize for and fire a member of his administration for disparaging a genuine war hero, John McCain. McCain and his family, both father and grandfather were Admirals, served our country with honor. John McCain's service to this country served as a template for what any father would be proud say about his own son.
There is no father who could the same about Donald Trump. Trump's entire career was handed to him on a faux gold-plated platter by Daddy. When the going got tough in Vietnam, Trump had Daddy hire a doctor who would sign off on some ridiculous medical malady, five times mind you, preventing his spoiled brat baby from being drafted. Trump has never done anything for anyone, certainly not for God and Country, a country which has rewarded him and his family so generously. Trump is the worse example of we New Yorker's. Trump represents a tourist's nightmare. Trump is "that guy" who any visitor would find so atrocious they would probably refuse to set foot in New York ever again. Instead, these same folks from Flyover Country have been so brainwashed they now see Trump as some savior, some sort of panacea who will solve their problems. Well folks, don't hold your breath.
DD
Manhattan
16
Thank you for a clear and unambiguous assessment of a flawed, mentality I’ll and dangerous individual who has our lives in his very small hands.
1
Well put.
1
Bullies are only happy when they can batter their opponent or victim. They are not interested in compromise or negotiation. Trump acts like a mob boss not a president and certainly not a diplomat. Cook up a storm and carry a big stick.
6
It seems that the US will never be able to disengage in the Middle East. It also seems that the Sunnis and the Shiites will never be able to coexist. A problem from Hell, to borrow a phrase. Meanwhile, the Chinese are building roads, bridges, and harbors in Africa. Whistle while you work, to borrow another phrase.
5
We are living in a dystopian universe lead by a fool. Very unsettling waiting for the unknown future.
2
MR.FRIEDMAN is a good writer and a perceptive observer of world affairs, but fear he is mistaken in his analysis of President's motives for cancelling the IRAN AGREEMENT, which were not entirely a matter of personal vengeance against his predecessor, but based on logic and common sense. If Iran were able to require notice before any inspection, then what would be the purpose, since compromising evidence could be easily concealed in advance. Don't forget either that many of the most advanced and lethal i.e.d.'s were fabricated in the Islamic Republic and how many of our soldiers were victims of these "engins infernals?"Author chooses also to ignore Iran's role in the massacres of SYRIAN civilians by Assad, who is Iran's puppet, and his relentless,systematic extermination of innocent civilians which is a crime against humanity, ongoing, which the Mullahs have not tried to mitigate!Is there not a place for morality in world affairs, especially in this case?Iran deal was never submitted to Senate for approval, so how popular could it have been, and was O's claim that deal was his legacy plausible?Asking NATO member states to pay their fair share is not unreasonable, so why is author so hard on the c-in-c?
1
A jumble of disconnected claims isn't any more a reasoned argument than a jumble of Tweeted rants are a foreign policy.
2
I think Trump, using Putin’s playbook, and no doubt as instructed by members of his Administration, had every intention of disrupting Europe and the US. He’s got 30% of the US completely under the spell of his Propaganda machine, Fox News, that Oligarch Murdoch supplies, and if he creates enough chaos and unrest, he can distract the media and all of us as he and his administration proceed to dismantle the rule of law, thus allowing him to become more powerful and ultimately, like Putin and Russian Oligarchs, to become very rich, too.
2
Though I defer to Tom Friedman's expertise on this subject having started my education on the Middle East in "Beirut to Jerusalem", I take issue with two statements in this article.
First, I agree with the likely motivations of Obama, but I think it is too early to suggest that moderation of the regime "did not happen". We are two years into a deal, that Senator Tom Cotton, amongst others, threatened to tear up. They provided a bogie-man for Iranian hardliners allowing them to control the narrative. The fact that the general population of Iran is generally benign towards the United States means that over 15 years, we may indeed see change.
Secondly, comparing the criticism directed at Israel and Saudi Arabia to the criticism of Iran is a false dichotomy. Both Israel and Saudi Arabia are allies of the US, both receiving substantial financial and moral contributions. Both ought to be criticised, but that criticism is muted. I was unaware that Obama (or any President) has stopped classifying Iran as part of the "Axis of Evil", and until this deal kept under crippling sanctions. How much more criticism could be realistically leveled?
Obama had it right on the Middle East. We're about to get a reminder of what happens when we get it wrong (Bush II) and I only hope we don't waste the lives of young soldiers on this adventure. Again.
5
"But the Iranians have gotten away with murder, mass murder, at home and abroad — with virtually no censure."
And what about (ism) us, the Unites States? What about our reaction to 9/11? How many have we killed? What about the arms we continue to deliver to our proxies in the Middle East?
Aren't we also opposing Iran because of Israel allying with Netanyahu waving his arms in deflection from the Occupation?
9
we are still waiting for war crimes tribunal to indict bush cheney. might be posthumously done.
3
The hype in public relation that Israel and AIPAC profusely tell us that Israel is an angel island surrounded by forces of evil proved all false yesterday.
They think people are stupid and keep buying it?
Regional tide is in favor of Israel but circumstances change.
Milk it while you can because peace and reconciliation is a lost cause.
On many issues I sympathized with Israelis but no more when they vote and keep evil Nethanyahu in office. AIPAC, of course, is a dark force.
6
Trump is the greatest dealmaker of all time. He cares nothing for politics, and wants to make deals that are good for America. He stands up to bullies, and knows how to handle people who are hard to deal with. You dont give concessions, you tell them what they are going to do and hold them accountable. Amazing job, even better than I could have hoped for. Think what could be accomplished if congress actually was on his side and supported his agenda. the dems are lost you cant worry about them, they cater only to the lazy and socialists. America stands with Trump.
1
I disagree comrade.
1
Trump is a complete fraud.
A Mobster. A grifter. A con man.
A tax evader. A bully.
A cheap hood in a chinese made red tie.
His book the art of the deal was a complete fiction made up by his ghost writer. He cheats and lies bigly.
He is in way over his head.
3
How Putinesque!
1
Imagine a poker player who just sweeps up the all the antes and says "game over" after they put their money into the pot. That's what Trump did by pulling out of this deal after Iran made the good faith gesture to hand its stockpile of mildly enriched uranium over to Russia. One cannot make useful bombs out of mildly enriched uranium, but is it much faster to process into bomb-grade concentration after it is enriched to the level of the material Iran handed over.
4
Liked the mixed idioms! Particularly the last one. Wonder if Mr. Friedman remembers Adlai Stevenson's (the "egghead") tongue-in-cheek We jump off that bridge when we get to it.
As a child, remember making such mixtures with my mother, though in another language. One such combines two sayings very much in vogue 60 years ago: The tooth of time has worn it, and The chime of Fate has struck. The combination, translated, reads The tooth of time has struck.
1
Exiting the 'deal' with Iran has given Iran the advantage now.
They are demanding additional financial assurances from, Europe, China and Russia for them not to re-start their nuclear program and stay within the deal.
It has emboldened Iran's expansionist militias since Trump has now driven a wedge between the US, its allies, where there is little way that all the parties can now work together on Global sanctions to halt Iran's missile program and their military expansion. But somehow, Trump and the US media will never admit this mistake, and just find another party to blame.
2
The problem is there’s nobody to root for or support in the Middle East.
If there were any good side, don’t you think that they would either overpower the opposition or attract the neighbors under one big tent, thus pacifying the region and uniting all the people over the last fourteen centuries or two millenniums?
If it were too much to accomplish, God would not have demanded it from us...
While knowing what you do not want has value, this should serve as the launching point for what you do want. What you do want should be an intelligent, well-informed policy which translates into a 2018 world and understands the limitations of the use of force.
I have yet to see any substantive evidence of a foreign policy plan from this administration, nor have we detected any evidence on health care, immigration or infrastructure.
2
This isn't about Iran's nukes. This is about keeping Iran's oil off the market so the Sauds, UAE, Kuwait have the funds to keep themselves afloat and to maintain some military intervention in Syria, which Israel also wants. The problem is that thinking S.A. can be a military proxy for U.S./western interests is an even worse mistake than thinking the Shah of Iran could fill that role fifty years ago. This is going to have a very bad ending. The only good part of it will be that sky high oil prices will give a new push to electric vehicles.
5
You can't burn a candle at both ends when it justifies the means. Trump in a nut(s)shell.
3
If Iran is "occupying" Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon by having troops there is not the United States also occupying Syria and Iraq since we too have troops there? What about Afghanistan and Korea and about fifty other countries? Are we occupying them? Please make an attempt to explain the difference Mr. Friedman - or as an old Commanding General of mine used to put it "grab the bull by the horns and run with it".
3
Mr. Friedman, if your wife's museum has anything to do with grammar, maybe she'd like to feature this:
"If Iran, a country of 80 million people, was to go the way of Syria, it would destabilize the entire Middle East, and refugees would pour into Europe."
Most language enthusiasts would use the subjunctive case:
"If Iran, a country of 80 million people, WERE to go the way of Syria, it would destabilize the entire Middle East, and refugees would pour into Europe."
2
If the goal is never allow Iran to acquire nuclear bombs, then it is better to make sure that Iran agree to a deal that achieve that. The current deal signed by Obama was just a temporary deal to which Iran agreed to get access to billions of dollars. Any country would have signed a deal to get that much money. Here Iran was required to halt only temporarily its nuclear production. Iran never gave its nuclear ambition. In the mean time Iran has been building other tools for bomb delivery and knowhow. Other Arab countries may not have the will or means to keep Iran check, but Trump has a willing and able partner in Israel to check Iran. The combined force of US, Arabs and Israel is a powerful force than can easily check Iran's ambitions, if it does not behave. EU may not have a choice, but to follow Trump in this case.
2
Well, I sure hope Mr. Friedman is right that Trump won't send soldiers into Iran. First, obviously any action would be likely be unilateral. But more importantly, due to Trump's claim the US should have taken the Iraqi oil, the local populace would have to view the US as occupiers. I an only imagine what the soldiers would have to face compared to when they were "liberators" of Iraq.
3
The terrain of Iran is more like Afghanistan, the population four times larger, and the local education and skills vastly more dangerous to an occupier.
4
It's called the We'll See Doctrine.
10
I object to the term "ethnic cleansing", which has never made any country or area cleaner.
A far better term than this silly and painful euphemism is "ethnic removal" or perhaps "forced removal" since it is also used to describe the forced removal of, among others, Sunni's from Syria and Muslims from Myanmar.
3
Every piece of Obama legacy dismantled by Trump takes American Exceptionalism down a peg or two. That's the Trump legacy.
14
This week's Economist says that while Trump may be hoping to renegotiate the nuclear deal with Iran or bring about regime change, he "is more likely to end up with war." Russia and China, the other signatories of the nuclear agreement besides the EU, "may not want to dig Mr. Trump out of the hole he has dug for himself." And even with American help, Israel would not be able to bomb Iran's nuclear ambitions out of existence. "It is had to think of any previous American president tossing aside an international agreement for such poor odds and at such a heavy cost," it concludes. In short, Trump's fixation on destroying Obama's legacy has added yet another stupid mistake to his litany of foreign policy follies.
7
The only way any sane person has anything to do with Trump is when he forces himself into their lives.
1
Yes, electing this feckless and narcissistic con-man for president has already cost us much more than the experiment was worth and already has greatly reduced our national security. I don't know if we as a nation are even capable of collectively taking the obvious lessons from any of this, but either way it will not end well.
6
Excellent logical reasoning, and of all mentioned, two are extremely enlightening:
- Trump has not been able to manage its confrontation with a stripper so how could manage the multifront strategy for confronting Iran and North Korea; and
- the 3rd item of a good agreement - The U.S. and Europe use diplomacy to spotlight and censure Iran's "occupations" of Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.
Please somebody could blow in his ear.
4
Trump's reign following Obama's:
The tunnel at the end of the light.
10
Obama showed us a light at the end of the tunnel. Trump was that train.
4
@cruciform,
You seem to be implying that civilization on this planet is doomed due to Trump...the light at the end of the tunnel into the after life. You just may be correct.
You nailed it. Trump is pretty clueless when it comes to the intricacies of foreign policy and the repercussions of unilateral action and the elegant but often difficult art of diplomacy. It isn't that he doesn't care. He just likes upsetting apple carts for the sake of upsetting them. He's never had such a big stage to "perform" on. This is "you're fired" on steroids. Trump is not mature enough emotionally and intellectually to appreciate Obama's compromises on the Iran deal. Instead, he just wants to eradicate it. Trump is a danger to himself and others.
9
So, it's finally happened. Israel has become exactly what it purported to fight against. Exactly what it was supposed to hate. One more step towards fascism, but labeling ALL critics as anti-semites. Well, now it appears that American Jews disagree with the extreme right government of the so-called "promised land," as well they should. Gaza was never "promised," and should be turned over to the new Palestinian State. Stop murdering innocent dissidents. Go back to democracy. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Israel, you are losing the support of most Americans. Foolish, blithering, glassy-eyed evangelicals are NOT the majority in this country. Be very careful.
8
Clearly the intention is to go to war against Iran, using Israel as the spear point. We´ll come in and do the moping up, as is our wont. It worked out so well in Iraq who wouldn't want a repeat of that performance? With Bolton and Pompeo leading the charge maybe the Christians will get their Armageddon. Hope it´s all they dreamed of, for dream it is.
5
All Iran needs to do is invest in some Trump properties, then Trump will reverse his position---prolly sell some arms to Iran as well.
Pay for play....thy name is Trump.
6
Elevators, airplanes, stock markets, bank balances and yo-yos
go up and down.
Trump goes down and down.
5
Once again, Friedman has hit the nail into Trumps head.
4
Never in the history of the United States has a current President treated the immediate former one with such disrespect and venality! Shame on Donald Trump!!!
10
Totally agree with you Tom. But Trump's a narcissistic, arrogant and yes, ignorant, person. He not only needs to succeed, but he wants to see others fail.
He's ignorant because his judgement is always clouded by his insatiable need for personal gain and constant praise.
3
So we all agree: Trump is acting out of some corrupted sense of self-interest, with his prime motivation being the undoing of everything President Obama achieved, and not in the best interests of our country. This is the President we are taking about... How did this happen?
6
Trashing Obama's mess had to be done!
1
You mean Obama fixing the economy reducing unemployment, reducing the huge Bush deficits from 8% of GDP to 3% of GDP, seeing 20 million more Americans get health care...and turning over a great economy to his successor.
Trump has hugely raised the deficit and will eventually trash the economy with too much unsecured debt and his random trade policy. And of course, is cruelly trying to take health care away from Americans.
1
Donald Trump is a living example of what can happen when one is born into money, has no education, and possesses a superiority complex. He is ignorance personified. He is never wrong and all the rest of the peons around him are wrong. What a miserable, hate filled person he is.
10
Too bad the gentleman didn't let the lady go first. Look at him now, a still-young man seeing his work crushed to dust.
There is an unspoken strategy. Now that Israel is emboldened by Trump scrapping the Iran nuclear deal they can keep up the incitements to violence with Iran until war breaks out.
Congress needs to act and make it clear that the US will not support Israel in a war with Iran. We don't need another Iraq.
251
Excellent post! Thanks!
7
I don't believe Israel is inciting a war against Iran. Iran is inciting a war with Israel. Even Russia agrees. According to other articles Russia is in competition with Iran for influence in Syria. Iran may be useful to Russia, and sometimes the US, but tgey are not friends or allies.
1
Except trumpie and John Bolton very much want a war. And they don't particularly care where it happens as long as they can send your kids and not theirs.
21
Trump's "policy" on Iran is taken whole clothe from Michael Ledeen and John Bolton. Its greatest beneficiary is Russia and Russian Oil interests. Which is to say that its result will be a catastrophic Middle East conflict that will disrupt the shipping in the Gulf of Hormuz and damage Arab OPEC nations and their production infrastructures.
Trump's 'motives' have been to satisfy the rules of the ironclad support he's received from his Russian handlers for more than a decade.
Trump's increasing hysteria in the face of the Mueller and other investigations is with the voluminous proofs of his multitudinous sleazy deals and crimes coming into full public light and his ability to deflect from them using a now formidable propaganda ministry consisting of FOX, Kincaid-Sinclair, Newsmax, American Media and the Foreign Service Bureau's disinformation apparatus.
Trump is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors and does himself and the American public a disservice, factually and intellectually by trying to make this about Trump v. Obama.
It's Putin v. US.
6
Trump characterized Obama's Iran deal as the worst deal in the history of mankind. However, he never enumerated a single example of the shortcomings of the deal or suggested anything better. He didn't understand anything other than that it was an Obama deal. The Obama agreement at least put a crimp in Iran's ability to come up with a nuclear device but now Trump has freed them to carry on with their plan in an unimpeded fashion. In the end, Trump will have chosen military action over diplomacy.
5
you should have noted that the Obama treaty prevented inspectors from even visiting Iran's military installations. If one were going to work on weapons technology, those spots would be ideal and untouched by UN inspectors. Why would Obama, Europe and the other signatories agree to that provision. Makes no sense.
Tom in NYC
Trump is a blank space, a void on the planet. He has really no factual background on anything. Yes, he has his family business, his kids, grand kids and knowledge of NYC, but that's it.
Giving him credit for worldly affairs is nothing more than a lie.
Whoever voted for him may be in the same factual void he is in.
Being the POTUS is serious stuff, does he really realize every decision he makes, however effective these are in enriching himself and his friends, puts everyone else in jeopardy.
My children may feel the effects of this disrespect more than I will, but you cannot provide him any credit beyond mentioning the enormous risk he has put the country in.
2
On balance and excellent overview. On one aspect, it seems Trump's methods are not well understood. He takes a stand at the brink, willing it seems to take the last big step. However he Negates the Deal with time between it final implementation and the point he takes the stand. In between the parties have a choice; do nothing and see if he goes over the edge or offer something along the lines of what is posited here and see if both sides will accept. Iran postures and they too are faced with total push back...and it shows already in Israel....across the region and shutting off money flows into and out of Iran. The bet is place, the poker players are arrayed and they have time between the announcement and execution to make a deal or not. This pattern is all over the place. But it appears unseen by many. But not, I think, by the Players, merely the Pundits.... but, well, Pundits need something to write about, eh?
Mr.Trump's preference of the crowbar as a diplomatic instrument is obvious. A very risky strategy but it could lead to unexpected results. In North-Korea the leadership's estimation of the current American president's willingness to use brutal military force and his apparent lack of compassion to human suffering could lead to a breakthrough. The same with Iran, where America's ally Israël gives the impression to even prefer a military solution to Iran's nucleair threat.
But doesn't mr. Trump own casino's? Who the .... puts a gambler in charge of the biggest military on earth?
1
In the past 17 months, congressional Republicans have chosen a trump-led GOP over country, and trump makes decisions that favor his narcissistic self (and bank account) over democracy. Occasionally, what's good for trump may be what's good for the country, but that's pure coincidence, since trump illness does not permit him to separate his ego from his job as autocrat, oops, I mean president.
1
There's a line in the film "The Lion in Winter," where Henry II's wife Eleanor (Katherine Hepburn) says to Henry (Peter O'Toole) something like: "It's not land or states or great causes that make wars and ruin things. WE (meaning egotistical, selfish, stubborn kings and queens like themselves) are the ones who do that!"
Trump's bloated but ultimately weak and always selfish ego - and his puerile obsession with Obama's shadow - is, as Friedman suggests, on full and lurid display in this mishandling of Iran and the nuclear deal, with tragic global consequences that Eleanor would have understood all too well.
2
I really wish everyone would stop calling this abomination a "deal." Obama appeased the mullahs and paid a ransom. A deal is usually an agreement by two or more parties who sign a clearly written out plan, detailing how both sides will benefit. Iran did not sign anything and it was totally lopsided.
1
My mother commented in the aftermath of World War II that while everybody was worried about Russia and China, ultimately it would be the Middle East that would bring us down because we wanted the oil. Oil and hubris in Mr. Friedman's words . . .
1
I said this before Trump got elected. He sounds like some guy that sits down next to you in a bar and starts complaining about the state of the world -- "ya know what we oughta do..." The thing is, that guy in the bar might be perfectly correct in his complaints, but he hasn't a clue what to do about them.
1
A well written piece. From my understanding, that is exactly what the five page report from the Europeans stated. But our president didn't bother to read what the Europeans placed in front of him. I would make one notation though. I believe that this administration has now perfected the negotiation ploy of burning the bridge before they cross it.
1
A can of worms indeed! And we have been one of those worms for a long, long time. Read the history of our role in Iran going back to the early years of the past century. Even so, should we leave now? No! We are stuck in the can and I suspect the worms will continue to squirm for decades to come. Welcome to the human condition.
1
Why is there no mention that Obama took this "agreement" straight to the UN, bypassing the American Congress and going against American public opinion.
Why is there no mention that this administration suggested changes to the "agreement" to keep the US in it?
Let us talk real. Had it been reversed, and Obama wanted to get us out of this horrendous "agreement" after another politician had made it, he would have been lauded as the great savior".
1
"Why is there no mention that Obama took this "agreement" straight to the UN, bypassing the American Congress and going against American public opinion."
Because it ruins the Left's narrative of the "Obama Legacy". It's OK if their side accomplishes things through executive action, but not OK for the other side to do it. Unfortunately, neither the Democrats nor Republicans have any respect of or use for the Constitution when it goes against their own narrow agenda.
Here is the problem,Trump and the people he surrounds himself with do not handle complexity well if at all. Every problem is a nail in need of a hammer. The world is a small but complex place, simple solutions to complex problems are not solutions at all but only additional problems.
Some of this springs I believe from conservatives frustrating inability to step outside of themselves and see how another person may understand the world and take that into account when negotiating with them. Everything is transactional and for someone to win someone else must lose the idea that both parties can win is just a bridge too far for them. Imagine if America had taken that approach post World War Two? The world would be a very different place right now if The leaders of post war America had taken that course.
But this behaviour plays to the base and that seems to be the most important thing to Trump and his enablers in the Republican Party.
Tom Friedman argues that there would be no better government for Iran were the Ayatolah's to be toppled, comparing Iran to the failed Arab states and their brief Spring. Yet in the same breath he admits that Iran, unlike the Arab countries, is a great and ancient civilization. Indeed the human resources for good governance are abundant in Iran if only we would enable them to have the opportunity to do so. But our cowardly and opportunistic European 'allies' would much rather be busy selling Iran the rope with which to hang themselves. Their cynical greed couched in multi-culti gobbledygook is enough to make one sick. Trump has done right by scrapping a Plan A and replacing it with a no-plan that will enable Iran's regime to sink into chaos and ultimately oblivion.
16
What Iranians would choose for themselves is not necessarily what we would choose for ourselves.
They do get to choose, according to us. Do they only get to choose when they agree with us? Friedman is correct that we had best be prepared to be disappointed in their next choice, which from our point of view could be worse than they've got now.
I and many others here think we don't even have what we'd choose for ourselves. It is not what we think Iran should choose for themselves.
29
JJ--We are all (the West) still behaving as if we were colonists. Revolting.
28
And when you get your dream and Iran disintegrates, and hundreds of well-armed thosands start shooting at one another, and Hamas and ISIL run right on in and start grabbing, and millions of refugees come flooding in all directions?
17
Nobody ever questions the consensus that Iran's actions in the region are so illegitimate. The fact is, America burned the region down, destroyed inhumane but stable regimes and replaced them with anarchy and chaos that directly led to mass murder on a gargantuan scale, much, much worse than the bad regimes that were toppled.
Iran was left with that situation, and they have done what every sensible regime would do: Try to stem the tide of chaos and restore some measure of order. What reasonable person would comdemn them for the fact that they do this in a way that serves their own interests and not those of Saudi-Arabia?
Iran is surrounded by failed states: Afghanistan, Iraq, and next to it Syria. All of them were once savage and backwards, but stable, until America set them on fire (including Syria where Assad would have easily squashed the uprising and restored order with a low number of deaths if not for the half-hearted but persistent support for the rebels by America, Saudi-Arabia, Turkey and others).
In this light, Iran's actions in their own immediate neighborhood are a simple and completely rational matter of their national security and self-interest. If you don't want Iran gaining influence, maybe stop laying waste to yet another country in the region every few years?
Mr. Friedman, your list of what Trump should have done has a big problem: It is a whole paragraph long! Trump answers only to his base, not the nation, not allies, nobody. And his base only understands short one-liners.
2
Trump assumes we can get anything we want by loud-mouthed bullying. What he has failed to see is that nuclear weapons are huge bargaining advantages to the countries that can get them, like NK and Iran.
Why should they give us everything we want, if it goes against what they perceive as their interests? Once they've got most of a nuclear weapon to hold over our heads, our bargaining ability is limited.
This is not the post-WWII world. The US cannot have whatever it wants simply by demanding it. Obama was right about the Middle East, and Trump, who never thinks, cannot and will not understand it.
1
Mr. Friedman makes some very good points but he misses the most obvious reality of today's world-wide leadership.
Sadly we live swim in a sea of leaders that rather than lead, want to preserve their power at all cost. It is beach side muscle flexing at its very best. We have Trump, the Syrians have Assad, Russia has Putin, North Korea Kim, Saudi Arabia the Crown Prince, Iran has the Ayatollah, Israel has Netanyahu, and China has Xi, for life no less! And that's doesn't include Latin America or Africa.
When you come down to it, it's a pretty hilarious. I imagine a Mr. World body building championship with each one of these guys all oiled up flexing and doing the crab.
While Friedman, talks about countries and their people, the fact is that testosterone and ego are driving our world-wide direction with regards to borders, military use, and on the flip side, any semblance of peace or progress.
And behind each of these leaders is a self assured sense of nationalism that simply can't be escaped.
1
And he's done the same thing with the Affordable Care Act, far from perfect, but worth building upon. Instead, Trump in an act of revenge tears apart and ruins the only possible means of health care for millions of his fellow citizens.
2
The column is not balanced. Some of the
blame for expanding Iran's influence to Iraq
rests with USA. Iraq under Saddam Hussein was
an enemy of Iran and fought 8 years' war.
By removing Hussein and totally upsetting
power structure( Sunnis ruled for hundreds
of years) and placing Shias at the top of
hierarchy made it easier for Iran. No invasion
of Iraq, no Iran's influence there. In Syria, USA
Saudi Arabia, Israel are involved. why blame
Iran and give free pass to Saudis, Israelis and
US. Do you really want Saudis influence
and Wahbism in Syria. what would have been
the fate of Christians, Alawites, Druze and
some Sunnis who supported Assad. There
would have been a massacre on massive
scale. President Obama understood the
consequences of overthrowing Assad. Iran
did in Syria what other countries are doing.
Why single them out?
1
During the presidential election campaign Trump at one point claimed that President Obama was "the founder of ISIS." He then went on Hugh Hewitt's talk show and the host gave him an opportunity to clarify that what he really meant what that Obama had created the vacuum in Iraq that allowed ISIS to flourish. Trump didn't grab the rescue rope; he responded "No, I meant he's the founder of ISIS. I do. He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her too, by the way, Hillary Clinton."
It was at that point that I realized however low my opinion of Donald Trump, I was over-estimating him. When you open his intellectual closet, you realize that it's completely empty. There's nothing at all in it. His words mean nothing, they're just gibberish. Ascribing any strategy at all to his actions is just the need of rational minds to impose some kind of meaning onto things that have no meaning. Any analysis that credits his actions to a purposeful strategy, however misguided, understates the peril the United States and the rest of the world is in.
Trump's entire policy agenda is based on campaign talking points or his famous one-line zingers, whose only theme was everything President Obama accomplished was terrible---that is Trump's worldview. Trump has no grasp of the details of any policy he now trashes nor, and most dangerously, does he possess any knowledge of the regions he is dealing with. The sole strategy in this administration is how to get to no, there is no yes in the Oval Office.
2
What is the scariest and most disheartening part of this USA tragedy now unfolding is that USA electorate will let it happen.
Shades of what went down electorally speaking in the 1930's in Germany come to mind.
Shades of what went down philosophically speaking in the 1920's in Italy come to mind.
It would take a volume for me to explain but most NYT's readers have the historical knowledge to get the points.
The points of comparison are replete but here is what I want to emphasize.
A minority can easily ruin a Country and indeed cause World havoc if the majority plays loosely with their intellectual, moral, and electoral responsibilities.
Regressive reactionary extremism owns about 21% of us in any society. These will fight and/or vote like going off to a crusade. About 8% more will join them out of frustration, confusion, gullibility, cynicism, pet-peeve-ism, etc.
The European dictators circa early 1900s never really had the majority of the people with them. But in "50%" elections they owned the day (example 21% +5% = 52% election result!)
Intellectually honest Conservatives and Progressives and in between MUST vote like our Nation and the World dependents on it. The MAJORITY really must rule.
Vote GOP out and Dems in. Recast to two sane moral for the People opposing Parties down the road! We have existential threat to ward off now!
1
There is a very important point here which is sadly left unsaid by Mr. Friedman. If President Obama's original deal was so intelligent why was it rammed through instead of treated as a treaty and ratified by the Senate? There seems to be this notion, taken for granted by the American left, that our democracy should be killed and that the country needs benign dictators to act alone, subverting the internecine forces of discussion, contemplation and persuasion. President Trump was only able to overturn the deal because President Obama acted unilaterally. The result was a disaster. A DISASTER! Poison gas floating into the lungs of Arab children, troops on the border of our most important ally, and instability in the entire region. That's where President Obama's benign dictatorship took us. Good for Mr. Trump that he ended it, and bad for us that we do not have more skillful statesmen to take us further. The best thing we could do for the world is to start acting like Americans again and use our tried and true systems to move forward as a unified nation. The Fourth Estate is the saddest of all. Mr. Friedman proves it right here, shilling for a deal that was never properly vetted and accepted.
Unfortunately, when Trump breaks it, he will blame Obama and his supporters and many in my party (R) will believe him.
2
Iran helped defeat the Sunnis in Syria—that would be ISIS—our enemies. Our destabilizing Iraq led to Iran gaining influence and power there. This is a pattern of unintended consequences for the US.
1
This is a well balanced article that provides alternatives that could have been seriously considered with respect to Iran. I can say without a doubt that Thomas Freidman could make a better national security advisor than John Bolton. John seems to have been a demolition ball to the Iran deal and an obstacle to a potential deal with Korea. It does worry me that Trump has thrashed a deal that everyone seems to agree required fixing or renegotiating without a better deal on the horizon. What is irrelevant to the nation is that in the process or replacing the deal it will be thrashing Obama's legacy. America is a continuing experiment to strive for perfection and yearning for a better Iran deal and a better deal with North Korea and a better health care plan are all goals that deserve a sitting president's attention for the sake of the nation. Whats the point in bringing up a former president, Obama in the discussion. He did what he could when he was president and both the Iran deal and Obamacare plan were good precursors or starting points to build on either by replacing them or fixing them. Would you trust Trump or his lawyer Cohen to fix things? As we all know sometimes fixing is not better than whole new deals or plans and starting of with a clean slate..
1
Obama was right. The solutions that heal and resolve the racism, misogyny and tyranny radiating from the Middle East need to cultivate from within. Obama also recognized the complexities connected to the challenges facing the Mid East. The solutions he envisioned were never doled out within a Twitter Feed. Obama did not have all the answers (and I might add that he never claimed or asserted that he did). Obama did have a vision and deep respect for humanity. This is why a great portion of the world admired him as a leader and a human being. Trump will never hold this position because his vision centers on his insatiable egotistical greed. He has little concern for the world or humanity. Expecting Trump to be a leader on par with Obama is like expected a 4 year old who badly needs a nap to replace the roof on your house. What I don't understand is WHY so many Americans don't realize the peril our nation and their families are facing due to the Trump Administration.
328
Another great post!!
13
The answer to your last question is four decades of propaganda by the GOP denigrating all of the "others" in society and blaming them for all of the ills that beset that society, cutting school programs that promote critical thinking so that the sheeple are more easily duped. Create a base that wants to be loud and proud about their racism, bigotry, and misogyny.
22
Trump is the ultimate demagogue that's why some people[ not the majority] elected him . In their view he is a strong man who is taking care of them; until he brings Armageddon upon the country they are blind to reality.
6
A number of comments here criticize Friedman for giving Trump too much credit in analyzing the broader policy implications of sacking the nuclear deal. I agree with those criticisms. On reflection, however, and this is admittedly speculative, perhaps Mr. Friedman had his own strategy in mind: He knows full well that Trump is not capable of such perspective and multilateral analysis, so perhaps "softening" his language was a way to bring around readers who view Trump more favorably, who would otherwise be put off by yet another "Trump=bad" message, and Friedman thus wanted to get his otherwise insightful and very relevant view on this subject to readers who should be listening. It's easy to preach to the choir, in other words, but takes more finesse to get folks to move in from the doorway, especially when their hands have largely been clamped over their ears. In any case, the mixed idioms were a delight, as was the editorial. Thanks, Mr. Friedman.
1
The best we can hope for is that our smarter allies believe that Trump is a one term president. Or with any luck, impeached and removed. In turn the Iran deal will hold without us as will the Paris Climate Accord. TPP may actually let us back in too. NAFTA will probably make it through mostly in tact. NATO too.
I think the lasting damage will be felt by the Republican Party.
With Trump gone, we can return to the pragmatism, incrementalism, intelligence and decency characterized by Obama.
1
JL, you are an optimist. Trump could easily win a second term. Given Diebolt voting machine tampering in close states; the Electoral College, a cannibalistic democratic party; continued cyber tampering by enemies and their willing USA corporate puppets; and a well-oiled GOP propaganda machine.
History will ultimately have the final word on this, but there's every reason to believe that Donald Trump's dreams will become America's nightmares, and it will take a long time before we wake from that sleep.
The reasons for this are so vast and so many, that it's hard to know where to begin.
But for the sake of time, let's start with recent events; like Jerusalem, where the relocation of the American Embassy has resulted in tremors of violence that show no sign of stopping soon, or the death of the Iran Nuclear Deal which has given Israel Carte Blanche to go after Iran in Syria with U.S. backing -- or any of the many legislations enacted in this country by the previous administration in an effort to safeguard the health of Americans, and the landscape, and the environment, all of which have come under a single-minded attack by Mr. Trump, who has also managed to insult and alienate all of our allies in the short course of his 16-month tenure.
And then there's the talks with North Korea, that seem to be unravelling before our very eyes.
At this point, it's hard to tell where the next world nuclear war where break out ... but of course, according to Mr. Trump, it will all be Obama's fault.
9
Very interesting geopolitical commentary, but I truly doubt that Trump is thinking along these lines. All he wanted to do was to extinguish any of Obama's achievements. It is ridiculous to think that Trump thought through any of these issues more deeply than that one overarching goal. Trump has wanted to get back at Obama for embarrassing him at the White House Correspondent's Dinner half a decade ago. That is Trump's single motivation for his actions. Nothing else. The man is simply incapable of deeper thought.
5
Thanks Tom...Concise as always. Here's one for your wife's project that I heard several times on the air: "That's just one bow in his quiver!" The several folk didn't know their "arrow from a ground in the hole." It's so easy to tear down...Trump's at least good at something: Paris, TPP, Iran...also: Justice, State, ERA...[the Presidency?]The heirs of Andy Johnson and Jimmy Buchanan (Geo. W.?) are joyous that they have become upwardly mobile in the historical ratings sense.
1
My real concern is that Israel has taken Trumps actions as a green light to use force, possibly nuclear weapons against Iran. Prime Minister Netanyahu with his game show like television presentation of his evidence against Iran was identical to Colin Powell’s performance with drawing’s of mobile biological weapons labs that was a solid reason to invade Iraq, it had its desired effect.
Paul’s thoughts on of a better deal is excellent but I believe the timing of the Prime Netanyahu’s presentation is damning. The two leaders want justification to bomb any nuclear facility in Iran and I believe it’s a matter of time.
The President and Prime Minister want no part of a peaceful improved deal with Iran.
3
Sorry it’s Thomas not Paul.
Trump has leverage. The bomb. He wants to use it, and he will, unless cooler heads prevail. He wants desperately to destroy an entire country in fire and fury, and if it’s not going to be North Korea, then Iran will do.
Nothing would make Bibi happier, or Saudi Arabia.
5
"Nothing would make Bibi happier, or Saudi Arabia" -- That is, until they get exposed to the fallout.
1
Friedman was a full bore apologist for the US invasion of Iraq and the resulting turmoil that it created. Now he is seeking to reapportion the blame to Iran. Iran has been the victim the same type forment perpetrated by the US in years past by the US puppet I.e. the Shah. Is it any wonder that it has moved to protect its interests in the region from the predations of its current puppets. Clearly he is "parti pris",
3
I don't know that I am completely at odds with our president with many of his policy ideas.
I am at odds with scrapping imperfect agreements when there is no alternative presented. Once again the GOP is good at tearing things down, but they never seem to have a Plan B.
Similarly, perhaps the pacific treaty we were negotiating wasn't perfect, or Nafta for that matter, but can't we just tweak the agreement to get it correct without having to blow the whole thing up; again without any other solution to the problems.
Pointing fingers at problems is easy, coming up with workable solutions is the tough part.
1
Perhaps the best way out of this mess will be improvements in solar energy generation. That would negate the whole reason to pursue nuclear power generation and the possibility of weapons.
1
Trump was elected President based upon a mountain of falsehoods from simple emotional manipulation of people’s feelings to grossly misrepresented facts to outright lies. He never had the experience leading people nor administering any organization to show that he could actually run an organization as big as the U.S. government. He clearly ignored most of the intellectual and practical developments of thought and events in thought, in foreign affairs, and in domestic issues beyond the superficial exposure given by the headline level of news during his life, and next to nothing of history. Like nearly all who run for office he wants to feel what it’s like to be at the center of attention, but unlike most he has no concern for the future, of how history will see him. He has no cares about real consequences beyond what directly affects himself and does not pay any mind to far into the future nor any curiosity about which he might not be aware. In other words, he has not the mind nor interests in life that make good leaders of great nations.
7
It is way past time to lose the illusion that Trump works for any interests but his own.
12
Where, Mr. Pie-in-the-Sky, are your examples of the Iranian “forces of moderation”?
While acknowledging the obvious flaws in this so-called deal, Friedman places the blame entirely on Trump. What about European intransigence?
With the knowledge that the U.S, will ultimately bear the burden of defending Europe, when that requirement arises, these European leaders are more than happy to play along, while their industries enjoy rich benefits from the opening.
When will “kick the can down the road” be abandoned by the appeasers and the apologists? How many North Koreas will it take?
Iran's forces of moderation are today controlling the country, as they've won the last elections, remember?
And what you call "flaws in this so-called deal" aren't flaws IN the international Iran nuclear weapons deal, they are issues other than nuclear weapons, and that the US and Europe would like to negotiate on with Iran and its allies, negotiations that neither America nor Europe have ever been able to convince Iran of.
The whole strategy behind a step by step approach is that IF the international community can agree on a deal that suspends nuclear weapons production in Iran for a decade, then both sides (Iran + its allies, and the West) can first PROVE that they're able to keep their promise and stick to what was agreed upon, even when there's a new president and parliament etc.
Once THAT trust has been built, negotiations on other issues become possible too.
Until now, as even US inspectors have proven, all sides were indeed respecting their engagements.
That means that as Friedman remembers here, the basis for the next round of negotiations was indeed being built, as expected.
What Trump (or rather the GOPe neocons who are now dictating foreign policy in DC again) did completely undermines the idea that the US can be trusted.
Exactly HOW will that lead to a new deal, and a deal that all of a sudden manages to make Iran and its allies (Russia, ...) accept our entire wish list ... ?
5
Have you ignored that this administration has been quite unhelpful with NATO support?
What is your suggestion? Get our troops ready to go into Iran? It worked so well in Iraq...
It’s so sad. The most important conversation is if anyone can call the US government today a democracy. The list of evidence to the contrary grows longer each day. Basically Trump seems rules as Trump personally sees fit. He can change his mind overnight. He is accountable to no one. Instantly what ever new twist or turn that comes from government, top down is the the new norm. Easy to see how this is enabled by corrupt cable TV that has replaced US journalism with programming that amounts to broadcasting shallow Washington made scripts and endless gossip. He doesn’t act like a democratic president, and the US government doesn’t function with any of the processes of slow methodical consensus building and divisions of power needed to be called a democracy.
What’s left of the US press seems to be endlessly playing psychologist to figure out what’s in mind of Trump. Makes me wonder if Trump isn’t some modern version of a US monarch. We daily hope for evidence of rational and benevolent behavior, and it never happens. Everyone acts surprised, and then tomorrow the norm shifts towards more of Trump’s style of reckless, shallow and dangerous fringe politics.
5
There's another huge difference between Obama's approach of the Middle East, and that of neocons (Trump & friends are clearly handing over the GOP to neocons again today, so it's neoconservatism that we have to discuss here, not Trump himself).
Obama was actually able to adopt more than one perspective, contrary to what neocons - and this op-ed - do.
Yes, everything that Friedman is blaming Iran of here, is of course correct. But most of these things can be said about Saudi Arabia too, except for the fact that contrary to Iran, the Saudi dictatorship has no Constitution, no elections, doesn't allow any non Muslim to acquire Saudi nationality, doesn't allow any non Muslim to have his own place of worship, doesn't even count women in its official unemployment numbers (and only recently allowed 30 women to enter "parliament" - whereas in Iran the majority of university students today are women), and of course, has an education system entirely based NOT on educating children but on teaching Wahhabi Islam, an extremist and fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, which is also the doctrine of Al Qaeda, the Taliban and ISIS (and is rejected by Iran).
Saudi Arabia supports Al Nusrat, one of the Wahhabi terrorist groups fighting Al Assad, whereas Iran (together with Russia) supports Al Assad.
Ignore all this, and ignore just WHY it is that Iran chose to be an ally of Russia rather than the US, and you get an "axis of evil" policy that will once again only make things worse.
1
Unfortunately, trump will never read this column. He can't concentrate long enough to thoroughly READ this column, nor to understand it.
He would't even be able to LISTEN to somebody reading it directly TO him, not even in those 280 character segments he loves so much. How 'bout "You're fired?"
3
I'm sorry, Iran is not the bad actor in the Middle East. Certainly not the worst. The U.S., Israel, and Saudi Arabia should all take a bow. Obama got carried away by the Arab Spring, so now Libya is a mess, Egypt a dictatorship, and a civil war in Syria gave rise to ISIS. Assad should resume control of Syria, and Iran's support is reasonable. He is no worse than the leaders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which is bombing Yemen. Using our economic power to reduce Iran to poverty is shameful and immoral, but we are fixated on Iran and won't let go. So much was so wrong about Obama, but he got Iran right.
1
No amount of grousing about the Iranian regime, only in power because the US and the Europeans replaced a duly elected leader with the corrupt and repressive Shah (because the duly elected leader was going to nationalize the oil companies), and then kept that same corrupt and repressive Shah in power for 20 years, changes the fact that Iran is not the worst actor in the region. That dubious honor is held, as it always has been held, by the Saudis and the Gulf States, exporters and bankrollers of global religious extremism. Iran frankly, should be the natural ally of the West in the region, and would be if the West would recognize and deal with the real problem. And, at the same time, stop supporting another corrupt repressive leader, Netanyahu, whose campaign against the Palestinians provides a convenient excuse for corrupt and repressive dictators to keep tensions high, even as they have no intention of actually helping the Palestinians.
3
Trump's dream for the US is no different than his dream for the world as a developer. Tear whatever is there down. Wipe the surface clean. Build memorials to himself in its place with gilded "TRUMP" for all to see.
If anyone else suffers along the way even better. It confirms he is a "winner".
5
"Just improving on what Obama started would have greatly advanced U.S. interests..."
This could be used for anything Obama started - Obamacare, infrastructure, the TPP, the Iran deal, the Paris Climate agreement, DACA, sentencing reforms, Dodd Frank, etc.
And by the way, the Iran deal stipulates that Iran can never get a bomb.
4
I am worried about the long term repercussion with our European Allies of us being unreliable partners and Bullies, they better start rethinking their strategies for the future. As for Trump, there is no new Adjective that you can say that hasn't been said. Simpleton`describes him I think.JMO
1
When Trump violated the Iran nuclear deal, he showed that the United States cannot be trusted. This will have consequences far beyond anything we see right now.
3
Trump, the calm before the storm in the eye of a hurricane. Keeping the boards on the windows for four years.
1
Dear Thomas,
The United States has been involved in the Middle East for almost a century, and during the Cold War Iran was an essential ally. Our foreign policy during the period was simple - we backed any regime as long as they weren't communist. That has cost us heavily in the trust department among a lot of people (and their governments).
Iran is a mess of our own making, taking Sykes-Picot to the next level by engineering a coup and installing the Shah in the early 1950s. Since the revolution in 1979, we have been in a de facto state of war with Iran. Why else would we have sided with that local thug Saddam Hussein in the 1980s if not to get even with Iran? To make things even more murky, we sold arms to Iran (thru Israel) to get hostages released in Lebanon, then took the proceeds to illegally fund anti-communist rebels in Nicaragua. We essentially backed both Iran and Iraq during their war - is that any way to conduct a coherent foreign policy? What we've been doing since is no better.
Obama is not the only politician to recognize the U.S. can't fix the problems of the Middle East. But no one has the spine to get us entirely out of the region, save for embassies and trade. Obama's Iran solution was to bypass the Senate, acting as if no one would dare undo what Obama had accomplished. That hubris is almost at Trump's level, but not quite.
Thomas, here's another mixed-up idiom for you: some days chicken salad, some days the bear gets you.
1
There seems to be no reference to the Saudi's who have started wars of their own - fund "religious" schools teaching radical ideas to young people? What is their role in the turmoil which is the middle east?
3
A stitch in time saves two in the bush. Trump, by staving off (in his mind) the Iranian race, is avenging his loss in court of a housing discrimination suit. Don’t underestimate his ability to make connections between unrelated things, nor his deal-making ability. After all (in his mind) a bird in hand saves nine.
3
It is Trump's ignorance of world affairs that is going to get us periously close to WWIII. He believes he is the smartest guy in the world. His unchecked impulses and greed plus the people who surround him have put our country in grave danger.
They all need to be removed
I live in hope that Mueller's investigative team will do that.
6
In ancient Egypt, incoming Pharaohs would sometimes work to erase their predecessors legacy by defacing monuments, destroying buildings and eliminating texts. This was meant to eliminate all forms of admiration or worship for a former god-king that would detract or distract from their own glory and adulation. Trump is like this, seeing the Presidency as fitting of only his influence, king like in his power, god like in only his wisdom.
4
The ironic thing is that no matter what “Trump” does it only serves to elevate the stature of President Barack Obama. Not that our last legitimate president needs any help.
4
"The U.S. and Europe use diplomacy to spotlight and censure Iran’s “occupations” of Syria, Iraq and Lebanon."
Iran is merely attempting to expand its sphere of influence, just like Russia, Israel, or China. Or, the US.
In this spirit, how about starting with the Israeli "occupation" of the US, where criticism of Israel is heavily managed and controlled? And looks at what this occupation gets us: the illusion that we share values, and the management of our foreign policy in the region.
Obama tried to "pivot" away from the Mideast. Now, the Israelis are dragging us back in, to continue the "creative destruction" of Israel's neighborhood.
2
Old Obi-wan Kenobi once said to Darth Vader as the latter tries to destroy him, "Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine".
Trump, who has no policy of his own, will only amplify Obama's achievement as he tries to undo them. History will show that little Donnie will become even smaller.
3
The arrogance of believing this is all about "Obama" is obviously something lost on some. To believe this is about Obama, personally, is to believe he is still a god. His initiatives couldn't withstand one election. Blame him, not the voters.
1
It’s about Hilary and those emails!
What Trump did, Tom, isn't a shame. It's a disaster. For this country, our allies, and the world.
3
Trump has opened that can of worms, but unfortunately, all of us may have to lie in it!
2
The price of a barrel of oil is now three times what is was a short two years ago. With the Iran deal scrapped, it will only go higher. Meanwhile, in our attempt to become energy independent, we are exporting our own domestic supply.
The Trump approach to governing doesn't account for reality.
2
" Two years in, Iran has abided by the restrictions, says the International Atomic Energy Agency."
Maybe your "language museum" should also focus on "false speak."
For two years, the IAEA has had unfettered access only to Iranian nuclear sites which the Iranians wished the IAEA to see. Certain military installations are off-limits, along with the fact that the IAEA must give Iran notice before it visits.
This has led to the Ayatollahs agreeing to an agreement which advances their interest toward regional hegemony, while biding their "breakout time" for next year, instead of this year.
Exhibit A is the cache of secreted nuclear test files, stolen by the Mossad, of which the IAEA admits it had no knowledge.
"Snap back" sanctions were always meant to deceive Congress, the American people, and our allies.
"Obama's distrust" of the Mideast and its leaders, apparently infected his every policy decision in that region.
Money for hostages, the sanction relief which is being used to cement the Shi'ite land bridge from Tehran to Beiruit, the ceding by the US of geopolitical Mideast influence to Vladamir Putin (Russian collusion?), the failure to stand for our own "red lines" or any lines at all, are emblematic of Obama's failed foreign policy.
However, like the "Arab Spring," once lauded by Mr. Friedman, progressive dreams of a successful "Iranian nuclear deal" die hard.
How about this for the language museum-
"Don't fire till you see our white lies" ?
2
Excellent and witty, fourth paragraph pretty much says everything we need to know about that balloon in DC
1
But it is not Trump alone who lies in this can of worms. It is our whole country and the rest of the world who must deal with Trump's fecklessness.
Trump has always believed that he could solve all the problems of the world single handedly. But that is not the way things work in our global economy and politics. For instance, as we relinquish our influence with Iran gained with so much effort in the Iranian nuclear deal Russia and China will step in and use the Iranian power in the region for their own purposes. Mean while our coalition with European allies is shattered and North Korea with its relations with iran plays Trump like the sucker he is and looks forward to supplying Iran with nuclear materials.
Trump like a child thinks he is the center of the world and everyone must listen to his tantrums. All of this was so predictable when this guy moved into the WH and it was that sinking feeling everyone who voted against him felt.
1
Reneging on the deal after Iran turned over its mildly-enriched uranium assures that no such deal will ever be negotiated by the US again.
You approach the subject like we are good actors. Most of the world sees us as the main support for terrorism. Iran is a piker next to us. Saudi Arabia has supported far more terrorism than Iran. Israel has been more violent than Iran. They strike anybody anytime they want to.
Iran and North Korea have no reason to trust us. We've betrayed both their countries in the past and Trump has very quickly shown the world you can't trust him to keep his word.
Yeah. Oxford historians will someday look at the Trump era in many ways including one of missed opportunities. We'll be paying for Trump's recklessness for a long time--if we're lucky.
1
Dear Thomas,
As always I’m impressed by your logic, except for one thing that you intentionally or mistakenly left out a major hole in the Iranian Nuclear Deal.The Iranian Nuclear fuel was given to Russia for safe keeping. Isn’t that like the Fox Guarding the Hen House?What’s to prevent Russia an Ally of the Fascist trio of Russia, Iran & Assad, murders of Syrian Children with Poison Gas, from producing nuclear weapons for Iran? Doesn’t this loop hole make the entire deal a farce ?
3
Well Tom any ideas on the question of why did Trump do that? It is another instance of Trump distancing the U.S. from our anti-Russian allies. Could that distancing be the objective? Could the anti-Obama shtick be a ruse to distract?
Could Trump's stupid routine also be a ruse? Could this disruptive behavior of Trump be his mission to further his conspiracy with Russia?
PROSECUTE RUSSIAGATE!
1
So, Obama and Iran and the Middle East and world peace and Yemen and North Korea and the United States of America and the poor and the middle class and the merely rich: much, much, much more than just a 2-fer.
Donald Trump, a small minded bully, full of hatred and self-loathing. He's a bigot and a habitual liar. He is by far the most ignorant and unqualified president in the history of this great republic.
3
Trump's actions on the world stage are much like those of a serial arsonist.
3
Kim Jun Um of North Korea, just took advantage of Trump's touting of his (Trump's) diplomatic break through and victory on the Korean peninsula, by casting doubt that any progress could be made. The Iranians are far more capable of doing worse than North Korea, and will take similar advantage of Trump's arrogant decision on the JCPA. Presidential decisions require a smart thought processes, rather than shooting from the hip.
4
I think you meant "shooting from the lip."
Freidman says Trump could have united with Europe in demanding the arms-control agreement with Iran extend the ban on enriching uranium to 25 years and ban Iran from developing missiles that could reach Europe or the US.
OK, but what would we offer in return? We'd have to offer Iran something more. Promising not to leave the deal and reimpose sanctions wouldn't cut it with the EU, Russia, or China. Again, we'd have to go it alone. Wait, would National Security Advisor Bolton threaten to sanction the rest of the world if they fail to become subservient to us?
As for creating refugees, it's the Assad government that is accomplishing that. Iran supports Assad. Does that make Iran complicit? If so, we are complicit in Israel's crimes against the Palestinians. After all, Israel would not exist without our unquestioning military, economic, and diplomatic support. And that includes Israel's arsenal of nukes and all its delivery systems, including submarines, jets, and missiles. All of which are somehow off the table when it comes to policing WMD in the middle east.
1
2 points:
Iran has been heavily sanctioned, so it has been "censured".
Iran has the backstage support of Russia AND China.
So any hope for a "better" deal is pure fantasy.
3
Trump has no strategy or even coherent thought. His entire campaign is everything is horrible and needs to be destroyed, so he Donald Trump can fix it. So he takes out of TPT, NAFA, Climate Accord, Heath Care, Tax Code, Environmental laws,etc. Then proclaims whatever he does as brilliant, and goes not on tv to explain or news conference, but instead tweets and goes to rallies. This of course gives his horrible decision time to work there misdeeds. The only question is 2,4 or more years to figure out. Remember Iran invasion, loss regs,and recession, with Bush.
1
America is comprised of immigrants from all corners of the earth. It is astounding that immigrants from these countries would wish harm to the countries they originate from. For instance Iraqi Americans wanting America to attack and wage a war with Saddam. Or Iranian Americans wanting to hurt fellow Persians and Iranians back home via their ayatollahs who have enforced extreme religious rules on the populace. That goes for Cubans as well. And any other perceived hostile nation whose people have fled to America to seek refuge or amnesty.
So strange that these people have so much influence outside their countries and are helpless when they are in their own countries. They make America look like a rascal for participating as mercenaries for hire. Oil is unlikely to be an explanation. Religion is unlikely to be an explanation. Regime change sponsored by America is unlikely to be the motive, we have seen what a disaster that was in Iran then Iraq.
1
This piece ignores the fact that there was never any proof of Iran seeking nuclear weapons to begin with. The all agency NIE on Iran found that Iran had long ago halted its weaponization efforts. It was always regional political rivalries (that is, the Saudis and Israelis) driving Obama to push for sanctions and the JCPOA, not actual evidence of weaponization.
What we really need is total nuclear disarmament. There is no reason such weapons should be allowed to exist under any circumstances.
2
Trump is our worst solution in the Middle East. He over reacts, and he lacks solutions. He never has a plan for solving problems, just actions that result in misery for the people of these lands. How quickly we forget, osama bin Laden attacked NYC because of one primary reason : he wanted the U.S. out of his country. He saw the American bases in Saudi Arabia as an invasion of his land, and what do you say if the Palestinians bombed our new embassy in Jerusalem, and then they said: because they don't want to see the U.S. in their backyard. Logic works both ways and it seems the U.S. never gets it right in the Middle East.
Yeah, for sure! He could have fixed Iran just as you say. But he didn't. Because he can't. He's crazy. Remember?
He could have fixed the ACA. But he didn't. Because he can't. He's crazy. Remember?
Same for Cuba, Climate Change, gas mileage, The Consumer Protection Agency and everything else he's destroyed. He can destroy. But he can't build.
He's crazy. Remember.
All these programs, treaties and agreements were starting points. HUGE starting points. They moved the needle. They all needed nurturing...every single day...just like everything else in life. Progress never ends.
Unless it does.
Which it has.
He's crazy. Remember?
2
You hit the nail on the head, Thomas, with your last paragraph...which points out how psychologically unfit this president is. And tho I don't want to call those who voted for him deplorables, they were blinded by the shiny object, not bothering to check to see if it was fools gold. DJT has had no strategies other than wanting the world to see him bigger than life. He has spent his whole life trying to be acceptable to the upper social strata, and measures strength with bullying and wealth with power. Unfortunately, in a mere two years since he entered the political scene, he has corrupted and poisoned whatever virtue we had as a nation that we stumbled through centuries to attain. Did we have problems? Yeah...but they would have been a challenge to eradicate with a more intelligent, measured leader. Instead we have a president who is obsessed with eradicating Obama. Reminds me of the toxic, hormone-ridden teen years when shallowness reigned and the pretty girls hung out with the late bloomers so that they would shine by comparison. These days I'm almost afraid to read the news when I wake up each day, and whatever was true in the morning has been replaced by "breaking news" several times by nightfall. Trump is a destructive earthquake...powerful, yes. But spreading devastating destruction.
May we stop pretending that there's a strategy or thought behind any action taken by the ill-informed, ignorant and profoundly insecure individual that occupies the White House? It's tedious.
4
yes, to think that the idiot understands or cares about the intricacies of the iranian position in syria is a bit of a stretch. no branding opportunities there for several decades......
Trump only trashed the people of the United States- something he does with every breath he takes!
1
I would suggest that Trump’s willful dismantling of President Obama’s achievements can be traced back to a seminal moment at the annual press dinner several years ago when Obama poked fun at Trump. When the camera panned to him, it was obvious that he was not amused. His face was red and his eyes seemed to narrow in real malice.
So attributing any thoughtful analysis to his furious agenda to delegitimize Obama’s legacy is forgetting how fragile Trump’s ego is. Nothing matters more than revenge; our country, indeed the world be damned.
5
Tell me again why it is we (American's) should care what goes on in this Middle Eastern internecine conflict which never ends? Obama was correct in one sense. If the natives of the region, and their leadership caste, cannot resolve to end all conflict then a 3rd party outsider cannot do it for them.
From the days of Rome this has been true. We should just do something simple; pull ourselves, and all our financial support for all sides, out of it while wishing them the best and concluding by saying "when you've resolved your issues yourselves then come find us to talk." Then keep a military ring around the region to minimize exogenous events.
I know I'm thinking simplistically but in the end the way to truly deal with this tar baby is to not engage, at all.
Just some thoughts from an American who is truly tired of this morass called the Middle East.
John~
American Net'Zen
1
It’s interesting Tom that your column missed the “end of the Korean deal” by one day. Yes, that deal is done even though no one knows it yet. Beside screwing things up around the world, Trump misjudged Kim. Did any intelligent broker on this planet really believe that Kim was just going to “end” his nuclear arsenals? Are you kidding me? He already has seen what happens to any dictator who does, plus, Kim actually has nuclear weapons that can probably reach America now, or in a very short period of time. So–What do we do now? Hopefully survive until 2020 when we could possibly elect a real president.
Let us tell it like it is: The reason The Trump is obsessed with trashing Obama's achievements is mindless, knee-jerk racism, pure and simple. It is his only guiding policy.
1
You overlooked Russia’s role in this entire mess. Netanyahu was there last week attending Russia’s victory parade, whispering in Putin’s Ears.
1
Undoing everything Obama crafted has been Trump’s sole guiding motivation from day one. He is seemingly incapable of deeper thought or concern for consequences. I venture this goes no deeper than Trump’s jealousy of the Obama family, their poise, grace and intelligence, couple with his desire for revenge for embarrassment years ago at the White House Correspondents Dinner. This is dangerous for America. As the ancient adage goes, “when you plot revenge, first dig two graves.”
3
'Can of worms' you say? How about a 'snake's nest', co-produced by Trump and Bolton, a racist-xenophobic move to screw any and all that contains Obama's signature. This is pure bigotry and usually shameful for the haters...but not in Trump's case, an unrepentant narcissist, with no scruples, who seems to draw special joy in inflicting harm to 'the other', a tribal move devoid of even one ounce of decency. But 'we' elected this monster, so he is 'our' beast, and 'our' obligation to confront him, subdue his cruel and vicious, impulsive and thoughtless, behavior. How is it possible that the U.S. can take unilateral measures to break multilateral deals, humiliating allies into submission...unless they come to him pleading for clemency while applauding his sick ego? Have we lost all our marbles, given that we have a cowed republican congress doing Trump's bidding, however despicable, no matter how dangerous? Don't we realize that we are co-responsible in the vacuum created in the Middle East, by invading Irak under false pretense, and toppling Iran's leader in 1953 (installing the Shah, a puppet for the West, for oil control, and toppled by a theocracy in 1979), with the expected result of the current chaos? We cannot wash our hands now, and allow brutish, and clueless, Trump to worsen the current imbroglio by placing his foot in his mouth, and the other on the brakes on diplomacy. If this is Trump's dream, it sure is a nightmare for the rest of the world.
He's obviously insanely jealous of President Obama and has done and will continue to bash and destroy all the good that President Obama did regardless of what it does to our country. For two terms President Obama led the country with grace and dignity, something that the current person in the White House doesn't know anything about. We have to put up with his low class, vulgarity until we get rid of him. Calling people names is his claim to fame. He has become a huge embarrassment.
3
This piece is truly disgusting. Just by going on about how "Trump called Iran out" and shows the level of normalization that the press even at a place like the New York times has occurred. Friedman would be more well served to pick up a sign like the rest of us. This is nuts.
Trump's presidency is focused only on 2 things: 1) trash everything Obama initiated and passed; 2)use the presidency to enrich himself and his family. He cares nothing for the US, its constitution or its people. Unfortunately, his supporters think this is what they want. Special kind of stupid.
4
What drives DT is his insatiable need for revenge, to right any perceived wrong against him, and so it is with his obsession to erase Obama's presidency come hell or high water, no matter the dire consequences for our nation. I am grieving for our country over what's been unleashed as a result of electing such a feckless, cruel, incompetent man. I'm not convinced we'll be able to undo the damage he is causing once he's gone.
3
Racism. Trump is so threatened by Obama's accomplishments and the fact that he is an educated man of color, he's pushing us into a nuclear war (maybe two). When is this going to stop? Does the Republican leadership in Congress care so little about our values, our democracy, that they would allow this madman to destroy us all? President Obama is everything Trump is not - dignified, intelligent, a decisive leader. And it's eating him alive inside. Every day, Trump screws and nothing happens. And the Republicans just stand there smirking - defending his every criminal act. Do anyone remember Charles Laughton's Hunchback? When the crowd cheers and mocks him, and puts a crown on Laughton's head, knowing he's a fool? I'm thinking Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan were they that day - practicing up to one day laugh at America's newest King of the Fools. BTW No embassy is worth the lives of 55 people (and I'm a Jew). Israel has lost the moral upper hand. Trump's hands are to small to hold morals or anything else.
3
On the "Trade Wars" bit Mr. Friedman left out Canada.
Mr Friedman, you were an enthusiast for the invasion of Iraq and now you are judging Iran for bad behavior ? Have you read the history of US overthrow of Iranian democracy to instal the bloodthirsty Shah and set the stage for Islamic extremists to follow ? Forget McCain and his chanting of ‘bomb bomb bomb Iran’ like that’s a joke, the hypocrisy and dishonesty of even liberal intellectuals is breathtaking. Why are you still in this business ?
2
Let us hope Tom Friedman sends his own relatives to fight all these wars he is too eager to have America fight for him.
1
Mr.Friedman, at the risk of sounding vulgar, may I suggest that as far as governance, diplomacy, general knowledge, plain old common sense, and being presidential in any shape or form, D.J.Trump doesn't know his nether regions from his elbow.
1
Obama was a minimalist in America's policy on the Middle East. Trump is a maximalist who will do anything to torch President Obama's legacy. If Iran's current regime topples,
Baghdad, Damascus, Sana and Tehran will be under military dictatorship or worse. The Shiites and Sunnis will continue to battle for the minds and hearts of their followers, to the detriment of the Islamic peoples. Waves of refugees to the shores of western countries (from Europe to the Americas) will bring disorder and more chaos than they have already brought as they sought asylum from Middle-East terrorism. Pro-Shiite, pro-Iran dictatorships have scourged Syria, led by Bashar al-Assad's cruel and vile regime. Trump called out Iran. He could have stayed in with the Europeans by fixing Obama's nuclear deal, but instead he escaped the Western coalition to go his own "MAGA!" way (as he did with the Paris climate accord, as he did with T.P.P.). President Trump is still striving to do anything he can to ruin Barack Hussein Obama's brilliant legacy. Therein lies the foul worm in Trump's poison apple. We are ashamed of this presidential loser whose "birther" accusations agains Obama still ring in our ears, who probably never even read (or understood) the Nuclear Deal before he trashed it. Stupid is as stupid does. Trump is ashcanning our democracy step by step and we who understand what he is doing are unable to unseat him from the most important job in the world.
1
Destroying/criticizing everything "Obama" is not only a vengeful move for Trump, but it also plays well to his base. It's a form of dog whistle - it tells his alt-right followers who believe Obama is/was the Kenyan black devil that Trump will save them from his doing.
2
Socrates writes: "Everything Donald touches turns to fecal matter; it may not happen right away, but give his natural poison time to work and he will destroy everything he touches."
Pardon me for wondering if this is coincidence or something more malevolent.
Every appointee to a major cabinet position: Sessions, Pruitt, Bolton and others, seems to be the worst possible choice for that position. Designed to do maximum damage to our institutions.
Every policy position serves to make us more of an outlier in the global community. Unconcerned about global stability, the environment and mutual cooperation.
Every withdrawal from an agreement we have made, or threat to do so serves to demonstrate that the US is an unreliable partner and cannot be trusted to honor its commitments.
It is almost as if someone was advising Trump on the quickest and most effective way to destroy the reputation and prestige of the USA around the world.
Maybe it's a coincidence.
Maybe.
What are the odds?
5
Iranians should have bought Trump condos in 2016. Maybe they could Finance Jared's 666 5th ave? .....perhaps send a check to Michael Cohen?
Maybe the deal can still be saved. The Iranians need to grease the wheel.
1
"Europe and the U.S. agree to impose sanctions if Iran ever attempts to build a missile with a range that could hit Europe or America.". Ah, so sanctions will be imposed only if the missiles reach Europe or America.Mr. Friedman? And what about Israel? Let's forget about that one, ignore, as we usually do. They and their little country is just a distraction, embarassment at best, right, Mr. Friedman???
1
Our meddling in Iran with the overthrow of Mosaddegh eventually gave us Khomeini. Our meddling in Iraq gave us ISIS. US foreign policy is the Typhoid Mary of foreign policies.
Trump is merely carrying on the grand tradition of stupidity and ignorance that is American foreign policy in the Middle East.
I wonder if Trump would so zealously - and recklessly - be destroying every vestige of his predecessor's legacy if that predecessor had been white.
1
Trump is the right-hand man of God - an Evangelical belief - according to Rupert Murdoch's The Courier-Mail in Brisbane, Australia. This is scary stuff; read this: http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/world/middle-eastern-prophecy-is-trum...
I don't see the big deal about Trump trashing the Iran, or for that matter, moving the American embassy to Jerusalem.
Don't both moves now clear the way for Jared to bring lasting peace to the Middle East?
After all, you can bring a horse to water even if it's stubborn as a mule.
1
Been waiting for Friedman to weigh in on this and he doesn't disappoint.
To Bush43 it was, he said, what would Jesus do. To Trump, as a matter of actions it is what would Hitler do. Both driven by hate and tirades and playing to the mob. The Trump presidency has become a racket driven by greed and prejudice, and that goes for the fascists in congress who protect him for the plutocrats and oligarchs.
There is a free book on line written in the 1930's by Marine Gen. Smedley Butler, who was awarded the CMH twice, called "War is a Racket." What is one of our greatest exports to the middle east? Arms. Trump, the kleptocrat in chief is a wish come true to arms makers.
How has Iran not been "censured" like Israel and Saudi Arabia for its bad acts? Seriously?
Tom has got to be kidding that his plan would have gotten anywhere off the ground!
1
"Color me dubious that a president who has not been able to manage his confrontation with a stripper, or prevent leaks in his White House, can manage a multifront strategy for confronting Iran and North Korea and trade wars with China, Europe and Mexico."
No, you are not 'dubious sir.
You are wide awake and fully aware the man is in 'over his head': The guy can't swim and is in over his head even in the shallow end of the pool. He's drowning and taking down our country with him.
Trump is responsible; and the man's ineptitude is boundless. But, the undermining of the Iran Deal began in March 2015 with Senator Tom Cotton who sent correspondence to the Ayatollah to defeat the measures of the United States.
Our nation needs to redress that occasion whereby members of the Senate interfered with the Executive Branch's constitutional power. If the Logan Act was unsatisfactory to charge and fine / imprison Senator Cotton, then we need new legislation.
Senator Cotton is now heckling Democrat Senators as they question whether Gina Haspel is suitable to lead CIA. We've known of Cotton's rage since Mr Bruni's reporting of the hold-up of Cassandra Butts nomination (Feb 2015) whereby he allegedly told her that his reason was to "inflict special pain on the president (Obama)".
Cotton was the lead instigator to interrupt the Iran Deal; and his rage problem is another reason to end his service in 2020. I'm closing with these following words to sum up Tom Cotton:
Obama said, "I'm embarrassed for them. For them to address a letter to the Ayatollah – the Supreme Leader of Iran, who they claim is our mortal enemy – and their basic argument to them is: don't deal with our President, 'cause you can't trust him to follow through on an agreement ... That's close to unprecedented."
Lavender, Paige (March 13, 2015). "Obama: 'I'm Embarrassed' For Republicans Who Sent Letter To Iran". The Huffington Post.
3
I think Trump and Netanyahu intend an all out any Islamic nation that they already don't own (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE).
I think this is going to be a lot tougher than the neocon morons who got us stuck in the ME think it ill be. The cost of supporting eretz yisrael may break our treasury.
Dear Mr. Friedman:
As it now stands, your today picture, looks only to the (first innings ) the coming events, would need for you to recap what the "worms" may penétrate to critical events. Specially now that Israel is creating convulsions in the área.
Recomend not to put the periscope away. regards.
What more is to be expected. We elected a vengeful vain and racist idiot to the highest office in the land. An idiot without a clue beyond anything that he can not attribute solely to himself. Managing world order has never ever been about the singular and without a doubt never will be. We reap the misfortunes of the careless vote.
2
As usual, spot on Tom! Trump has run out of toes to be shot off and is starting on other digits. As a narcissistic sociopath he is a totally inept executive and commander. Our "ship" is being piloted by Captain Queeg - a disaster waiting to happen.
Things that he may seem to have accomplished are purely coincidental. Perhaps his main advisors on Fox and Friends muttered something they heard on CNN and Trump picked it up during a delusional early morning Tweet.
There is no plan; there is no strategy. There is only impulse and "magic mirror" optics combined with denial, lying and destruction.
I would hope that the cult of this divisive moron will be replaced in the upcoming election and that he, and Pence, will be removed by undeniably treasonous Russian collusion in the '16 election.
1
"Color me dubious that a president who has not been able to manage his confrontation with a stripper, or prevent leaks in his White House, can manage a multifront strategy for confronting Iran and North Korea and trade wars with China, Europe and Mexico."
Hahaha! One of the funniest lines I've read in a while. Absolutely true. If I thought for a minute that he gave thought to his actions or that he has a strategy (for the U.S.--not for himself), I would not be so nervous.
1
Barack Obama, America's least accomplished President. BO gives the Iranians $150Bn in cash, of varying currencies. The cash, packaged on pallets, is delivered on cargo planes. We got several hostages and Europe got to increase trade with Iran. Terrorist organizations got some walking around money. Such a deal.
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In exchange, the Allies got, "Iran agreed to tight restrictions on its enrichment of nuclear weapons-grade materials for 15 years in return for an easing of sanctions."
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The short version is, "we promise to not wipe Israel of the face of the Earth for the next 15 years".
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This "deal" was so wonderful, it escaped Senate review. Tell me, why would a bunch of mostly old, White men need to check Obama's deal making skills? That's just racist.
.
Barack Obama, America's least accomplished President. His signature health care plan, not supported by any Republicans, is being undone. His "smile and wave" foreign policy is being erased. It seems a "phone and a pencil" are not that permanent.
1
Donald Trump was promoting himself for the Nobel Peace Prize, but I nominate him for the "Donald Trump Booby Prize".
Tom, I would appreciate that you read back all of your opinion pieces. When you are proven wrong over time, please make sure to write an article pointing to how you were wrong (of coarse opposite applies). I have read all of your columns.
You have been wrong about Israel and Iran and it’s proven.
2
Reminiscent of the neo con "thinking " of the Bush administration and remember what that accomplished.
I would like to point out that Trump isn't the only one who wants to destroy Obama's legacy. The entire Republican (as well as some Democrats) recognize that the demographics in this country are changing. They could care less whether the middle east is Sunni or Shite. All they care about is making sure America gets the message. The Obama who was president was a mirage. Simply put he didn't exist. And the lesson they are teaching is : don't even consider voting another black person in again. We will do the same thing to him as we did Obama. Imagine how threatened they would be if Martin Luther King were alive today. How would they handle that? Oh we don't imprison or assassinate our political rivals here anymore like is done in places like Iran. We do it the civilized, old fashioned, and racist way. The result is exactly the same. Except over there the people that engage in the uncivilized behavior are looked at as brutal despots. Where as here they are "patriots".
Good for Trump for calling Iran out writes Thomas Friedman the seasoned commentator which confirms the US still wishes to defy Europe Russia and China in their efforts to move Iran in the right direction on their nuclear weapons; with negotiated IAEA inspections. Apparently Israel has other ideas. Understand Iran has been stretched to the point of no return which complicates the situation. Trump is not really making these decisions by himself; call John Bolton to the witness stand. Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth; the whole truth....so help us all. The Jury never got a chance.
And as my mother once (actually!) said, "You've buttered your own bread, now lie in it."
The dictionary words for 'disruption', 'vindictive' and 'lying' should have his photograph. And 'treason': NY Times today ( https://nyti.ms/2L6kDr6 ) describes the quid-pro-quo of Chinese payoff to Trump for ZTE access. You or other columnists need to write about this treasonous act. I've written my US Senators demanding that FBI and Congress/Senate investigate. Everybody needs to write their senator and congressman. Treason is serious!
1
Trump has retired a fundamental principle of law to your wife's language museum: pacta sunt servanda (agreements are to be kept). Who can deal with a country that doesn't adhere to its promises?
Given Trump’s drive to erase what Obama did and how obsessive that drive seems to be, I can only conclude that it is racism. It appears, beginning with the birther lie, that he is in a seething rage about the fact that we had a black president.
It's simple.
Trump is out to eviscerate everything that Obama touched.
He hates the man that much.
I studied bespoke idioms at Trump University, where traditional grammar and syntax were not on the curriculum. Some I recall: “Possession is ten tenths of the law.” “You can fudge a book by its cover.” “Know the loopholes in the ropes.” “Vanity is the mother of invention.” “A tweet in time saves nine.” “Give them an Iran for their money.” “Monkey see, Trumpy do.”
Isn't the Iran deal nothing more than Nuclear appeasement. Doesn't history state pretty clearly that appeasement never works, read up on Hitler and "Peace in our time," if you don't believe me. in this world peace comes through strength, which is the Trump doctrine. Trump has a book with a to-do list and Iran is definitely in that book. Times up for Iran
Unfortunately, we all will have to lie in this bed of worms. Thanks Donald.
1
Quite the toxic combination, Trump's very obvious ignorance of not onlly the Iran treaty BEFORE he cancelled it but of the geopolitics of the region. Or of the world. Trump's ignorance and arrogance and his actions most unfortunately delight his voters and one supposes those in Congress and elsewhere who allowed this stupid and dangerous transhing of the deal. Iran was following the rules according to everyone who signed the treaty and the observers who checked these facts. Not good enough for Trump. Impulse over thoughtfulness, impulse over knowledge, impulse over the slightest idea of being a statesman, much less a president.
Whoever still believes Trump is an expert at cutting deals is delusional. If the deal was so bad, then bloody re-negotiate until it's better! Not pull out like a wimp or a loser! Pulling out as your first tactic is the laziest and least long-term way of negotiating; like this article mentions, you're basically burning bridges in order to "build" it, and no one's going to come to the table to make a deal with you ever again after that.
Basically the MO of this presidency. God help us.
Good promo for Friedman's wife's new "tax exempt" museum project. Another liberal feel good cause,
@Robert
"Trump isn't just any criminal, he's a true narcissist and psychopath. It's what distinguishes him from a garden-variety corrupt politician who may have incredibly weak morality, but has some limits. Trump has none."
Donald Trump is a very sick man And without money he would be cooling his heels in a rubber room. Instead he has parlayed a second rate reality show into the presidency of the United States.
His actions Are like a pinball bouncing from bumper to bumper. There is no thought, just reaction. America is diminished in the world specifically because of Trump, his toadys and the sycophants in Congress
Trump think or have a plan?
You're joking me right?
The trouble with “You’ve opened your can of worms, now lie in it” is that it is not Trump who will "lie in it" but rather the United States.
Trump reminds me of McConnell who was he11 bent on blocking anything Obama tried to do even though that may have been a Republican idea in the first place. Trump has gone one step further. We need to get rid of this jerk before he takes the whole country down!
1
Thomas says: “Donald, “You’ve opened your can of worms, now lie in it.”
No doubt.
But he’s made our bed too - we’re getting fleas from lying in it.
1
It's much simpler than that. Trump is addicted to attention from everybody and adulation from his base. And he needs his fix often. So he has to do outrageous things over and over again. He's also hoping that that will make the "Russian thing" go away although he knows, deep in his tiny little hart, that it won't.
In the meantime, he's searching for more bridges to burn, especially ones built by his predecessor...Disgusting.
Awesome!
Trump has done more in solving Iran, and NK in one year than Obama ever did.
You don’t win at chess when you throw all the pieces on the floor and stomp out of the room.
Feckless and reckless. That about sums it up. If there is a god, I hope she intervenes soon.
1
President Fredo has done it again.
Seriously has this man done one thing that is well thought out beyond his own rapacious greed. History will recognize his tax bill is the fundamental dismantling of the key mechanisms that creates fiscal stability in this country.
Fredos presidency is like putting the mafia in control of the US. Loyal only to their own they will use every trick every deceit and ever technique available to enrich themselves.
He should have been passed over. That s the way 'pop' aka George Washington wanted it!
The term is called malapropism, made famous by the comic Professor Irwin Corey....and my favorites unintentional malapropisms from a friend are..he's like a bowl in a china closet, pathetic justice and....after all, nobody's human.
He didn't trash "Obama and Iran in one move": He trashed the United States. He has turned the White House into a political version of the Munster Family.
Fortunately for the mid-terms and his own re-election prospects, everything he has advocated and promised is backfiring: North Korean nuclear disarmament, trade restrictions on China, an 'easy tearing up' of the Iran Nuclear Accord, a 'win-win deal' that would satisfy both Israelis and Palestinians, NAFTA, TPP Trade Accord, absence of economic progress and jobs among his core constituents, inflation that will boost mortgage/credit card and student loan defaults, insurrection within elements of his own party, White House leaks, the Mueller investigation that "won't go away", etc.,. etc.,.
If the Dems don't win at least the House of Representatives in November by a landslide (repeat, landslide), it will have meant Americans learned nothing from the chaos of the preceding two years, and the U.S.A. will be judged even more harshly than at present, if that is at all imaginable.
Sadly, election results depend more on the brainwashed psyches of Fox-indoctrinated citizens than on the intelligence of NYT readers, so there's not much you can do other than pray the message gets through to the dimmest of dimwits through their pocket books (rising gas and core inflation).
1
"But the Iranians have gotten away with murder, mass murder, at home and abroad — with virtually no censure." At the risk of being a quibbler, seriously? Aren't sanctions also censure? I was always taught, 'where there is bark there is bite'. You make it sound with this statement as though we have had a 'you wash my back, and I'll wash yours' relationship. That seems like a stretch. There were hints that this might materialize over the last 15 years, when our interests aligned in Iraq, but then it always seemed as though that old maxim 'one hand bite's the other' became operative.
What is going on these days is reminiscent of ancient Egypt--when the new pharaoh would erase all traces of the previous one--by defacing monuments an otherwise erasing signs he ever existed.
After ObamaCare has completed its implosion, the Iran deal is in the rear-view mirror, and 4 million new regulations are reversed--that should about do it. Thankfully Obama didn't achieve much--so undoing what he accomplished is relatively easy.
1
I'm pretty sure I remember Friedman writing that Bush's Iraq decision was bold and the right thing to do. Do you actually trust Iran? Acknowledging Trump's actions is at least a good start toward sobering up on how bad that deal was. The strategy now is basically "go to hell". And who is financing your "language" museum? Iran?
“Is Trump going to use U.S. forces to push Iran back? No.”
Wait! Let’s go back in time to right after the 2000 election of G.W. Bush:
Is Bush going to use U.S. forces to push Iraq back? No.
Thanks to Trump, Bolton and Pompeo the stage is being set for war against Iran. The question is will America put a stop to it, or act as stupid and blind as it has during the past?
Mr.Friedman be honest,you desire Isreal should and must be the dominate player in the region hence you advocated a war against Iraq,intervention in Syria,acceptance of Sisi dictatorship in Egypt and more limits on Iranian behavior,Guess you are just another fellow traveler for the Zionist cause.
1
"You've opened a can of worms, now lie in it." Who? Trump?
In Mara Largo, upon adding a few billion as a result of a cash grab presidency, Trump and his descendants wont feel a thing. I suspect Trump voters wont feel a thing. They are happy to ignore the destruction of education, justice, infrastructure, industry, farms, environment. Because it is a repudiation of everything Obama. Every prick, ache, and pain they feel, will be numbed by Fox, church, and Oxycontin (and its sniffer, Limbaugh). They are thrilled with the tax cut they did not get, but the super rich did.
The large number of suburban and urban voters who voted third party candidates or sat out the 2016 election are too stupid and self-absorbed to notice any worms. As long as they can take selfies for posting on their social media while protesting that which has already occurred, while standing on the still warm embers of the forest fire in the republic. The images they see of themselves in the mirror so captivates them.
It is the educated, civic minded, mindful of citizenship people in America, with a stake it our collective future, and concerned about the America in which our children and grandchildren will live - is who will be lying in and be mindful of the can of worms opened by Trump.
Trump bowed to interest groups because it was the path of least resistance. The interests arrayed against the deal never wanted to 'fix' it... this was about foreclosing the possibility of rapprochement with Iran, full stop. In that sense, the move to jettison the deal (and national honor, such as it is) was not really about nuclear weapons. This was a giveaway to regional interests bent on pursuing regional escalation.
Withdrawing from the Iran deal will, I think, be looked on as a watershed moment in US history... the moment when it became undeniable that we were no longer able to keep our political dysfunction in check, the moment when we weren't able to manage a competent foreign policy, certainly not one congruent with our sense of being the 'indispensable nation,' along with notions of 'US leadership' and 'exceptionalism' and similarly tired terms of a crumbling foreign policy consensus.
Perhaps that's a silver lining: that we may learn the lesson: 'we really aren't capable of a coherent and functional policy, so let us do less.'
I just worry about how much more pain we might have to endure to learn that lesson. More concretely... I just pray that it doesn't all result in war.
Mr.Friedman makes a persuasive argument for the US to stay committed to the agreement. He calls out Iran's nefarious influence in the happenings in Syria, Yemen and Iraq. One hopes he shows balance by unequivocally condemning the killing by Israeli forces of 60 unarmed Palestinians in the Gaza earlier this week - similar to the killing of over 100s of unarmed Palestinian civilians in Deir Yassin in 1948 and Sabra and Chatila in 1982
1
I've read that obsession is a form of envy. Trump is consumed with envy of Obama. Obama is everything that trump is not: from having a loving family to being respected by the world to being in great shape (seriously, can you see trump wind surfing?). Trump can't even get invited to a funeral. Deep down trump knows that he will never be as good as Obama. Toss a little racism into that envy and you can perfectly predict trump's behavior when it comes to Obama.
4
Humiliation can be a strong motivator for revenge. In 2011, President Obama (rightly) humiliated Trump at the White House correspondents dinner. Trump deserved the take-down for his offensive, racist birther crusade.
There are only two things that really matter to Trump: 1) adoration (really, closer to worship) by all others; 2) revenge for even the smallest perceived slight.
Trump is dedicated to erasing President Obama's legacy, even the memory of his presidency. That is reason enough for him to have pulled America out of a diplomatically and internationally backed agreement to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Trump can do these things because he has the backing of Evangelical Christians, who also keep the few sane Republicans in Congress from carrying out their sworn oaths to protect and uphold the Constitution by exercising oversight of a chaotic presidency.
What Trump accomplishes by backing out of the Iran agreement is more revenge for the most public humiliation ever inflicted on him, and at the same time, he throws a bone to his adoring, worshiping (him) Evangelical Christian base, which desperately wants the End Time as soon as possible. Which is also why Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem. Another bone to the base, seen by Evangelical Christians as a necessary step before Time can end and Jesus can return.
3
Why didn't Obama go after Hillary and her campaign for giving birth to the birther movement?
"Iranians have gotten away with murder, mass murder, at home and abroad " - when you make statements like that, you need to provide references/links. Otherwise it is Trump type accusation - what mass murder are you talking about?
2
I largely agree with Mr. Friedman’s evaluation but what is stunning is the response of so many commenters who,confronted with a clear list of Iran’s misdeeds, shrug and say either “ It’s the Middle East” (as if people who live there were aliens, not human beings) or “we are no better” (yes, we are). Moral relativism, coming from the same people who grow apoplectic at the slightest “micro-aggression” to a black man on campus in the US but think that ethnic cleansing, genocide and terrorism are OK if they are committed by members of a different culture. Blind partisanship that refuses to accept that Trump, stupid as he is, may be able to see something that Obama, for all his intelligence, missed. And unbelievable obtuseness that argues that we need to accept hundreds of thousands of refugees but are barred from even questioning the causes of the civil war that has made them refugees in the first place, let alone trying to fix it. Those are people who call themselves liberals and give a bad name to the rest of us. Ordinary voters see this - and vote Republican.
2
No where does Donald Trump's incompetence show in the way he ignored our European Allies and trashed the Iranian Nuclear deal, there is no negotiation, no thought and definitely no sound judgement on anything Trump does, it's only if President Obama supported it, I'm against it is the Donald Trump mentality.
The leaders of China and North Korea, are playing Donald Trump like a rank amateur and showing his only negotiating skills are complete pandering and capitulation.
Donald Trump talked about jobs, but no one knew the his jobs program would be for China, and benefit the Trump family business organization, sleazy and corrupt!
1
I am one of your many fans, and always contended that you have a basic grasp of what the Middle east is all about, better than many of our leaders. But today, I am disappointed to note that in this article you sound like the typical ultra-left guy who does not understand the middle east. All or none is the on;y language Iran will understand. One can not deal with Iran on the basis of Western moral code. I believe that Trump is doing just this.
3
Great insights. But you've missed one important player, maybe two. The first is Israel, an implacable foe of the Iran agreement and a shameless panderer to Trump's ego. The second player you've missed is fundamentalist Christians. Trump is unrelentingly driven by his ego and his desire to hold on to power (maybe these are the same). He is willing to do anything, reckless and/or feckless, to enhance his re-election chances. By scrapping the Iran agreement, he panders both to his anti-Obama base, to Israel and its ironic allies, fundamentalist Christians. What is sad is how easily Trump is being manipulated on the world stage. Netanyahu played Trump like a puppeteer, and while we are on the subject, Kim Jong-un seems to have played Trump like a stooge. With the mess Trump is creating, he will have to put that in his pipe and lie in it!
439
I'd add that Trump also loves adulation. Israel and his base are delighted to praise him, even mention he deserves a Nobel.
14
Also missed was Saudi Arabia's desire for a nuke. Tearing up the Iran deal and the ensuing threat from Iran nukes will enable Saudi Arabia to get its nuke.
11
Brilliant assessment, Britain. Perhaps it's your objectivity from across the pond.
I live here in the US, and see it the same way. However, I unplugged from TV a very long time ago.
7
What is grotesque is Why Trump wants to "undo" what Obama did. It has nothing to do with coherent policy position, philosophical stance, or strategery as Bush used to say. He does it because Obama publicly embarrassed him. It is petty spite that drives this prevaricating lunatic.
Also, maintaining instability in the region is a requirement of every president imposed by oil companies and the military industrial complex. Instability means bigger oil profits for oil producing nations and oil companies. It also means rationalization for military corruption. To suggest this had anything at all to do with Iran's support of bad behavior is wildly optimistic.
Tom, your three step Iran solution is deep in common sense, not a feature of Trump-lead. His political attempts at leading the world are so inept, so quickly made without the benefit of forethought, that America can only look the fool.
"Moderation," what's that?
1
The Trump administration has relocated the bully pulpit into the china shop and wants to reroute the running of the bullies through there, too. With the world's largest snake oil reserves, Trump tries to sell cat for rabbit to our allies, but they can smell a pig in a poke when they see one.
Clearly Trump is pulling Obama's legacy when he trashes one international accord, treaty or agreement after another that his nemesis put in place. Let's hope we don't all get burned as he pours over-priced gasoline on the bonfire of the insanities as prescribed by the Limbaughs and the Hannities.
252
Love this! Please write more comments in future.
25
"... bonfire of the insanities..."
That's rich! Great comment, and a clever nod to mixed idioms.
32
The problem with Obama's "legacy" is that there were no treaties, which by definition must be ratified by Congress and hence, the American people. He could not get this done so the "agreements" he made are not valid; they were put in place by Executive Order and just as easily replaced by subsequent Executive Orders. Let's hope that Trump learns that lesson well, any "deal" with NOKO or anyone else must go through the treaty processes; again, ratified by Congress or the next president can just as easily unwind them.
3
However, trump's chaotic foreign policies do keep us from discussing Russia.
The 800 pound bear in the room.
1
Where was Obama's foreign policy? Oh right, leading from behind and drawing lines with street chalk.
That 800 pound bear you speak of, has been losing weight exponentially.
Don't worry about the trade war with Mexico, Mr. Freidman, the one that concerns you should be the incipient trade war with Canada - launched with yet another softwood lumber tariff (that will be overturned, as all others have been) and the renegotiation of NAFTA. Canada is a significant trading partner, if not the main expat trading partner, for some 35 states. And if Trump can't satisfy Canada, 35 states are going to be developing a tremendous hate on for Trump. And they'll suffer. But what did they expect? Voters really should look behind the curtain before casting their vote. If Trump can't come to an agreement with Canada, polls show most Canadians are OK with taking the short-term pain for long-term gain of developing RELIABLE markets - something the USA under Trump is proving NOT to be.
1
Obama was outright hostile to our allies and friendly to our enemies. Trump reversed that.
2
Putin is not our buddy.
Yes, it's always Trump trying to make President Obama look bad. Again he fails. He, as others have noted, has not offered specifics as to just why the Iranian "deal" is bad. International inspections have revealed that Iran is in total compliance with the agreement.
This is nothing but another example, just like the embassy move in Israel, of pandering to his minority evangelical base and being a "puppet on a string" for the Likudniks. Millions of us are pining for a foreign policy run by qualified career individuals from "Foggy Bottom" than a totally unqualified and unstable "boy man" in the White House taking cues from Jerusalem. Sadly, Tillerson let them resign or retired them.
1
And now all we can do is wait for the other shoe to hit the fan.
2
Tom is missing one large element of understanding our man/child president: The Donald lives in a zero sum world. He has no ability to compromise - he either wins or he takes his toys and goes home.
His racism is a given, I believe that his hatred for Mr. Obama is further fueled by his distaste for Obama's penchant to compromise, in addition to feeling intellectually inferior to POTUS 44.
The Trump/Fox cabal has made this a much more dangerous world to live in.
Trump is seemingly daring our enemies to pull off an epic attack on America. The frightening aspect is what will he and Hannity cook up as the response?
1
Yeah, Trump threw the baby out with the tepid bathwater.
But you can't keep a bad man up.
Trump cannot survive the mid-terms without a war. Iran or North Korea, now it's dealers's choice.
Trump should send his sons and son in law to the frontlines, first and foremost. Then enroll sons and daughters of all serving lawmakers.
1
So where IS Trump’s “better cheaper healthcare, Day One?” Better Iran Deal”? The Mexico-paid-for wall? Infrastructure? A bone for the middle class? Peace in the Middle East? We’re in year 2 of Mission Accomplished aren’t we and all we got was this lousy president.
4
Humorous, if not so terrifying. Pack your bags now before we are required to obtain exit visas to leave what's left of our country.
Looks like the Persian Empire is making a comeback with a little help from Trump.
1
Persia has yet to learn lessons from round 1 of its empire building days. Before launching round 2, it better read its history.
1
Destruction is the only thing he can do , he doesn't come with innovative and progressive idea , future and progress is not what he is known for , his agenda is only to destroy Obama's legacy and consequently our future, his racist agenda is what drive him.
The danger now is that he exercise the same tactic that he used in his NYC real estate life ,based on lie , deception and manipulation, and all package by the press to promote it ,we now realize that this life style is good for rating , the difference is that now there is world implication , danger and destruction doesn't matter for trump as long as we talk about him ,I wish America would wake up and see where the country is positioned in the world stage , America went from the leader of the free world to a total joke , America has only one simple thing to do is to go "VOTE "
2
This Sunday, General Michael Hayden stated that any leader of another country should examine Obama's record to see what Trump would likely do in any given situation. To me, that is alarming on so many levels. However, Trump only continues the policy which the Republicans practiced when Obama was president. If Obama wanted it, the Republican didn't - despite what they believed before Obama became president. As with Iran, when the challenges are tough, Trump or the Republicans have no solid policy beyond criticizing the actions being taken. The Republicans do however have a history of bringing disorder to the Middle East which looks like Trump will continue. Be prepared to pay more dearly for anything with oil in it!
3
We may be a risk of missing the forest for the trees. Individually, Trump’s actions appear undeniably aberrant and abhorrent. But when viewed collectively, they show a clear intention to diminish America’s standing in the world and drive a wedge between America and our true allies (Great Britain, France, Canada, Australia). Increasingly, it appears to me that Trump’s ultimate goal is to precipitate the collapse of the NATO Alliance, a perennial goal of Vladimir Putin.We may be a risk of missing the forest for the trees. Individually, Trump’s actions appear undeniably aberrant and abhorrent. But when viewed collectively, they show a clear intention to diminish America’s standing in the world and drive a wedge between America and our true allies (Great Britain, France, Canada, Australia). Increasingly, it appears to me that Trump’s ultimate goal is to precipitate the collapse of the NATO Alliance, a perennial goal of Vladimir Putin.
4
I view Trump's administration and its policies like a period in which a dictatorship has displaced a democracy. It may put through oppressive and authoritarian measures that go against legalities, but these will be erased as soon as the usurpers have been replaced. Take this only as an analogy to illustrate the temporary
dominance of unreason.
3
Trump's judicial appointees will be pressing their infantile religion on everyone for decades.
That's one thing that cannot be remedied. For that, I will forever hold McConnell in contempt.
Restoring sanctions on Iran drives up the price of oil, benefiting Putin's authoritarian regime. Dividing the U.S. and its European allies perfectly conforms to Russian strategic interests under Putin. Stepping back from Trump reality tv theatrics, the big picture emerges.
9
Trump is Putin's chained puppet to break up the US just as the US broke up the USSR.
1
Of course, one of if not the only motivation for Trump's presidency apart from his own self-aggrandizement is revenge and personal animosity toward Obama. To say that it started with the overdue much deserved personal roasting he got at that Correspondents' dinner ignores the fact that he was already neck deep into the birther movement he embraced. However, being publicly ridiculed -- and by a "black" man -- surely fueled his fire inasmuch as his sense of racism differs little in attitude from that of his felon father. So now we have a domestic and foreign policy focused primarily on personal animus. To say this is Mafia-like understates matters, but it is an apt comparison.
14
Trump is a product of a gangster-run borough.
1
When we credit Trump, we let the Republican party of extremists off the hook. Everyone knows that Trump is not a policy wonk. The Republican party that came to power with him is the power behind the throne.
The neocons are back. The Koch brothers are back. McConnell' immoral power is still there. Ryan's economic giveaway is still there. The SCOTUS is back in control of the radical right. The federal Judiciary has moved farther to the right with an additional 12% of the total justices placed by McConnell's team.
So lets put the blame where it belongs! It is the current Right wing Extremist Party called Republicans.
Even impeaching Trump would not change a thing. What will is the N ovember election.
28
I agree that Trump's overriding goal is to be the anti-Obama. That is why he was elected, and is his main hope for reelection. Clever people, like John Bolton, understand this and use it to further their aims, which may or not have merit.
7
Mr. Friedman makes logical points but misses the big picture. If the Iran Deal was so important to the US and President Obama, why was it never written as a treaty and voted on in Congress? There was no effort to gain bipartisan support. As Ben Rhodes revealed, naive and pliant journalists were enlisted to sell the deal to a public that never fully embraced the accord. In the end, the Iran Agreement was made with everyone except the American people. That is why it could be swept away so easily with little outcry except from the usual suspects in the media and fossilized foreign policy world.
4
Too few are willing to say the "Emperor ha[d] no clothes." Obama did not have the luxury of "avoidance", staying away from an area he believed was led by crazies. That's not something a sitting US president gets to do. If his disengagement strategy is being dismantled, it's because it was never a viable policy. Obama avoided problems and handed them off to his successor. He avoided responsibility equally well judging from all his defenders.
The obvious reason is, the Republican controlled Congress would never, ever, despite the merits of any issue brought before it, say yes to anything proposed or negotiated by President Obama. The obvious reason is, no matter how hard the Obama administration worked to obtain bipartisan support, no matter how many compromises it was willing to make, as demonstrated with the ACA, where Republicans made over 100 changes to the bill and then unanimously voted against it, the Republican controlled Congress was absolutely committed to NEVER approving ANYTHING President Obama put before them. Why ask the question when you already know the answer? How disingenuous of you!
Get real. The Republican Party was against whatever Obama was for from the moment he was inaugurated. He was enticed by dark money to run to lose to McCain, who threw the election by his own choice of running mate.
Tom,
I went on to read your(as always) insightful article, after smiling at your opening paragraph about a language museum.
My late, darling mother-in-law could have been an unlimited source of material for the museum.
On this chilly, dreary May day in a world where I dread reading a newspaper headline everyday, your opening paragraph brought a smile to my day.
Thanks for the many years of well thought books and columns.
3
...sorry Mr. Friedman, lifting sanctions against Iran gave it the ability to fund terror throughout the region, and developing ballistic weapons was a priority. We would have to withstand another 15 years of allowing the country to continue killing thousands of civilians in Syria, Iraq and the Gaza. President Obama negotiated with a terrorist nation; something the US should never do. He signed a weak and shallow agreement, which marginalized our ability to control Iran.
3
Iran has not attacked other countries, so we have no right to control it.
1
Trump's actions have real consequences for real people. Shiites have not committed terrorist attacks against the West, but changing the world view of the young Iranian population from favorable to potentially being made to hate Americans by their radicalising leadership might change that in the future. The more we meddle in the Middle East, the worse things get.
4
Suddenly "strategery," from the classic SNL skit, seems ever more brilliant compared to this fumbling around by Trump. Who would have thought someone could make Bush look smart in comparison.
7
Destabilizing the middle east will drive up oil prices, thus benefitting Trump's friends in that industry (as if they needed help). It's the only way Trump's actions concerning Israel and Iran make sense that I can think of.
6
Some day I would like a factual account of all of Iran's crimes. What exactly has Iran done to earn wholesale American condemnation? How do the misdeeds stack up against Isreal's treatment of Palestinians? Saudi funding of terrorism, and human rights violations? Did I mention Russian interference in our democracy?
18
For one thing, Iran is linked to the deaths of hundreds of US soldiers. Of course, the Obama Administration would never divulge this kind of data. It highly controlled the narrative when it was pursuing its agenda. Remember how it claimed AQ was on the run when it wanted the public to perceive, falsely, that it had terrorism under control.
I have been unable to figure out exactly what the Trump administration means when it seems to seek "regime change" in Iran. Certainly, pulling out of the nuclear agreement will only reinforce Iranian unity in resisting US threats.
Iran is not Iraq of 2003, where the political power rested in the hands of one individual. The Iranian political landscape is far, far more complex and diffuse, where "regime change" would require the removal of literally several hundred, if not thousands, of individuals, from the senior clerics to the upper ranks of the Revolutionary Guards to President Rouhani's senior staff. Plus, the ghost of the 1950s Mossadegh affair is very much on the minds of the Iranian population, who would rise up against any similar foreign attempt.
13
"Is Trump going to use U.S. forces to push Iran back? No"....
The US has given Israel a blank check in the ME to do whatever it wants militarily. Hmm, who do you think will support Israel if they get into difficulty?
BTW - Israel, Saudi Arabia , and the UAE were censured. What ,exactly , was the effect on these countries ? Nothing. They continue as if nothing has happened.
7
The Obama policy was wishful thinking, or maybe it will just go away on its own.
3
The Iran deal was barely a year in when Trump took office. Iran was having internal struggles as moderates were wrestling with the hardliners who wanted to prove that the deal did not weaken their religious hold over its people and the region.
Now, we can only speculate what would have happened over the years of the deal if the US had stuck to it. Change cannot happen over night. Obama learned from the mistakes of his and his predecessors. The Arab Spring was too fast and leaderless, the Libyan invasion without end plan. He focused this understanding on Iraq and we begin to see some light there.
Obama did not expect all the best laid plans to be complete or bear fruit before his time in office was over. Iran had possibilities. It was the perfect state with its educated people, secular instinct and large diaspora of secular Muslims to evolve into a more open government.
Trump doesn't understand time. The nuance of subtle change is alien to him. However, all good outcomes come from open minds and patience.
9
As a contributor to the Daily Kos observed recently, there is a plausible explanation for Trump's trashing of the Iran deal. Russia has been hurt really badly by low oil prices, since oil is their only real source of revenue. There have been real rumblings of protest despite the iron hand of state police. Even more serious for Putin is the jeopardization of his ability to pay off his oligarchy with oil funds. Now, with the stability of Iran's oil supply in serious doubt, oil prices have begun to spike and Russia's oil profits stand to increase by $100 billion or more. This could actually save Putin's regime. Is this Trump's final big payoff to Putin?
10
Making Obama pay for making fun of him at the WH Correspondents Dinner is the underlying motive of nearly every decision Trump makes. Yes, he’s that petty and small-minded, and yet he is leader of the free world. It’s incredible
10
His parents were epic failures when it came to parenting Trump.
2
Yes, it speaks poorly on Trump, but also on Obama.
wnhoke, no Obama needed to shut down the birther myth. he used humor to do that. good for obama.
When I was a youngster, I loved taking things apart, like watches and old televisions and such. But I had no desire -- nor ability -- to put them back together. I liked to set off big (and illegal) firecrackers to see how much damage I could do to neighbors' garbage cans and other inanimate objects that didn't belong to me. That's Trump: a child who revels in destruction, but has no idea about the workings of what he destroys nor the intelligence to understand them anyway. He's an abomination, and so are most of the people who voted for him.
13
Mr Friedman, you give Donald Trump far too much credit. He hasn't the faintest care in the world about Iran's treatment of Sunni Muslims or knowledge of the finer points of nuclear non-proliferation. Rather, he is simply terrified of the idea that Ron Dermer will talk over him at a big meeting, and in doing so will actually look intelligent, rather than like a two-bit marmot as when he spoke over President Obama.
Also, Netanyahu would likely have no trouble at all rolling Trump into a disastrous conflict with Iran, if he were so inclined. The idea that Trump won't recklessly engage U.S.forces in the middle east hinges on a) Trump being rational and b) lack of a precedent for such a foolish action (see: 2003). Good luck with that.
5
"We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it." Very nice.
I believe Mr. Trump's trashing the Iran agreement is principally about trashing the legacy and accomplishments of President Obama. I don't believe Trump knows anything about the Iran agreement. I don't believe Trump accepts advice from credible experts. On the other hand, trashing Obama is one of the only consistent themes of this White House. It goes nicely with another such theme--racial innuendo and racial resentment.
11
This is what happens when our elected leader is someone who is not interested in policy, not interested in history, has no use for nuances, and only goal is to undo ANYTHING associated with the Obama administration, whether it is good for this country or not. IQ45 has been a complete and total disaster for this country and the world. No wonder China and Russia are stepping into the vacuum.
10
I think Mr. Friedman ascribes too much thought to Mr. Trump, who knows nothing and thinks about less.
Message to the world...just bide your time, we understand the colossal mistake made and he and his people will be gone soon enough.
Things will return to normal, please be patient.
6
Regarding your three fixes:
1. Extend the ban
What, precisely would have been gained with another ten years that couldn't have been gained in the fifteen? If Iran were to remain in compliance with the ban, by the end of the fifteen years they would have been so tightly integrated into the world community, that they would not have had any desire to bomb anybody. People who buy from one another don't want to shoot at one another.
2. Limit their missile range.
That can also be read as limit their aspirations to space exploration and commerce. Why should aspirations to indigenous exploration of outer space be good enough for China and India, but not good enough for Iran?
3. Use diplomacy to spotlight and censure Iran.
That was always possible before. Why does there exist a need to "upgrade" the JCPOA to enable that?
Here's another mixed-up idiom for you: "The proof of the eating is in the pudding".
2
Is it possible that Trump is so petty, vain and insecure that his driving motivation to seek the presidency is the result of the jokes at his expense from President Obama and Seth Meyers at the WHCD? And is it possible that pure spite is behind his obsession with undoing everything President Obama has done?
Yes, it is. If there's a cure for what ails Trump, it's likely to be some combination of therapy and psychotropic medication. Instead, enough "real Americans" and the Electoral College made him president. That's the textbook definition of rewarding bad behavior.
12
That's it! If Obama hosted a TV show Trump would wind up chewing the carpet in the Oval Office.
Obama could save the nation,and return sanity and dignity to the White House, by just hosting a reality program based on.....reality.
It would give Trump a taste of his own method to his madness.
7
"By lifting sanctions on Iran as part of the deal, Obama hoped Iran would become integrated into the world and moderate the regime.
The latter did not happen, but the former did."
A little early to judge, don't you think? What's the likelihood the current U.S. administration will moderate in the next two years?
6
Mr Friedman, the rhetorical questions that you pose presumes that tRump has thought about these matters. As we know, he doesn't think about anything that does not involve self enrichment or self promotion. As with the looming talks with North Korea, tRump is so consumed with walking away with some sort of "win"; any sort of "win" ---that he will endanger the national interest just so he can say he accomplished something.
tRump only cares about tRump. And obviously, the Republicans in Congress are not about to confront him in the exercise of their Constitutional responsibilities.
14
I think you give Trump too much credit for understanding Iran. In my opinion, his actions show no understanding of the situation whatsoever, he just wants to burn any bridge Obama built. I hate to be so cynical but Trump has given us no reason to believe that he knows what and who he's dealing with, and there's no evidence that he's thought his way through this situation--or any other-- at all. In fact, it's a point of pride with him that he doesn't sit around reading briefings or histories.
18
Trump does not seem to have the attention span of being able to read full sentences or anything other than an abbreviated tweet. He probably falls asleep when his advisors give him long winded explanations. Cliff notes short brief bullet points is all he has attention for.
2
As the late Richard J. Daley of Chicago, the King of Malapropisms might have said, "It's one thing to criticize and find fault, but what trees do you plant? Where are your programs? Where are your plans?"
It's really very simple. Trump does not do subtle. He does not do incremental. He does not do cautious. He does not do reflection. He is all buzz saw, hammer and nails, bashing and pounding and driving, with no time for finished carpentry. Once a builder, he has become a destroyer with an anger management problem, leaving rubble and devastation in his wake, with little to no informed thought as to what comes next.
He is quick to anger, expansive in his rushed, ill-considered judgments of others, and excessively sympathetic to the wrong people while given to boundless self-promotion and self-congratulation without reason other than his own vanity.
Details do not grab his attention, and the complexity of world problems are all about details, subtleties and nuance. He is prone to 50,000 foot flyovers and broad brushstrokes rather than the deep and introspective examination which, to further the art analogy, is the hallmark of pointillism.
Trump is not going to change. He may, indeed, be living his dream-come-true, but his dream is becoming our national nightmare and, I daresay, the world's, and it's keeping a lot of us up at night.
21
It's also likely that Trump's dream of trashing Obama and Iran deal could turn out to be a security nightmare with Middle East causing new headaches to the US.
7
America has proven time and again that it lacks foresight. It’s highly paid foreign policy advisors and consultants, not to mention spies and operatives, military strategists, present countless scenarios of what likely outcomes their actions might generate. But these remain in theory because their decisions are not made from the heart, with thought of dealing with humans rather than monsters they make their made-up enemies to appear. They twist themselves into a pretzel trying to strategify an already complex world. Picture a snake eating it’s own tail.
2
Thomas Friedman wisely avoids the obligatory Trump bashing and, at the same time, shines light on one of the sadder aspects of American foreign policy -- it is too often driven by presidential ego. Friedman can be faulted for not speaking to President Obama's drive to complete the Iran deal on his watch, but by pointing to Trump's "We'll burn that bridge when we come to it" approach to any and all aspects of an Obama legacy, he makes comparison to Obama's short-sighted need to get the deal done obvious.
There is no reason why Secretary of State John Kerry and the rest of the P5+1 could not have packed up and temporarily walked away from the negotiations, leaving the economy-crippling sanctions in place. Do we really think that the Iranians would have refused to stretch the deal? However, Kerry could not play hardball because the sand was running out of an hourglass that should never have been on his desk in the first place.
Unfortunately, presidential-driven foreign policy is a fixed part of our government. In a better world, the appropriate Congressional committees could have played an advisory role in the JCPOA negotiations, but both sides of the partisan divide made that impossible.
Once, we believed that "Politics ends at the water's edge," and though it appears that Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Bob Corker sincerely wishes that the idea of bi-partisan foreign policy could escape the walls of his committee room, I won't hold my breath.
Bennet ignoresFriedman’s point that obama had a policy whereas trump has none. Bennett instead chooses to join in the fake anti obama bandwagon in favor of ...? He has no policy just an animus
1
"Trump is less impeded than ever, a fact that impresses even those he has mocked and spurned. Stephen Bannon (who Trump said had “lost his mind”) recently told me, 'He is unchained. This is primal Trump—back to the leader he was during the campaign, the same one the American people voted into office. There are no more McMasters in the apparatus. He’s got s(tuff) he’s got to get done, and he’s just going to get it done.'"
The above is from Evan Osnos' excellent yet highly disturbing expose in The New Yorker entitled "Trump vs. the "Deep State". The "deconstruction" isn't limited to the US. Strategy? You must be joking. This is all a big show. And it's up to US voters to put a stop to it in November, or else.
7
There is another phrase about bridges that is apt: "that's bridge under the water". The Iran "deal" was never ratified by the US Congress, rendering the deal "under the water" from the outset. President Obama's strategies in the Middle East (and also elsewhere in the world) did not produce good results. Time to try something new. As Albert Einstein once famously said: Insanity consists of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
1
To me, the obvious question here is where do the Russian’s stand (and China for that matter)? It appears they stand directly behind Iran with staunch support. Any US interference, other than tinkering with the present agreement, it would seem would be met with resistance by the Russians.
What’s most worrisome is that this and the Israeli embassy are all steps towards a real confrontation in the region with Israel as our proxy and Iran as Russia’s. Trump’s section of John Bolton and security advisor would certainly point to this type of thinking.
4
Trump's team represents industries of military thought, with an afterthought to morality, or abstract ideas of democracy. They are practical. They will all get paid for their belligerence.
3
“Donald, “You’ve opened your can of worms, now lie in it.””
This is a super mixed idiom for Trump. The problem is the international and human consequences of Trump’s singular contempt, pettiness, and hate are not all about him. We will all have to lie in the can of worms he opened. This was not the first can he opened and there are others lined up within his reach.
It is not as if Trump is opening these cans alone. There are special interests, domestic and foreign, who take advantage of the linearly transactional President armed with a can opener who appears to be unable to think in broad terms of cause and effect or does not care. Evidence of this exists in Trump’s numerous inconsistencies.
Logic dictates there is likely an underlying motive for decisions that do not make sense. Otherwise, the decision is just needless, nonsensical chaos. There have been too many decisions that do not make sense from this administration, indicating a pattern of purposeful instability.
3
Let’s not blame Trump alone. When TF writes, “ But to do so would have required Trump to admit that there was merit in the deal Obama had forged and to be content with limited, but valuable, fixes that our European allies likely would have embraced.” It should sound familiar to all of us. The GOP position has been consistent throughout the 2009-2016.
Imagine the benefits to millions of Americans if the GOP had taken the approach to health care that we should fix the ACA instead of voting over 60 times to destroy it. Who knows how much suffering could have been avoided.
No, Trump does not deserve all of the discredit.The day Mitch McConnell announced that his party’s number one priority was not to better the country but to defeat president Obama we all lost more than we will ever know.
39
Here's one for the oxforddictionaries.com blog on mixed idioms:
A fool and his money should be seen and not heard.
23
If, if fact, Iranian leadership is pursuing a regional strategy as evidenced by Mr. Friedman's one, obscure citation, that's one more strategy than the U.S. is pursuing in the region. Incoherent demonizing is hardly a strategy.
3
Contrary to calling out Iran in Syria, the US, under Trump and under the banner of “ISIS elimination” intervened in Syria militarily, turned its back on the Kurds who bailed us out of Iraq, and actually helped to tip the balance towards Assad and his Iranian (and Russian) backers. This is not actually calling out and punishing bad behavior.
15
The problem with your last statement is that it's not Trump lying in it. It is all the rest of us who are left with the rubble, which always has been his business strategy.
29
Upon catching her daughter and me alone in her house, my college girlfriend's ultra-conservative mother (comically) mangled a pair of opposing idioms as she was chasing us down the stairs and out the door...and I've never forgotten the experience. Seeking to dissuade me from ever again feeling comfortable under her roof, she angrily shrieked that I'd be, "Up a tree without a paddle," if I ever tried it again. (I never did.)
Nearly 40 years later, Mrs. Silva's magnificently mixed-up idiom is the perfect encapsulation of life in the Trump era.
.
18
I really liked the mixed metaphor "we'll burn that bridge when we come to it."
But isn't the Trump philosophy really
"We'll burn that bridge BEFORE we come to it"?
or better yet
"We had to burn that bridge to save it"?
Viz climate change, trade, health care, education...
25
It’s a quintessential American way of operating. Zero thought was given to Iraq war consequences, we will be in and out they told us, but they burnt them bridges and could not leave. To this day.
2
President Obama had it right - "keep it simple and focus on the biggest threat."
Had George Bush followed a well-reasoned plan like that, he would have focused on Afghanistan and al Qaeda and never have invaded Iraq, costing us trillions of dollars, thousands of killed and wounded and the empowerment of an Iran, Saddam Hussein's Iraq had kept in check.
Sensible people know that the Iran deal was working precisely because Obama kept it simple enough to enable a coalition that included our allies plus Russia and China and limited its focus to the biggest threat - preventing a nuclear Iran when it was on the brink of becoming a nuclear power.
Undoing the Iran deal with nothing to replace it with will be a disaster. Obama was right. Trump is wrong. So, what else is new?
48
Had George Bush followed a well reasoned plan he would have confronted Saudi Arabia - home of 15 of the 19 hijackers and source of funds for the 9/11 attack on America.
Instead Bush Cheney mired us in Afghanistan and Iraq, enflamed the Middle East for generations, and with the help of Mitch McConnell and a feckless GOP set the stage for Trumpism.
Mission Accomplished indeed.
2
"It is true that Iran has projected its power deep into the Arab world. But that was not because of money it got from the nuclear deal and sanctions relief, as argued by Trump & friends. It was because of the weakness of the Sunni Arab states and their internecine fighting, which created power vacuums that Iran has filled with its network of Shiite proxies. That’s how Iran today has managed to indirectly control four Arab capitals: Beirut, Baghdad, Damascus and Sana."
Iran is in control of Baghdad because the previous Republican administration killed the Sunni despot who formerly ruled there and disenfranchised the Sunni ruling class precipitating a civil war that destroyed the country's infrastructure. At least the parts we didn't destroy ourselves.
George W. Bush removed the great natural bulwark against Iran's ambitions in the Arab world. He created the power vacuum. He destabilized all of southwest Asia... Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan. It's much too late to simply gloss over this.
57
I've also heard, "She opened the can of worms and then rubbed salt in it."
6
Yes, Mr. Friedman, I'm afraid you're right, Mr. Trump seems bent on destroying Mr. Obama's legacy. Prior to being elected president, Mr. Trump spent a good deal of time casting doubt on Mr. Obama's place of birth. He gained quite a few followers with that nonsense, which he never really repudiated.
Then of course, there was the signature Obamacare, which was horrible, terrible, the worst, awful--you name it. And there was always the promise of something better if Obamacare was repealed. Here in Florida, the state legislature turned down federal Medicaid assistance, promising something better for Floridians. In both cases, nothing better ever materialized.
The accomplishments of the Obama era at the EPA have been severely turned back, the latest being the CAFE standards for automobiles. No hint of promising anything better there. The better is that the free market is less fettered to save money by polluting the environment.
So we have the Iran Nuclear Agreement, which again was horrible, terrible, the worst in history, and the promise of negotiating something better. But how can you negotiate something better by giving up something you've got, something that worked, however imperfectly? In the mean time, do we have any more leverage curtailing Iran's destructive meddling in the Near East?
The important thing is to play "Wreck-it-Ralph" with the accomplishments of the Obama era. Somehow, this makes the current Mr. Trump feel better about himself.
30
Could be all the time he spends with bowlers. A two-bagger always is better than a standalone strike, and a ton better use of two balls than a single spare.
Other than persona, six inches of stature and sheer guatamaliness, that could be the one material difference between Tom and Trump: where Tom sees merely the possibility of a safe spare, Trump sees a potential two-bagger.
The problem with salvaging any part of the Obama/Kerry Iran deal is that it never started with the absolute resolve that Iran could not be permitted nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver them. Consequently, we already had lost when we sat down at the table: the convenient assumption always was that they were going to get nukes and delivery vehicles no matter what we did that we were prepared to do, so … may as well kick the can down the road a few years. Not that different from the deal-less approach to North Korea, and not that different from Munich. Depend on the “reasonableness” of VERY tough customers who knew what THEIR interests were and were ready to do ANYTHING to secure them.
But Trump isn’t so innocent and if he sees anything in his adversaries of the moment, he sees their resolve to do anything necessary to secure their objectives. But both adversaries are playing very weak hands, Trump isn’t known for showing mercy, and will play EITHER the rock OR the hard place.
Too late to keep North Korea from nuclear delivery capacity, but that will be walked back; and Iran never will get it.
2
The blackmail, eventually, could be pricey, but a rational and responsible leader could conclude that an extortionate blackmail would be better than a nuclear arms race in the Middle East among people who flog children for kissing, and a very possible nuclear war, there or instigated from Asia.
That’s the difference: Trump will be starting negotiations with an absolute resolve that the Korean Peninsula will be cleansed of nukes and that the Middle East will see no players get them that don’t already have them; and particularly not Iran.
I don’t believe that Trump’s ambitions extend to “positively changing” the Middle East – or even North Korea. If they’re bent on killing one another until almost all of them are in Hell and very few left on Earth, that’s their business. What they WILL NOT be permitted to do is exterminate themselves with nuclear weapons that can be targeted as well to Euro capitals, to Israel or to our West Coast.
So, get set for a ride: but that ride won’t be on any conveyance architected by Barack Obama. The world really has no more business with more Munichs – the real one came very close to destroying us.
2
You have a few problems with your thesis. One is exactly how a man, as Mr Friedman put it, unable to deal with a porn star, will be able to get North Korea to denuclearize. Today's news regarding NKs statement is just one fly in the ointment. One might contemplate the history of negotiations with NK and realize this has all happened before, such as in the Six Party talks in 2003,when they agreed to abandon all nuclear weapons, before balking at verification requirements and ultimately withdrawing from further discussion.
Part of the tragedy of Trumpism, led by a man who refuses to read or learn, is the notion that every day is a blank slate, uninformed by the past. It's just the way a semiliterate real estate developer and reality show host might think of the world, but surely the rest of us can do better.
Your other big problem is connecting "rational and responsible"to any discussion of Donald Trump. Talk about ahistorical.
2
Evan:
I didn't bother responding to Tom's tongue-in-cheek comment about Trump and Stormy -- figured any response was self-evident. Trump, as far as we know, wasn't negotiating with Stormy for what he received from her; and, now, she has nothing to lose and everything to gain by keeping him embarrassed. I've given my advice, for what it might be worth to him -- bite the bullet and pay her off.
Kim, on the other hand, is playing a very weak hand, and wants things from Trump: financial help in building his economy and apparently now a counter to China.
Three years ago I read the 159 page agreement.
The deal:
▪ Does not provide for anytime/anywhere inspections.
▪ Does not reduce or control Iran’s production of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
▪ Does not require Iran to dismantle centrifuges.
▪ Enables Iran to continue increasing their weapon-grade nuclear capabilities, likely ensuring a nuclear weapons race among neighboring countries.
With all due respect to Mr. Friedman and to those who feel that there just is no alternative to this deal, let me suggest that sometimes the status quo is better than a deal that gives Iran billions of dollars in sanctions relief and allows it up to 24 days before inspectors can even enter their nuclear facilities. Incredibly, that is actually part of the deal.
Those billions of dollars have been used to foment unrest and support terrorist groups in the region.
Regardless of Trump's obsession with his predecessor, his decision to tear up the deal was the right decision.
While I am no fan of Trump, sadly, Mr. Friedman’s zeal to denigrate the president prevents him from looking at an issue like the Iran deal with the objectivity one would expect from a renowned journalist.
6
Permit me to add a personal note in agreement with Mr. Friedman. I asked President Obama, late in his term, why we didn't just sign a mutual defense treaty with Israel and station some troops there, that perhaps Israel would then become less fearful of the Palestinians and its neighbors. And then both Israel and its neighbors would find their minds being concentrated and be more willing to take risks for peace if we had some troops there..
It seems as if we get all of the negatives of Israel being an undeclared ally and none of the foreseeable benefits of its being an actual one.
But President Obama responded exactly as Thomas Friedman describes that there really isn't anything outsiders can do, that they have to come to a solution themselves. He said this with sorrow and resignation. Obama no longer thought there were leaders there who really want peace enough to compromise. So he wasn't going to put American soldiers in harm's way or a hostage situation.
55
After Ukraine, I would not accept an American security guaranty. We were obligated to defend Ukraine from Russia and we did nothing. Recall...this was in exchange for Ukraine giving up...wait for it.....their nuclear weapons. No country will again trust America to keep it safe...that is part of President Obama's legacy.
2
President Obama understood a very complex situation that could not yield to simple minded sophomoric solutions. I do not need to explain further.
"And that’s my subject for today. Trump, by taking a hard line on Iran, drew some needed attention to Iran’s bad behavior and created an opportunity to improve the nuclear deal."
I really wish that we leave the final judgment on good and bad behavior to history, and focus instead on what is in our interests and what is not. Even someone as lacking in self awareness as Trump has questioned our reflexive assumption of always being "the good guys."
3
While I concede the intuitive appeal of questioning Trump’s capacity for complexity or subtlety, Trump has already improved, though incrementally, the horrible situations he inherited in North Korea, Syria, Russia, and Iran. There is hardly a point on the globe where American interests or regional stability were not worse off after eight years of Obama. The argument that the subtle mind of a President Obama was more suited to the problems at hand is unsustainable. The bottom line is that Trump is president whether we like it or not. We must hope that he can do a better job than Obama did, and fretting that he is doing it differently than what failed is ridiculous.
Mr. Friedman argues that though Trump may be right on the merits, we should ignore the genocidal crimes of Iran being committed on a regional scale. He doesn't actually say “ignore.” He talks of intense “diplomacy,” which for all practical purposes means the same thing, and is what got us is in this mess in the first place. Since Obama engaged in intense diplomacy, Iran’s behavior has only gotten worse, enabled by billions of dollars of assets we unfroze. Furthermore, he is effectively willing to allow these genocidal maniacs to eventually have nuclear weapons. A delay of a few years, knowing that Iran will find ways to cheat (they always have), is not meaningful.
7
Get real: no president has experienced worse faith from the Republican Party in my lifetime than Obama. He was set up and then sabotaged.
1
Charles,
How would you rate Mr. Trump’s efforts thus far with our allies in Britain, France and Germany? Or with Canada and Mexico, our two largest trading partners? “Incrementally better?”
Remind me again how people have died in Iraq because of America’s war. Let us not be too sanctimonious.
Mr. Friedman is confusing Trump's over-reactions and disdain for Obama with planned, thoughtful behavior--which is far beyond his capacity.
24
"Trump should have kept it simple, too. Rather than scrapping the deal, he should have told the Europeans that all he wanted to stay in the deal were three fixes: 1. Extend the ban on Iran’s enriching of uranium to weapons grade from the original 15 years Obama negotiated to 25 years. 2. Europe and the U.S. agree to impose sanctions if Iran ever attempts to build a missile with a range that could hit Europe or America. 3. The U.S. and Europe use diplomacy to spotlight and censure Iran’s “occupations” of Syria, Iraq and Lebanon."
I believe this is the wrong approach. What trump should have done was to make a deal for crippling U.S./European economic sanctions directed at Iran's ballistic missile tests and military build-up in Syria.
The Euros were ready to agree to this, and it could have been done independently of Russia and China.
1
Trump has such a short attention span he could never get through an article like this. He could never carry out any of these ideas because he is totally clueless and he remains clueless because the only things he cares about are money, self aggrandizement, and sticking it to Obama.
52
The best idea, in the hands of the wrong man, becomes the worst idea. - Anything that can slide from 1 to 10 will be a 1 under Trump.
7
Trump's only qualification for running for President was lording over a multi-generation criminal family enterprise. Unlike his role on reality TV, being President of the United States requires real skills - skills he doesn't have. And to make everything worse, he's a terrible manager and a horrific judge of character, especially when it involves hiring people. This will not end well for America. Or the rest of the world.
49
Trunp is the worst kind of leader. He gets all worked up about what he opposes, but hasn’t a clue what he wants or how to get it.
30
Like Trump or not, Iran understands America will go to war if it builds a nuclear weapon. It understood this when it agreed w the Obama plan having no there choice, and knows Trump will never allow it near the bomb.
Years ago, I watched the video of the 2011 White House Correspondents dinner. I have not brought myself to watch it since.
I'm age 70, but that made a lifetime impression: I never had seen, or imagined, such intensely focused and determined rage as I saw in Trump's eyes as BHO continually belittled him. And by a person who had succeeded astoundingly at everything he ever had tried, a billionaire before age 40, decades ago when that was almost unthinkable! And I wondered over and over, how this would end. I knew that SOMEthing would happen; I just didn't know what.
Of course, I couldn't have predicted the 2016 election and its aftermath. Or its consequences for so many people. Including but not limited to the people of Iran. And here in the US, my many immigrant friends.
7
The players of the USFL, the investors in Trump's casino properties, the people who rode the Trump shuttle, might have an issue with the idea that he's succeeded at everything he's tried.
4
Actually, Trump needed repeated bailing out financially by his father. He lied about his wealth to makes the Forbes wealthiest lists by calling reporters and lying to them using the name John Barron. He has declared bankruptcies 6 times and renigs on contracts so often he has been sued 4500 times. He is an accomplished liar and con. All this information is easy to find.
2
Trump inherited his fortune and was never considered an ethical or worthy businessman. And he has not been well received in his own hometown as evidenced by that Alfred E Smith dinner in NYC before the election. His relentless campaign against Barack Obama deserved much more than he got at that WH C dinner. World Leaders clearly don’t like the man. He is petty, immoral, uneducated, obnoxious, unsophisticated, single minded and racist and decidedly low-information in a country that has fought its way through history to better itself despite the corruption of its so called representatives in Washington. America is in deep trouble with this unworthy person in the WhiteHouse. We know we are so much less as a people these days, divided, messy, angry, and until Trump is out, we’ll stay that way.
2
Technically, Stormy Daniels is a pornographic actress, not a stripper. Otherwise this piece is spot on.
19
With each Trump debacle, I aghast anew with despair at my fellow citizens who still love Trump. Just two days into this new week: massacre over American embassy move to Jerusalem, help ZTE!, EPA blocking publication of chemical pollution report, unwinding of unit investigation fraud at for-profit colleges... are they seeing these? If not, why not?
24
Fox News!
1
"It made Obama a policy minimalist on the Middle East: keep it simple and focus on the biggest threat....By lifting sanctions on Iran as part of the deal, Obama hoped Iran would become integrated into the world and moderate the regime. The latter did not happen,...The deal never covered Iran’s regional aggression or its ballistic missile program."
Mr. Obama was indeed a minimalist. He was so in Syria and was so re Iran. Unfortunately, "little" problems left to fester grow into big one. Think Aleppo. Think Iran in Syria now and as Mr. Friedman has already pointed out, Iran's attempts to attack (and subsequently if successful) and destroy Israel will probably be the cause of the next war in the Middle East.
Maximalism may not solve all the problems. Minimalism often just cultivates them, lets them grow and flourish and eventually turn toxic.
"What a shame. Just improving on what Obama started would have greatly advanced U.S. interests."
Reading the continuation of Mr. Friedman's essay re Iran, I find it hard to believe that Mr. Friedman himself believes the above sentence. But anti-Trumpism eventually trumps all logical claims.
4
One day at a time. You can't plan on anything nowadays because we have so little precious time we spend on this Planet Earth. And times are not what they used to be. It's for those who survive that will live long enough to see the end and know what it was before. A toe hold into the unforeseeable future. Maybe without wars. No, it is not excited times now. Even as the Capitol of Israel is now Jerusalem by building a new U.S. Embassy there. It's not where the U.S. Constitution is from. The birthplace of the American Revolution.
2
“Obama’s view of the Middle East was that it was an outlier region, where a toxic brew...made positive change from outside impossible; it had to come from within.“
A key ingredient of the toxic brew was added by Obama’s predecessor, who attempted to effect change from outside, but with disastrous results. Since Tom Friedman was gung-ho for the Iraq War I suppose it’s not surprising he doesn’t mention that fact.
Donald Trump is well on his way to repeating GW Bush’s mistake of sticking his fist into a hornets’ nest.
16
The great negotiator has reneged on the Iran deal...to what end? Does he want a more submissive Iran? Regime change...to be replaced by what?
Will unilateral sanctions achieve these goals? Not likely.
Will the US put a million troops into Iran? Even less likely!
What does that leave? Basically Trump will have to credibly go “rocket man” cray-cray on Iran, or allow the salivating pit bull, Bibi, to use his own launch codes. And then I will live in an outlaw nation that has done the unthinkable.
22
Just today Mitch McConnell and the GOP senators again normalized Trump, forgave him for the disparaging comments against McCain which the White House refused to acknowledge. The awareness here described of Trump's trashing of the Obama legacy is horrific to me. I find it racist. Whatever one's views on the Middle East, the timing and photo contrasts on the "occasion" of the opening of an American Embassy in Jerusalem, are jarring.
39
Mr.Friedman, Mr.Trump never keeps anything as simple as one, two, three.He withdraws from treaties to make a statement.Usually the statement is that Mr.Obama did not get the best deal.He has no strategy for an answer.In keeping with your wordplay theme, " he crosses his bridges after he takes a fork in the road".
13
It was never a treaty... Obama did not present it to the Senate for ratification because he knew he did not have enough votes. That's what happens when you don't follow the Constitution -- the next president does not have to honor your commitments.
A variation; You buttered your bread, now lie in it
7
The Europeans are really ticked, and rightfully so. The foreign ministers of France, Germany, the UK and the EU met today with the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Zarif, trying their best to at least save most parts of the Iran accord.
The Germany weekly, Der Spiegel, which already had a picture of Trump with the decapitated head of Lady Liberty in his hand right after the inauguration, has a new one this week with Trump showing Europe the Middle Finger.
The Art of the Deal man in the office knows only one kind of deal, namely a quid pro quo with both the Russians and China. enriching himself and his greedy mob-like family.
Yet, no matter what, he has the full backing of the oh-so-pious Evangelical end-timers on his side, the leaders of which Jarvanka schlepped to the love fest at the inauguration of the US embassy in Jerusalem.
43
Trump's 'strategy' doesn't extend beyond his next adoration rally.
Where he can claim 'wins' for himself to stormy applause, from the only people he cares about, the hard core, low information bigots of the Republican base.
25
"Trump's 'strategy' doesn't extend beyond his next adoration rally... stormy applause, from the only people he cares about... the Republican base."
I am waiting, and hoping, for the Stormy applause.
I never thought of myself as a stripper fan, but today, I'm With Stormy.
8
Great analysis by Tom “Olive Tree” Friedman. But, excuse my cynicism. Trump campaigned on blowing up the Iran deal. And on putting the embassy in Jerusalem. Why?
Trump, for all his many faults, does nothing without a personal quid pro quo. He is our most kleptocratic president.
Sheldon Adelson announced he was giving the GOP $30 mil for the midterms, probably just a down payment. He is one of America’s Hawkiest Zionist. Netanyahu cheered both the embassy and Iran agreement violation decisions by Trump. Do we have to draw a Venn diagram to see how these things intersect?
I have one rule to make sense of the Trump era: “don’t over think it.” Ever.
20
Contemplating repercussions is beyond the capabilities of this president. If bad actors don't behave in accordance with his expectations, the fall-back position is "Might makes right." Of course, that too has repercussions but I fear that Trump believes those aren't his concern. Clean-up will be left to whomever is in charge of clean-up.
That attitude of not thinking of ramifications and repercussions extends to his personal life. If we believed only half of the stories pertaining his philandering, we are left to wonder why he ever thought of running for the presidency with so many trysts in his background. Did he honestly believe that they would not be divulged at some point?
It leads to my addition to your list of mixed idioms:
"A fool and his money are a girl's best friend."
13
Mr. Friedman, dare I suggest you made a misplaced assumption when you inferred that president Trump is astutely aware of Iranian misdeeds.
The president has never articulated a single cogent criticism of the Iranian nuclear deal. What we have repeatedly heard is, "It's the worst deal ever. Very, very bad. Horrible." This tells us nothing, which is the reflection of what the president knows. I bet you, and this is sad to think, that president Trump would be unable to locate Iran on a world map.
The Trump presidency's primary political goal is to completely efface Obama's legacy. Trump's thinking is simple: if Obama said it was good, it must be bad. It's really quite that simple. That is unfortunately the shallow depth of Trump's capabilities.
1489
No surprise to me that Trump dumped the Iran deal. Marcus is right: If Obama did it, Trump will undo it! That's the Trump policy and provides the only consistency.
189
I agree that Trump's only goal is to un-do President Obama's work. But I don't think that it's because he believes that "if Obama said it was good, it must be bad." This all started when Obama lampooned Trump at the WH Correspondents Dinner years ago. This is simply about 'getting even.' The world and the US be damned.
86
You give DEMENTED DONALD too much credit. He has no idea what a map is, much less how to use one.
77
The look on Obama's face is so obvious he can't believe Trump is sitting next to him on that day.
He knows his legacy will melt away. All the Liberals ,media, and deep state efforts failed and he has to sit there with Trump.
Just imagine what Obama was thinking.
Now after a year and half its obvious, to honest folk, that Trump changing the world for the better.
4
Oh My God
18
Let’s start small, with you explaining how things have become better in Pottsville. Without please simply repeating those meaningless Fox-phrases like “now the world respects us”.
4
Wow Joe Paper, do live in the same country as me? Maybe you're on a different plane of existence.
2
Good for Ms. Haskel. She is well qualified. Another win for Trump. I am getting tired of all this winning.
3
More turmoil, confusion and pagaille, all to the detriment of America and ultimately its People. It is becoming harder by the day to read The News.
If President Obama would consider hosting a T.V. forum, a panel of differing views, it might help some Americans in this dark hour of political instability to give us a sense of direction.
4
Yeah. A panel, that's the ticket. Obama could tell the panel to develop a solution and he'll check back later.
Mike, you are on the right track, and a panel with President Obama and George Will would thrash this Administration. Keep the momentum going.
In his column on Feb 18, 2018, Mr. Friedman expressed the view that, “President Trump is either totally compromised by the Russians or is a towering fool” given that Trump seems to unable to stand up to Putin and Russia, giving Putin what he wants. The same analysis applies to Trump in relation to Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel.
Trump has given Netanyahu exactly what the Netanyahu wants (Iran, Syria, Palestinians, Gaza, at the UN), and he refuses to take any position in, or voice any, opposition to anything Israel does, no matter how egregious and contrary to long-established US policy. Trump seems to be doing Netanyahu’s bidding just as much as he has been Putin’s lackey.
Following Mr. Friedman’s analysis and comment about Trump and Russia in February, it is just as reasonable to state that, “President Trump is either totally compromised by Israel or is a towering fool.”
I’m waiting for Mr. Friedman to acknowledge this.
5
There is a strategy but the strategy has little to do with US or European interests. Have you noticed what we're not talking about right now? Trump's multi-front war with his own actions. International policy under this administration amounts to news cycle disruption. That's why we've managed to alienate the entire world in such a short period of time. The strategy isn't about the world; it's about Trump. Kicking sand at Obama is just an added bonus. Maybe I should say attacking Obama is Trump's defacto response. In the end though, Trump is all about making storms in order to divert attention from his own, ahem, *storms.*
2
TF neglected to say that an important factor behind Iran's projection of power in Arab states was the US invasion of Iraq, which he supported. Saddam Hussein opposed Iran with the blood and treasure of Iraqis, and removing him opened the door to Iran's meddling. Trump's rejection of the Iran nuclear agreement is just the latest bad decision in America's dismal history in the Mid East.
4
Saddam was funding the Intifada in Israel 20 years ago. Nobody likes Intifada.
Choose your devil.
This plays perfectly into Putin's hands, diminishing the power the US projects and filling Putin's pockets with higher oil prices.
Same with the Embassy, it further isolates us and diminishes us.
How can I NOT see Trump as a Russian agent?
7
There's also the probability that Trump and the Saudis (home of 15 of the 19 Wahabi terrorists that brought down the WTC) have made a deal to benefit American multinational oil corporations and the Saudi government, which has to have the oil revenue, by sanctioning Iran oil off the market and thereby inflating the price.
7
It's a good thing we have fracking. We are on the verge of being an oil exporter. Part of that "energy independent" meme.
.
So maybe your thesis is 20 years too late.
That photo is a painful and dissonant juxtaposition to have to witness again, but at least it is good to see Barack Obama (an intelligent and compassionate adult) back in the Oval Office. When is Trump going to reciprocate and invite Obama back to the White House?
I particularly like #2 on your top-three fix list: we need to guard against Iran lobbing a rocket into Israel with anything on it, including a dirty bomb or any other WMD. Israel was absolutely right to take out the Iranian missile batteries in Syria. It is unlikely Iran will get anything into Israel by land, sea, or plane, so prudence and vigilance with Iranian rocket technology is absolutely warranted.
Obama was forced to enact the Iran deal by Executive Order, which is why it can be undone so easily. Your suggested alterations are spot-on, Mr. Friedman. The saddest part of all of this is that with Republicans in control of Congress and the Executive Branch, your version of the deal could be legislated into a formal treaty with Iran and our European allies. Unfortunately, that opportunity now appears to have come and gone.
4
Here's another mixed-up idiom for Mrs. Friedman's museum: (referring specifically to America's Stable Genius in International Affairs) "Dumb as the New York Post."
It's worth noting, first off, that Iran's aggression in the Middle East (and most especially in Syria) is matched only by that of Russia which, needless to say, already has a nuclear arsenal and whose foreign policy has never been questioned (let alone criticized) by our own feckless leader.
Second, I'm afraid I can't agree that Mr. Trump has no plan to push Iran back if its leaders refuse to cry uncle. "We have nuclear weapons so why can't we use them?" was a question he famously posed during his election campaign. And if he should decline to go on the attack there's always his pal Bibi chomping at the bit to do so. Trump will just need to make sure that Ivanka has grabbed the last plane out of the Middle East before he gives the Israelis the go-ahead to demolish whatever looks like an Iranian missile site from a few dozen miles up.
10
Mr Friedman,
Trump wants to trash Obama because Trump was, is, and always will be a racist, all the way down. That is all there is to his motivation. It's not the Iran deal: it's the black man who forged it.
329
Perhaps, but what Friedman is overlooking is that the clerics are facing great opposition for the terrible economic conditions that they have brought to the people, especially the young who are tired of not having what their fellows in the West have, to include the natural rights of free citizens.
What the clerics are discovering is that economic and political freedom trumps the persistent drone of inflexible dogma.
4
Neither Friedman nor Obama overlooked that point. Part of the allure of the deal was that lifting sanctions would shine light on the regime, thereby encouraging the citizenry to lobby to become less isolated and more like citizens of the world.
13
Didn't work, did it? As long as the citizens are at the mercy of the clerics and their dogma, doesn't matter how bright the "light"--no natural rights of free citizens coming their way anytime soon. Perhaps in another hundred years?
China and Iran have viable plans for the future. The US has no plan.
50
Just as Donald has destabilized the United States by systematically catering to the lowest common denominator, he is slowly destabilizing the world with the same destructive technique.
Everything Donald touches turns to fecal matter; it may not happen right away, but give his natural poison time to work and he will destroy everything he touches.
The appeal of smashing everything to smithereens has great appeal to simple infantile minds.
He tried to destroy the ACA....and replace it with nothing and send about 15 million Americans hurling into the outer healthcare atmosphere where they would waste away.
He wants to destroy the Paris Accord...and replace it with accelerated manmade global warming that trashes our climate every waking second.
He destroyed the Iran agreement...and replaced it with the Art of Acting Like A Tough Guy.
He incited Muslim religious fanatics by idiotically moving the American embassy to Jerusalem to please Christian and Jewish religious fanatics, putting a final nail in the coffin of Israeli peace.
We don't know what he'll destroy yet on the Korean peninsula, but he's working on it.
Add in his domestic destruction by signing a one-sided tax law that bypassed all Congressional legislative norms, his abandonment of national infrastructure, and his comprehensive lack of ethics, curiosity and knowledge, and he's destroyed the dignity of the Presidency and the United States.
The only thing Donald has built has been a ticking Presidential time bomb.
763
I have always thought American people is a very privileged people because they have the power to help the whole world just by taking care of their own house. It seems the reverse is also true.
42
"the only thing Donald has built has been a ticking Presidential time bomb" ....and some lucrative new systems of personal enrichment
29
"Just as Donald has destabilized the United States by systematically catering to the lowest common denominator, he is slowly destabilizing the world with the same destructive technique."
Please remind your followers of the "red line" Trump's predecessor talked about in Syria. That was certainly a game-changer...not.
"He incited Muslim religious fanatics by idiotically moving the American embassy to Jerusalem to please Christian and Jewish religious fanatics, putting a final nail in the coffin of Israeli peace."
And by keeping the U.S. embassy out of Jerusalem for decades, we signaled to the Muslim religious fanatics that America is spineless.
"He destroyed the Iran agreement...and replaced it with the Art of Acting Like A Tough Guy." "He wants to destroy the Paris Accord...and replace it with accelerated man-made global warming that trashes our climate every waking second."
That's the result of Obama deciding to conduct international diplomacy by executive order and bypassing the Senate. Had the agreements/accords/deals been an actual treaty, Trump could not have backed out of any of them.
"He tried to destroy the ACA...."
How many times did Obama LIE to the American people that we could keep our doctors and health care plans, and that the average premium would be reduced by $2500? Or did you just conveniently forget that?
I don't like Trump either, but you liberals sure set the table for him beautifully. You guys are so smart...
1
Yemen is not a "humanitarian crisis" to which the Saudis "contribute." The Saudis "have gotten away with murder, mass murder."
As for mass murder, whose snipers just the day Friedman wrote this shot hundreds of unarmed men, women, and children, killing 60 in that one day and maiming for life hundreds more?
Iran's bad actions? Obama was right, they are all bad actors. Just stop the nukes.
Don't excuse the Saudis or pretend they are not bad actors.
Same for Israel, where one MK just yesterday said they've "got enough bullets to kill them all." How very Holocaust of him.
Confronting "Iran’s bad behavior" is far from the most important issue in the region, even after the nuke issues, just measured in numbers killed this week.
73
Mark Thomason: Correct you are Mark: President Obama had it exactly right when he acknowledged there was blood on everyone’s hands in the Middle East and Diplomacy at arms length was the only possible approach to a solution. Mr. Friedman will never admit it however his opinions have not been terribly prescient, exhibit “A” would be his participation in the lies that led to the bombing of Iraq, issuing in an era of planned destabilization in the Middle East, the objective so apparent as to be insulting. It was designed to weaken or destroy every enemy of Israel and Saudi Arabia, which in the short term I would say they almost succeeded, in the longer term they will fail miserably as the animosity “We” along with Israel and The Saudis increases: we are finding ourselves more and more isolated from an international community upon which we have hoisted numerous ills particularly the, refuge problems in Europe which led to Brexit and a swing to the right across the board, very sad indeed, like watching a once formidable yacht slowly sinking with Bibi, Adelson and Trump aboard spewing obscenities and waving tattered flags as the stern slides below the waves, this while crowds representing the developed world and its new leader China cheer.
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Yeah, Israel should have let Hamas inspired protesters who want to drive the Jews into the sea enter their country. Not to mention who in his right mind would bring kids to an obviously dangerous situation unless the overriding motive was to make a point. Finally referencing the Holocaust in a land dispute trivializes the horrors of that event.
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I'm glad Mr. Friedman points to the youth in Iran. I have a lot of hope in them, they have been exposed to western culture and seem much more moderate than Ali Khamenei. They also are not supportive of Iran constantly interfering in the neighborhood. But as Mr. Friedman points out, ending the deal does not make their lives any easier. The best way to make the regime more moderate is to work through them.
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It is better to think of "Trump’s team" as a profoundly dangerous mix of warmongering interventionists and religious zealots. The prior still don't understand the limits of power, while the latter, largely evangelicals, yearn for Armageddon. As to Trump, forget about trying to determine what he believes, and what his plans are after throwing out the Iran deal. He has no plans. Trump hates his predecessor, who was not only much smarter and far more decent than Trump, but most infuriatingly, a black man. The only things Trump is consistent about are policies driven entirely by personal animus, vengeance, and hatred, none greater than his pathological need to destroy anything and everything that President Obama accomplished. Look at any of the very few things Trump has tried in any consistent way to undo and destroy and you'll see that every single one of them was something Obama accomplished. Everything else is purely transactional, subject to whatever Trump can personally get out of any situation, as in his recent attempt to save Chinese jobs because the Chinese obviously offered to enrich Trump personally if he helps save ZTE. For regular folks this is known not just as a bribery, or influence peddling, but since it's a foreign power, treason. I've said before; Trump isn't just any criminal, he's a true narcissist and psychopath. It's what distinguishes him from a garden-variety corrupt politician who may have incredibly weak morality, but has some limits. Trump has none.
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You have this right. The Chinese government is investing in a Trump resort in China so he has to give something back. Protect and create jobs in China, import H1B workers for his resorts in the US .
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So if true, is what Trump is doing a violation of the anti-emolument clause in the U.S. Constitution?
Foreign affairs have never been as simple as the biggest and most aggressive country tells all others what it wants and they do it or be crushed. Successful actions are rarely accomplished with one grand and decisive action whether it's naval warfare or conquest by the most ruthless and powerful armies or diplomatic breakthroughs like the U.S. with China and the U.S.S.R. in the 1970's. Events over many years made that diplomatic coup possible, and neither Nixon nor the Communist leaders planned it to happen, it just became the best move under the circumstances. The sea battle of Midway ended Japan's offensive juggernaut but it took another year and a half of terrifying battles to make it's defeat certain. The same for the battle of Stalingrad on the way to the defeat of Nazi Germany. People rarely decide such momentous events, they are just able to find good ways to use them for good ends. Trump has not the kind of mind that can do that, he never wants to think through all the likely possibilities and to reason out a likely best way to proceed. He wants instant gratification, and that is why he acts as he does.
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Trump is not fit to shine President Obama's shoes. And I fully understand the historical references in that sentence. It's true, and delicious.
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When liberals criticize Donald Trump and his policies they are often accused of having "Trump Derangement Syndrome" by Republican conservatives. That may be so, but theirs pales in comparison to the Obama Derangement Syndrome that afflicts our current president. As long as he can undo something that Obama has done he's happy, regardless of whether it is good or bad for the country. America's well-being is not in the equation if he can stamp out the accomplishments of his predecessor, a man he knows is superior to him in every way imaginable. He's obsessed, and he doesn't know it.
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A personal vendetta has been the primary driver of much of our foreign and domestic policy since Trump took office. This is an undeniable fact, obvious to anyone paying attention. In most if not all instances there were clearly superior and less risky alternative policies that could have better addressed any legitimate philosophical objections to the existing policy. These alternatives would not, however, satisfy Trump's obsession with vengeance. It's unthinkable that the most powerful nation on earth is hostage to this sick malignant mind.
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For an untimely misquote of Tom Wolfe, Trump must represent the bonehead-fire of the vanities. Obama must render Trump very uneasy because he is everything that Trump cannot be, probably to include a Nobel titleholder.
Iran must be the ultimate Obama counter trophy.
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Dear Mr. Friedman,
This was an excellent analysis of the Trump created Iranian situation. The proposals set forth are worthy of state level consideration. Unfortunately:
There is no one in the Trump administration that is capable of understanding your analysis.
There is no one in the Trump administration that cares one bit for your analysis.
The commander in chief truly believes that he doesn't need anyone else's analysis.
And to top it off, Trump will continue to destroy everything Obama touched, much to the delight of his base. Obama, not being one of us true Americans with that mixed race blood of his and his high and mighty speechifying. The nerve of that guy!
Only if Sean Hannity and Bibi Netanyahu wrote this piece would Trump consider it and that is a big if because as we all know, Trump is the greatest thinker in the world.
It would be more useful if you devoted your future works to helping to guide us out of the carnage and global mess Trump will leave us with after he is out of office. The mess will be gargantuan and his base wont even notice. They got a $10/week tax cut.
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and a $50 a month hike in gas prices
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The key to whether Europe, focused on Germany, will give in to Donald Trump's Iran move, might come down to their belief that Trump is focused on regime change. Europe has a lot of reasons to try to hold the Iran deal together, but, as Mr. Friedman has pointed out, regime change in Iran will lead to even more Middle East refugees flooding into Europe. Which is the current, most toxic, third rail subject in European politics.
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I don't suppose it occurred to anyone that to the folks in the region, the US meddling might not look any different that what we are accusing Iran of doing. What was that old line... one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter? And one might suspect that one of the factors in that mess could be traced back to the way the West carved up the middle east for their own administrative convenience after WW 1. And continues in the same vein.
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Middle East was being "carved up" long before the Western Europeans showed up. You do remember the Greeks, right? Persians didn't much care for them either.
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But you have left out a rather important period in the Middle East. After the Greeks and Persians and before WW1 there was the near 500 year reign of the Ottoman Empire which did instil a degree of peace, prosperity and uniformity in the region. It was the West that destroyed that. Don't forget that very important era in the Middle East.
I don't suppose it occurred to you that the US is not engaged in genocide.
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His strategy is chaos and tough talk, confusion and keep 'em guessing. He's been consistent with that. There is no end-game except an abstract "win" and therefore careful strategic planning is not important.
It's the near opposite of Obama, his base likes that. The strategy also includes breaking social norms and lines of decency. Again, he's been consistent with that.
This is not how an educated, experienced, seasoned politician or businessman behaves. But it is how a swarmy real estate developer/lifetime huckster behaves. So we can work with that. Avenatti has figured it out, so can we. There are ways to respond, we just have to do it.
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Trump thinks the world is his play-thing. Why is it no other sitting politician has found his/her voice to loudly and meanly counter this poison?
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Sowing chaos and volatility is what Trump's backers want. Getting retribution on the black President who so accurately eviscerated him on a very public stage is what he wants. Who cares what the rest of the US or world wants.
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Another mixed idiom that applies to this situation: "Don't count your chickens after the horse has been stolen."
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To state that Iran has been censured less than Israel by the US is laughable.
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The by now conventional wisdom that Donald Trump has been motivated by a desire to undo Obama's 'legacy' seem to have some truth to it. The spectacle of a petty, embittered, bellicose and semi-deranged man trying to erase history continues to amaze me. Nothing Trump does can _erase_ Obama's legacy. Obama did what Obama did - it's in the Book of History as testimony to his graceful rationality and compassion. What Trump owns : the mass destruction of social and political norms in the United States, the burning wreckage of American prestige and moral leadership, and a nauseating tangle of venality, nepotism and lies.
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To Paul in Palo Alto - trump has never seen a regulation he likes. An Obama regulation or idea or move or concept or deal just must go. And, to phooey with the country and its citizens. Jenny speaks
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Since Trump is all about winning tiny daily battles, settling scores and listening to his foreign policy advisers on Fox and Friends there will be no policy unless Jerod buys one. Like a gambler at a slot machine, Trump’s casino foreign policy is bound to hit one winner which will prove to Trump that he is a genius, convincing him to continue to pull the lever, to trust only his own genius, and boy, is the world in for it.
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Trumps policy is vandalism
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You give Donald too much credit. There is, and never was, a strategy aimed at pointing out Iran's other bad actions in the Middle East. He hasn't even acknowledged the bad actions Russia has inflicted here in the U.S.A. Trump's only reason for walking away from this deal, the TPP and the Paris accords was that Obama midwifed them. That's it. Just childish petulance because Obama made fun of him, in public, at the White House Correspondents Dinner. His only strategy is to try to erase all of the Obama Legacy. But, the jokes on him because with every reactive overreach he only burnishes Barack's reputation. The contrast between these two leaders will have historians laughing harder than the invited guest at that fateful dinner.
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Exactly, because "Obama made fun of him in public....", and with style, after what he had to endure from him!
Let us not forget that Obama never stooped down to Mr. T's insulting level.
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The petulance does not consider that Donald Trump spent years slandering Barack Obama's rightful claim of US citizenship. That delusion still persists among Trump followers.
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Trump's "plan" for anything really boils down to a combination of overt racism, narcissism-fueled revenge (as you discuss), and his related insatiable need to do everything his way (and we must always praise him for whatever he does). The overarching common threads are selfishness, solipsistic contempt for others, and greed.
You are absolutely right: Trump should be banished to an eternity sitting at that table at the WHCD. That would be justice, in this world and the next.
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Your “better” deal lacks one element: something for the Iranians. You dictate terms without offering anything in Tehran, and so exemplify imperialist America in much the same way as Trump. I expected mores from you.
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When did breaking deals to ‘renegotiate’ them become a thing?
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Wait a Minute. Do Secondary Sanctions apply to Russia? Why all the talk about Western Europe? What about China? (see also ZTE, Iran Deal with Boeing, etc. Bribery with Qatar, etc. Avenatti )
See also Failed Policies all over the World like Paris Accord and The Theft of the EPA.
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The US should build a vast Air Force complex in the golan heights. Nuclear equipped, drones, jets, cyber, and chlorine gas stocked. That will put the big kabosh on Iranian aspirations. Kick turkey out of nato and move all weapons to this base and insert Israel into NATO. That will put significant assets 2 miles from the Russians.
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We shouldn't fight another war in the Mideast for Israel.
If Bibi wants a war with Iran, don't ask America to send our soldiers again. US taxpayers send Israel 3 billion dollars a year.
I didn't hear of any Israelis fighting in Iraq during the Iraq war, or Afghanistan, Americas longest war.
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Friedman gives Trump credit that he does not deserve. The main issue should be whether Iran reneged on its treaty commitments. The answer is a clear "no." This has been confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) itself. Tehran's commitment to the treaty's stipulations should be the sole criteria on which Trump's decision should be judged. If Trump found other reasons to pull out of the treaty, neither Iran nor on other signatories to the treaty - which include France, Germany and Britain - should shoulder any blame.
During the Cold War, successive U.S. administrations focused on Soviet compliance with arms reductions treaties. But no U.S. administration abandoned these treaties because they failed to demand "regime change" in Moscow or the end of communism.
Friedman argues that Iran was not punished while Israel was "censured" for its illegal settlements on Palestinian lands. Whatever happened to such a 'censure?' Did Israel cease building illegal settlements? Did Israel pay any diplomatic or economic price for its settlements? No. But Iran has - rightly or wrongly - been subjected to a wide range of U.S. sanctions since 1979.
The treaty may not have been perfect but it was very effective and achieved its goals. It eliminated the threat of an Iran armed with nuclear weapons. Whatever Trump's reasoning and hidden motives may be for withdrawing from the treaty, they stand in stark contrast to the treaty's success.
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"This has been confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) itself." So why is inspection of military hardware and bases off limits? Is there any country at anytime in history that didn't or doesn't have a secret weapons stash hidden somewhere? Naïve to believe otherwise. No US nuclear weapons in Japan … but on barges or vessels just off the coast, good possibility.
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The nuclear deal with Iran, aka the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, is an agreement, not a treaty. To be a treaty the Iran deal would have had to be ratified by the Senate. Then Pres Trump would not have been able to withdraw from it on his own.
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Perhaps trump's motive is to be offered money to build a hotel or somesuch in the region....as appears to have happened with trump's bizarre jobs-for-china directive.
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I'm reminded of an old old tribute that seems quite appropriate here with regard to Trump and his merry band of incompetents:
Here lies our sovereign lord the king,
Whose word no man relies on;
He never says a foolish thing,
Nor ever does a wise one.
The only difference is that Trump is always saying foolish things and appears to be incapable of doing a wise one.
The Middle East as a region is unstable. The leaders are unreliable. They'd double-cross each other in a second even if it destroys the peace. With all that said, Trump has made a mistake pulling out of the deal with Iran. He hasn't got anything to replace it with and he's giving Israel the go ahead to do whatever it wants to. It's not good diplomacy or politics to give your friends or enemies the means to start a war especially when it comes to nuclear weapons.
Trump might want to destroy every thing that Obama did. But he should keep in mind that some destruction can be worse than what went on before. Obama wasn't blind to the duplicity that went on in the Middle East. But Obama didn't have as much of a need to be publicly flattered and praised as Trump has and every head of state is playing to that. Flattery is nice, good results that come from hard work are better.
11
"Good for Trump for calling Iran out"
Can we cool it with the moralizing? No one takes the US's "calling out" on human rights seriously. Not when we commit egregious human rights violations at home. We have no moral standing (and especially after the United State's condoning of the IDF's massacre of Palestinians this week).
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Why is there so little mention of the tremendous profits American oil companies will make with less competition? Trump has been all about oil and it’s a bonanza. This is about more than undoing Obama’s legacy, its about money, Honey.
365
And yet gas prices are 50 cents higher right this very minute than they were a year ago, and nary a peep from Trump's base or Fox News.
88
Not to mention that Russia benefits from higher oil prices. Somehow it always goes back to the motherland.
37
Nailed it. Trump's foreign policy is straight cash baby
16
Looks like Trump's plan is to help China keep it's jobs while sanctioning Western Europe.
??
Incoherent.
11
That darn Obama. Such a thoughtless, unread, uninformed, unaware, poorly-spoken, irrational President. And from Kenya, no yet. Perfectly understandable that the current president would want to dismantle everything Obama did. What kind of person would not want to do that?
16
Every day, in every way, he fights to outshine Obama. The measure of a tiny man, and tiny mind. Just saying.
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And of course, a monumental bigot and hater of the first order. The foul mouthed birther himself.
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Obama is an easy target. His 8 years of appeasement and the American apology tour destabilized the world. Obama left a big mess for Trump to clean up. Had he paid more attention to world affairs and less attention to his NCAA brackets, the world might have benefited. Slowly but surely Trump is reversing the tide of disgrace and dishonor that was Obama's sordid legacy.
7
And so speaks the deplorable mantra of ignorant nonsense and inane drivel. Trump is white, Obama is black. So ends the lesson.
46
Iraq war #2 had nothing to do with further destablizing the Middle East, right. Bush & Cheney's mess, or weren't you born yet?
32
Trump is an easy target. He can't seem to stop himself from lying. He's clearly ignorant about history and he craves adulation; that makes it easy to play on his raw emotions.
If Obama left a big mess, and that's a big "if," we are in big trouble because Trump has no interest in fixing anything. He's a big disrupter, but what happens next?
I think history will say that Obama made some mistakes, but too much attention to NCAA brackets won't enter the picture.
11
If we are trashing Iran, why did Boeing just seal a Deal with Iran? See Michael Avenatti, Crusader of Truth.
5
At first I thought, "didn't he mean 'lay in it.'" Then I realized it works either way with Trump.
2
Yes, Trump wanted to erase another Obama accomplishment and, of course, he seems to dislike May and Merkel---one suspects because they have 2 X chromosomes. The worst part is that he takes these rash steps without telling us what the plan is after that. We are all left awaiting his next tweet and hoping that it is thoughtful rather than vitriolic. I imagine we will be waiting a long time.
14
Actually the more common thinking is that it has nothing to do with having 2X chromosomes and all to do with their very poor mastery of the let’s-show-adulation-to-Trump game. In contrast to Trudeau, Macron, to name a few.
2
The Donald and Netanyahu
Are very corruptible, too,
Indictable pair
Don has more false hair
Goes bankrupt without much ado.
Netanyahu's spouse just like her man
Grabbed all of the perqs that one can
Used Gov workers freely
May cohabit, really,
Incarcerated in the Can.
For none will there be vindication
More likely an annihilation
Unleash Fire and Fury
Guilty to a Jury
3 scoundrels guilty of predatiom.
61
This was a multinational deal - Trump is pandering to his casino buddies and Netanyahu- Bolton is past his expiry date and Pompeo is another overweight lightweight. Trump is looking like the idiot that he is - China, Russia, and N Korea are pulling their strings.
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Trump has his son-in-law and his bankruptcy lawyer working on the Ultimate Peace Deal in the Middle East. Their no diplomacy approach to international affairs will result in another million deaths and another lost generation in the Middle East , in addition to breaking our Treasury. Ever wonder why Trump is gutting the federal government except for defense? There are no future Mount Rushmore profiles sitting in the White House today.
11
Friedman writes as if "the Europeans" are some collective with whom Trump could negotiate an improved deal. And that's before tackling Iran with said new deal, ready to be watered down once again.
Despite what the various European players are saying, they won't in the end defy US sanctions for the benefit of Iran. Whether Iran will cave or not is an open question, but the state of their economy is perilous.
2
Donald Trump never had a plan to either re-calibrate (improve?) President Obama’s 2015 agreement with Iran (and several allies). His first error was his ignorance.
This American president surrounded himself with a stop-and-start State Department that he de-funded and a SecState that he humiliated and neutered. In place of Rex Tillerson and ex-National Security Adviser Gen. H. R. McMaster, the cat-on-hot-tin-roof president sought out tired, worn regime-change mongers who would do the work the lazy commander-in-chief refused to do.
Trump’s racially-motivated animus with his predecessor—goaded to no small end by Bibi—gave him the cover he needed for his red meat “base” and an indifferent Congress (heard anything from them lately?) to both embarrass President Obama and to tell the world what was unnecessary because it was too well known: that Iran is a rogue state with a capital “R.” But Mr. Obama insisted on strict verification. He also sought to coax Iran into harnessing the vast potential of its talented and educated people, all with Iran’s incorporation into a vital player in an area larger than simply the volatile region in mind.
But Trump cannot see very far ahead. Insecure, he has gauged his questionable successes and tethered them to what he hopes will be an international acclaim that he is his predecessor’s superior in every way.
He out-fixed himself, though. His Singapore summit is in grave danger, perhaps a down payment on his ripping up the Iran deal.
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Yes, yes and yes. Trump has taken a match to the world the past few days, ripping up the multinational Iran deal, sending his family for a repulsively slick opening of a building that will serve as a middle finger, and also borrowing victory and so tempting fate with a tenuous peace breakthrough.
Ivanka's smiles and Jared's blaming bloodshed on those who dare stand up to oppression were infuriating. The notion of him brokering peace is a cruel joke.
We were so much better off with President Obama's diplomacy, coolheadedness, and willingness to reject Bibi's conniving. If only...
185
You seem to contradict yourself, by first writing; ''by taking a hard line on Iran, drew some needed attention to Iran’s bad behavior and created an opportunity to improve the nuclear deal. ''
This administration made a unilateral decision against the express and explicit recommendations of all other parties within the deal and even a majority of experts on policy matters within this administration.
You further go on to say that the administration SHOULD HAVE extended the ban from 15 to 25 years, used diplomacy and so on. I agree, they should have gone that way as well.
Regardless of whatever ''bad behavior'' the Iran was engaged in, a deal is a deal. Now the world ( especially any ''rogue'' nations ) are going to be suspect of future offerings of ''deals''
This administration has made the world less safe. Not more.
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Obama was right, change in the middle east will never come from outside forces. Lasting change only ever comes from within. The best thing we can do is stay far far away but a combination of oil and hubris makes doing so highly unlikely. Trump will never take responsibility if tossing the Iran deal further destabilizes the region but the rest of us will pay for his arrogance going forward. He's damaged our credibility and future presidents will have a much harder time negotiating with the international community in good faith that the agreement will be honored.
546
The idea that change in outsiders cannot help with changes in the Middle East is essentially a bigotted notion. Outsiders have helped with change in Europe, Japan, South Korea, Latin America, and South Africa, but apparently "liberal" thinkers believe that there is something deficient among Middle Easterners that will not allow them to be influenced for the better.
4
If Latin America is changed for the better by American "influence" why are so many people fleeing the corruption? And even states that were once relatively successful with their oil wealth, like Venezuela, have become sinkholes. As to South Africa, it is still struggling to get itself together. And those countries in Africa that are doing better than others do not have US military presence (at least as far as the general populace knows!).
The checks and balances - to wit, Senate and House - have not curbed trump's out-of-control and thoughtless actions although they could have - heck, they won't even speak up!
No matter how much of a contrast with trump a future president may be, what the rest of the world will remember is that we went back on our word in a number of places.
The issue is no longer trump, but the knowledge that a SINGLE president elected by the people can do so much damage to environment, global harmony, and financial in so little time. our word is now worthless.
trump may win these skirmishes but he has lost us the coming war.
33
It is a fool’s errand for an outsider to try remaking another country’s power structure. (You can ask Mr. Friedman’s wise wife how well that was ever going to work in Iraq. Language is not the only realm in which she shines).
It is also transparently hypocritical for a man to say he stands with democracy and human rights activists in Iran when he stands with ruthless dictators like Putin and Duterte, and has no use for human rights in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China and more.
All we can do is contain outright threats and offer a seat at the table to world leaders who may not be allies, but who don’t have to be mortal enemies, either. That’s what the Iran deal accomplished.
By withdrawing, Trump hasn’t advanced anything good, only his sense of vengeance against President Obama. There aren’t expressions, singular or conjoined, to capture that level of irresponsibility.
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@NM -- well stated, my friend, as usual. Why world leaders would put their faith in a faithless human being who's flawed beyond measure is a mystery. This president's entire raison detre is to extinguish his predecessor's accomplishments. His campaign promises were based on negatives, not for the betterment of America, but his supporters didn't care. Negatives cannot produce positives. Thanks for your input.
33
Mr. Friedman,
Bravo! Now, will you please ask your editors to hold a town hall panel discussion -- with you, congressional leaders, and members of the presidential cabinet -- in which these issues are addressed!
7
This president would never agree to improve on anything President Obama ever did. For someone who spent his entire political life trashing his predecessor, cancelling the Iran deal was a foregone conclusion. The president has thumbed his nose at our allies and forfeited America's goodwill around the world, all to spite Barack Obama. That is this president's shameful legacy.
515
Nicely summarized, my friend. There really was no surprise how this was going to go. No mystery why.
By the way, I very much enjoyed your counter argument to me yesterday! Never hesitate to disagree with me. I always appreciate thoughtful responses and new perspectives. ;)
40
Silver vibes , this is what I find all the more astounding, about this President: Nothing is “beyond the pale”, when it comes to exacting some kind of revenge, on Obama.
Especially at the expense of the people that Trump supposedly represents. This is one of the most glaring of Trump’s character defects, he doesn’t seem to care to count the costs of ‘getting even’ with Obama, and the cost to us is enormous.
109
@Lionel Hampton (Silver Vibraphone): It will be interesting to see the next president return the American embassy to Tel-Aviv. If Bibi's still in office and wants to contest the move, the new president might summon his (her?) ambassador back to Washington for "consultations." Everything that Donald Trump will be undone in the next four to six years. I hope he lives long enough to gorge on the shame that is his rightful portion. But, of course, when one knows no shame...
84