The similarity Mr. Douthout sees in the foreign policies of Obama and Trump, upon deeper scrutiny, is something of a mirage.
Cuba, unlike N. Korea, does not have nuclear weapons and has not been threatening the US. Cuba, unlike N. Korea, isn't a pariah state (except to the US) because it enjoys tourism from Europeans and Canadians, etc.
While Cuba has political prisoners, it does not practice the brutality of N. Korea. Cuba is culturally close to the Caribbean and Latin states it is near. N. Korea is a country out of 1984, a true Hermit Kingdom.
So stark are the differences between Cuba and N. Korea that to claim that the chances of success of bringing more fully joining the community of nations are comparable, reflects a profound ignorance as to how different these regimes are.
With Iran, the US negotiated a specific deal that was approved by a multitude of other countries. In N. Korea, Trump has nothing and is likely to continue to have nothing.
For Trump to get something from N. Korea, would require changes in N. Korea to the extent that Kim's regime would be jeopardized. So, while we can hope a crack in the door will lead to something good, let's not kid ourselves.
And the Iran deal emboldened Iran in Yemen? Did the Iran deal embolden Iran in Iraq, in supporting Hezbollah, or propping up Assad? Uh, no. But if one wants to knock a guy one doesn't like, I guess one can make a claim, no matter how tenuous, even if one is not a bright "salesman."
3
Sadly, Obama and Trump have only brought more of the same, the same corrupt old-government that was there before either of them was born, the same destroy the middle class and make everyone equally poor and broken except for the Elite political class. With the NYT cheering it on.
The Founding Fathers delivered us a federal republic that was intended to uphold and protect individual rights and individual freedoms. Obama and Trump have continued the path since the original Progressive movement in the late 1800s - restrict individual rights and reduce individual freedoms. The Founding Fathers would be appalled.
2
Of course we should be skeptical. Trump is flying by the seat of his expensive pants, using the same tactics he used to build hotels, apartment buildings and casinos. We already know that many of these businesses went bankrupt while Trump played vendors and investors for suckers. No doubt Mr. Kim knows this too.
I'm not sure that I buy that Trump's direction is the logical extension of Mr. Obama's work. Mr. Obama did not set out to build a populist, nationalistic and nativist country. He was trying to reign in expenses during an emergency, due to the mismanagement of the country's finances by Republicans. He succeeded well in this.
Is Mr. Trump an unintended consequence? One thing is certain: Democrats will have to bail out the country again when they get back into power.
2
Allowing Douthat to compare President Obama to president abomination is not "hearing both sides of the debate". It is like allowing Douthat to scream "fire" in a crowded theater when there is not even smoke, let alone fire.
2
How dare you compare Obama and Trump as if they are somehow equal in the foreign policy arena! "The liberals loved it when Obama cozied up to dictators." Comparing Cuba to N. Korea is like comparing limes to oranges...not the same. No matter how hard I try, I just don't get how you think and why you think that way, but like the man said: " have it your way dude."
1
Obama never moved a United States embassy because Sheldon Adelson wanted him to.
Fun fact: that Casino Kim Jong Un dropped in on during his night walk in Singapore was owned by Sheldon Adelson. Gee, nobody thinks Trump had anything to do with that, right?
3
Obama, like millions of other humans, knows how to sit in a chair.
After 71 years, Trump still struggles with that one.
2
Ross - you do realize that in unconditionally meeting with Kim, and by agreeing to stop "provocative" war-games, Trump has made very significant concrete concessions in return for which he has received nothing.
2
Mr Douthat,
e Your column would bee a lot more persuasive if Hillary hadn'y won the popular vote by a healthy margin; if President Trump had actually been the peoples choice.
2
Wow, what gobbledegook. The cold war is over. Pax Americana happened, and its progeny is European peace, which, by the way, was much more butal than middle east conflicts. The end result is that we could and in fact are moving toward a multicultural world, like it or not. Trump is fighting multiculturalism or perhaps using it to keep power with the neo-luddites that support him along with Russia, Hungary and Turkey. He is engaging in self absorbed attention getting rather than a strategic long game. Oh, wait, I am wrong. He is cozying to the bad guys to get them to bankroll his business ventures because the good guys won't. He is in it to make a buck. lots of Russians to buy Trump Steaks and Trump ties, Europe had too many rules for his business.
2
Took a math class many decades ago in which the prof gradually introduced axioms of a system and had the class prove up theorems using only the axioms we’d been given to date and theorems we ourselves as a class had previously proven.
One day I offered a proof and the prof said that it worked, and normally that’s all that matters, but my proof was so convoluted that he’d show the class a much shorter and more elegant proof.
Your column today reminded me of that.
So it’s not 1945-1965 anymore. The world has moved on from dealing with the immediate aftermath of WW II and colonialism. Shattered economies have more or less recovered. Soviet Communism collapsed. There have been revolutions in business methods and information technology. The U.S fought at least two disastrous wars. Political maneuvering in the U.S. over time destroyed the sort of national unity required to successfully pursue an activist foreign policy involving the expenditure of blood and treasure. Presidents, and the political class generally, need to deal with all that.
Not sure what’s gained by running all that through an extended Trump/Obama analogy.
1
You arguments make sense on the surface, but not when you compare Obama and Trump approaches. One is a statesman, the other a charlatan incapable of a rational thought. Both the rapprochement with Cuba and the Iran deal where the result of months, if not years of strategic development and policy discussions among experts, diplomats and allies. Trump's N.Korea (and foreign policy is pulled out of thin air, with zero thought.
2
Mr. Douthat, I can't believe that there's enough Biofreeze and ibuprofen in the world to bring you relief after the contortions you've engaged in to draw parallels between Presidents Obama and Trump. Normalizing relations with an impoverished and weak nation less than 100 miles from mainland US versus giving a ten fingers boost to one of the most execrable beings on the planet after flipping two fingers in the direction of some of this Nation's most important and staunchest allies.
5
Next up. Lincoln = Buchanan. Good grief.
Sure, Obama was no Lincoln, but then again, Trump is no Buchanan.
2
When I woke up the Wednesday morning after the 2016 election and reached for my laptop to open to my NYT Favorite Tab, I expected to see a smiling Hillary Clinton, for whom I voted, waving under the banner "First Woman President". To my shock, it wasn't so. My first reaction was uncertainly and anxiety. My second? Relief. Relief that we would not be instituting a No-Fly Zone over Syria and expanding our war involvement there to include, most likely, regime change like Hillary had supported in Iraq and personally had a hand in with Libya. That disgusting clip of her chortling "We came, We saw, He died" was still vivid. Trump has been a faux populist that I saw through immediately, but I knew what to predict with Hillary: four to eight more years of establishment status. I have no idea what will happen with this Kim-Trump meeting anymore than when I saw Nixon and Mao shake hands. It's anyone's guess, but what is absolutely known, at this moment, is that we are not going into another devastating and costly war which would result in millions dead. Most of them civilians. So, Mr. Trump, congratulations on a historic moment. I really do hope you can, despite the neocons in your party and the neoliberals in my party, get a meaningful peace treaty.
I appreciate the NYT's desire to have alt views, but Ross jumped the shark on this one and there are so many others who could write counter narrative --- PBS news hour has balanced approached, that the NYT could learn from....the only thing that matters in this whole piece is that Obama pushed back on Russia and Trump does not...is there any more urgent threat to the US being the US than Putin and his embrace of Trump (and the mutual love affair)...Trump even thinking (no less articulating) that Russia should be allowed back into the G7(8) is appalling to anyone who believes in our Constitution and sees the US as a world leader (not 'the' leader, but 'a' leader). If we don't aggressively fight Putin and his tactics, then we have exited stage left on credibility....
2
“Well, the left used to love it when Obama cozied up to murderous dictators!”
What?
Comparing Iran to N Korea is like comparing Ancient Greece to South Carolina.
And Attila to Pericles as far as Trump vs Obama!
( sorry Attila - you WERE smarter and kinder)
3
Another pathetic and failed attempt to "normalize" Trump and pretend he has a plan, while completely ignoring his misogyny, racism, and xenophobia/jingoism.
4
You are kidding, right? DJT is not fit to shine Obama's shoes.
6
One difference will be Senate ratification of a treaty.
1
Ugh. I wish Douthat would just moralize about being holier than the pope and carry on the culture war from his perch there in Manhattan. Keep the Model UN musings in a special drawer to be pulled out when he needs to feel international.
Douthat conveniently excludes two data points from his Obama qua Trump thesis: 1)The role of a do-nothing Senate—obstructionist and opportunistic when it came to Obama’s foreign policy, cowering and confused when it comes to Trump’s; 2) The difference in deliberate process between the two Administrations, that is Obama’s had a process that, even if you did not agree with the policies pursued, genuinely had our country’s strategic interest at heart, while Trump and Dennis Rodman are reprising season 4 of The Apprentice to distract from one scandal after the other.
Douthat’s closing claim, that American power hasn’t been effective over the past two decades, is probably true. However, this would be the case if we had a Pres. Clinton, Bush, Sanders, or Rubio. Contrasting Obama and Trump does nothing to answer the question why, which would have made for a much better piece.
1
Just two counter points to this scattered column:
1) Obama cannot be blamed for the birth of ISIS-- the debacle in the Middle East rests squarely in the hands of the GOP, via Bush-Cheney-Powell-Rice and their lies. To describe their misadventure as a "war on terrorism" is a falsehood-- it was the unjustified invasion of a sovereign nation. And we may pay the price well into the next decade and beyond.
2) I voted for Hillary, of course, the only logical choice in the 2016 election. But had Rubio (inexperienced) or Jeb (not super bright) been the opponent and won, I would not be fearing for the future of the nation, nor democracy itself, as I am now. We would not have the daily dose of nuttiness from either of them, nor the alarmed replies emanating from some democratic leaders, many smart citizens, and most in the MSM.
4
Mirror mirror... North Korea and Cuba. Same thing? According to Ross Douthat, yeah!
Any mention of North Korea's human rights record in that tortured, mirror-mirror comparison? Nope.
For a progressive like me, that human rights record is the central thing. The thing that pops up in your head while you are still reading the first sentence. The thing you keep waiting to hear Douthat address. In vain.
For a conservative like Douthat - this honestly just never even occurred. Mass starvation and death camps are a thing that you can forget about. Things that don't stop Kim from being a real mensch and a great leader. Things that just genuinely don't much bother you.
It's one reason I am so sickened to hear Trump praising Kim, saying that "he loves his people." The way Trump "loves this country"? Dear God. Probably.
5
That Obama "pulled out" of Iraq, which led to rise of ISIS is a right wing talking point which Comrade Douthat faithfully parrots. Bush made the pullout deal which Obama tried to renegotiate, but failed because the Iraq government insisted that American soldiers (and mercenaries) be held accountable for criminal acts. ISIS, as everyone on the planet knows, was also formed under the Bush regime, a coalition of former Baathist officers and Al Queda militants who met in American "enhanced interrogation technique" chambers of Camp Bucca and Abu Ghraib
5
Cuba is NOT even remotely the equivalent of North Korea. What a specious comparison, Mr. Douthat.
1
The title of this column piece is "The Obama-Trump Grand Strategy". There is no commonality of some shared strategic approach between the two men. President Obama always had a well thought out strategy. Trump by his own admission doesn't have one. Trump just wings it. No preparation, no homework, no listening to advisors. This was very much in evidence when South Korea and our own military were caught off guard by Trump announcing out of the blue, that joint U.S. and South Korea military exercises were suspended. With Trump there is no firm policy, everything is in flux, and changeable with the next Tweet. The only two things in common between Trump and Obama is the presidency.
"Expert Class"? Looks like it's "Class Dismissed" going forward.
GOP will hang onto the Senate. Trump will be re-elected and will continue to destroy the current world order - remaking it in the image and likeness of, well...Himself.
So trump has a strategy and a vision now? What a relief. I guess I can stop worrying that he's an incurable narcissist who lurches from one sound byte to another, one lie to another, and one needless confrontation to another. Thanks for setting me straight.
3
Details matter, Mr. Douthat. This column seems to be ignoring some important details to make this stretch of a comparison work.
I believe the common anti-Hillary component.
But the reason Hillary had such high negatives, especially with Republican voters is 25 years of right-wing media misinformation.
I still have neighbors who believe the Clintons had Vince Foster murdered.
Then there is "Pizza-gate."
We even have a new verb, similar to "swift-boated" from John Kerry.
We can say people like Nancy Pelosi are being "Hillaried."
1
For the most part, Trump policy is pretty simple.
Whatever Obama did, do the opposite.
There may be a few exceptions.
4
Obama is going to watch his legacy sink quietly in the west due to Hillary Clinton. The normalization of relations with Cuba followed seamlessly thanks to Obama. The nuclear deal with Iran was working well and had Russia and China on board. Trump is a blow hard plutocrat who squawked the right noises for angry white voters. Hate speech was boiler plate to the Trump campaign. Obama failed because the anti Russia hysteria generated by the neo con folks has overthrown the national security apparatus. Clinton was a powerful member of that clique. Trump seems to have found no takers for treating Russia like a rival not an adversary. As he has sent troops to occupy Syria and making it all but impossible for the civil war to end there. Trump brags about out doing Clinton in his sanctioning Russia. Comparing Obama and Trump gives one an erroneous idea of policy. The one connecting factor is that the neo cons won.
1
First, G6 is not Israel or the Middle East. US aligns with G6 not just in geopolitical interests but actual values of democracy and human rights and liberty. But even in geopolitics, Israel under Bibi goes against our interest.
Second, Trump definitely does not share Obama's intent to benefit our country even if they share reluctance to expand our militarily engagement. Trump has shown with his deeds his only priority -- his, his family and businesses interests. Why hasn't a moralist like Douthat outraged at the many instances of obvious financial conflicts by Trump and his children? What about Ivanka and Jared's 82 milliions income from last year had supposedly dedicated their life to public service?
Third, Cuba does not have nuclear weapons, its ruling class does not starve their people. There was not a history of broken promises from Cuba. They truly want our olive branch which has been snatched away by Trump.
When democrats reminded us of what Republicans would say if this summit was with Obama, they were pointing out the GOP's hypocrisy. Their worry of Trump giving away the store certainly has proven justified now that Trump has agreed to give something very tangible to Kim without anything at all in return.
Douthat is grasping at straw comparing the two men. It is insulting to the Left and show the intense irrational disdain even the "moderate" conservatives have for Obama. What had Obama done that were so offensive to them? May be being black while POTUS?
1
How about a column on how Trumps rise mirrors that of dictators past and present -- especially those in the 1930's. Probably more appropriate.
1
'Ballpark' analogies used to argue Obama (policy) and trump (random chance) 'equivalents' are beyond empty -- intellectually and politically; and Mr. Douthat's effort to forge such a 'marriage' are no more meaningful or insightful than an assertion of an Obama-trump 'connection' established by the fact that the world was round 'under' Obama, and is yet so.
The effort alone is worse than would be a 'like measure' of Herod and Francis of Assissi -- even for a man such as I who is quite sure both 'real' devils and 'real' saints are the stuff of mere fantasy, to which only weak-minded fantacists cling.
2
It’s easy to see through this disingenuous comparison. This column has little to do with comparing Obama to Trump. It has much to do with Douthat trying again to disparage Obama by comparing him to Trump. His premise is, “Trump is a jerk, and if I can get you to believe Obama is like Trump by showing how much they are alike (but not really), then Obama is a jerk too. He wants you to think of it as- if A = B, and B = C, then A = C. That may work for algebra but not for these two very different human beings.
2
The only similarities I can see between the former President and the current is that they are both Homo sapiens. The current one has a very high percentage of Neanderthal DNA mixed in. That about covers it!
2
While I admired Obama he was quite the bit The Ponderer in Chief. He thought long and hard abut a lot of things but never acted on them. He could have been more of a spokesman for African American males in this country especially those residing in the inner cities but chose to hang with celebs instead. Quite a major misstep. If anything 45 has opened the door to NK. I wish him nothing but the best on that front. Both leaders are crazy but at least there is a détente for the moment which is something Obama couldn't or wouldn't do
Surely, there must be something real to right about ? Why make up complete tripe with little by way of connective substance, another in a long line of apologist "both-sider-ism" that falls miles short of accomplishing either a decent apology or a confirmation of both sides doing the same thing. Trump has no policy, no over arching theory, no planning. Chaos at home and chaos abroad, but plenty of pictures and hoped for prizes along the way to robbing our republic of decency, decent leadership, functional government, and as much money as he can prior to be tossed out, one way or the other.
3
What "Trump Korean bargain"? All I saw was a hopelessly desperate person trying to play at being President with the vain expectation that he can distract from the looming cloud of corruption that is enveloping his office.
4
Ross Douthat’s column creates a fundamentally false analogy, beginning with an ill-founded opinion and cherry-picking the facts to support that opinion. He engages the reader with the bait of one fact most could agree on—the parallel between candidates Obama and Trump as critics of previous foreign policy approaches (although the content of those criticisms often diverged). Then Douthat obfuscates instead of clarifies, misstating and distorting the foreign policy records of each president, in an effort to bolster his position. I thought that the mission of opinion journalism was to begin with a full and fair review of facts and then proceed to the formation of an opinion, not the other way around.
2
June 13, 2018
President Obama loves history and is a scholar of its narrative, and Mr. Trump hates history and scholarship that is totally surreal. Well Americans will always offer the better angels to how to live with history and shape destiny for our liberty and grace.
jja Manhattan, N.Y.
1
Silly stuff. No commentators I've read have dealt with our Mad King's capitulation to another Mad King's growing nuclear threat. Our own Mad King has shown himself vulnerable to a bullying, go-it-alone other Mad King. In the future might this collapse of imagination and daring encourage, not less, but more bullying?
What a mess of sense, of logic, of column space.
To cloak Obama and Trump together in any regard is N-O-N-S-E-N-S-E. And it is O-B-S-C-E-N-E to do it with the objective of softening and seeking acceptance for Trump -- again, in any regard.
(And that goes for Douthat's so-called world-view, too.)
Finally, the tiniest thing: Now we're talking about the "Expert Class?" Class?! Class?! CLASS?! How about just plain experts?
Infuriating.
1
Sorry, no. Putting pressure on alliances with states fomenting ongoing humanitarian crises like Saudi Arabia and Israel is not comparable to brazenly insulting Canada, Germany, and the UK. The guideline for Obama was to create a global humanitarian consensus. The guideline for Trump is to cozy up to people like him--strong man ultra-nationalists like Putin, Duterte, and Kim.
Once again, conservatives are failing to take responsibility for the ruinous collapse of values in their ranks that set the stage for Trump, manufacturing false equivalences and intellectual smokescreens.
1
to compare the trump chaos and lies to Obama's foreign policy is wrong, impudent, and unfair to Obama. Obama had foreign policy limitations, excessive forbearance, and it was not his forte. But Obama was honest and tried to uphold American values. Trump is a liar-in-chief and to me, the Summit in Singapore is a joke and embarrassment. Trump tweeting that we do not have to worry about North Korea anymore, is beyond the beyond. He is a narcissist and egomaniac. Obama tried to do the right thing. He is honest and listens, that is the difference.
2
Too much intellectualization went into this article to show that there is method in Trump's madness. Trump is all id- instinctive, impulsive, chaotic, irrational, pleasure driven. Even his Freudian ego has a problem with reality testing what with his fantastical hyperbole and lying. Need I even say there's no sense invoking his superego? It's shattered and shuttered!
Obama is just the opposite.
1
"That’s what happened in the Middle East in Obama’s second term, where dealing with Iraq from “offshore” led to the rise of the Islamic State...."
Republicans are always trying to shift the blame for the utter disaster of the Iraq war and its immediate consequences onto the Democrats. Obama's "offshore" policy was the result of Bush's agreement with the fledgling Iraqi government that they could demand that we withdraw our troops -- and, not surprisingly, they did demand it and got it.
Obama's policies were not the cause of the rise of ISIS. That blame falls squarely upon Bush and Paul Bremer and their decision to disband the Iraqi army and send thousands of Sunni soldiers home with their weapons and no job. Those men went on to form the core of Al-qaeda in Iraq, which then morphed into ISIS.
We wound up paying the Sunni soldiers $300 per month to stop attacking us (remember "the Surge"?). That worked until the Iranian backed Iraqi government stopped the payments when the US withdrew. That's when ISIS took shape because the Sunni fighters felt betrayed by their own government.
It is not comforting to see John Bolton, who considers the Iraq war a success, attempting to control Trump's feckless foreign policy making. Douthat-less, when the deal with Kim collapses, certain pundits will blame Obama or Hillary for the failure.
Comparing Barack Obama and Donald Trump is ludicrous!
2
Conservatives are desperate, as Douthat is here, to parse to the nth degree all comparisons between Trump and Obama foreign policies until they can find their "Gotcha" moment so they can say "Obama, too!"
There was no "grin and grab" between Obama and the ayatollahs over the Iran deal. And, rather than causing issues with Israel, many in the Israeli defense ministry applauded the deal.
Trump's praise of Kim cannot be called that; Trump was defending Kim and his regime. Obama shook hands with Raul Castro and the GOP made it seem like they were BFFs forever.
Obama never tried to cash in on his foreign policy as Trump did with that 4 minute NSC marketing video promoting NK resort development. How long before NK follows China in issuing patents to Ivanka for her foreign made products?
But right now all of American conservatism is on high alert in tracking down all comparisons between Trump and Obama statements on dealing with dictators to get the talking points straight.
Biggest difference between the two mens's foreign policies:
Obama embraced allies and challenged adversaries.
Trump embraces adversaries and challenges allies.
1
This column is a masterpiece of false equality.
1
In our attempt to imagine where politics are taking us, perhaps cartoon bubbles over heads would help:
Trump: That talk of fire and fury energized my base. Now I can pretend to win a peace prize with this same guy. Does it get any better? He's my kind of guy, an Asian Duterte. Tickles my sense and feel."
Kim Jong Un: Dotard, Man-Baby? As they said at the meeting in China, humor him, distract him, confusion of the west is best. As a philosopher once said, we will bury them, maybe sooner than they think. They exhaust their treasure with wars and politics. We choose our battles and what it will cost us to win.
Uhuh. Obama and Trump similar....at all...hmmm. Uh that would be a negatory sir. There is nothing similar about the greatest president in my lifetime compared with his idiot successor.
1
Not sure how old you are exactly but Obama is not even close to being the best President ever. Not even close.
Ross, I'm less impressed with grandstanding than what is happening that will make America a dump, unviable for the next generations:
braking ties with countries that share our values global warming more catastrophic storms... receding shore lines water pollution air pollution extreme religions ignorance about science lies fake news our military involvement in 17 countries at the last count robber barons harmful chemicals given a free pass gerrymandering assaults on minorities deepening wealth inequality anti-intellectualism home-grown terrorism with war weapons voter suppression unchecked monopolies job creation in a changed world Citizens United a judicial system manipulated by Republican politics incivility immorality tax avoidance etc. etc.
What's gone? our good life after WW II and before Reagan respect good will dialogue..compromise
What's left? ridicule condescension bullying Twitter, planned cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, even PBS, Chesapeake Bay, public lands and Parks the undeserved power of the NRA those who want to deny women the right to control the size of their families all sorts of nightmares.
Could you write about these crises? We are very discouraged.
1
Trump doesn't even belong on the same planet as Obama.
What's next
The Hitler-Mother Theresa Grand Strategy
The Einstein-Gump Grand Strategy
Ross, when you get the urge to compare people again, don't Douthat!
In the unlikely event that Donald Trump were to read this piece, would he have the slightest clue as to the thought process that you are ascribing to him? Donald Trump's thought process begins and ends with tomorrow's headlines. Donald Trump never wanted or intended to become president and is president only because Hillary Clinton could not defend herself in the face of being investigated by the FBI, and would not defend herself in the face of Donald Trump's relentless shower of abuse. No doubt you could pick out any 2 presidents at random and find random superficial similarities as you have done here. Any comparison between Donald Trump and Obama is nothing short of ludicrous.
1
West Point is a very selective college.
Training is excellent.
Trump's current Sec of State
graduated First in his Class
at West Point.
That is about as well prepared as anyone can imagine.
Very establishment and to all appearances highly
qualified for this job.
In charge of State and the NK portfolio.
1
What is all this prattle about change? The basic truth is that most people hate and fear it, like the child screaming for her mother who has just burned her with a cigarette while the social workers pull her away. Sure many are discontented with their lives and in their sugar plum brains thrill at the prospect of change. But deep down the prospect brings revulsion.
I can see Bush - Obama as a continuum. I can see Kennedy- Johnson, and FDR-Truman-Eisenhower as continuums. I see Trump as a dead end. Hopefully, he will use his opportunity to get some issues off the table while avoiding the creation of new issues. Good luck with that.
2
I love NYT. This is the kind of thinking the world needs more of.
The question must be raised: what motivates an apologia of such tortured false equivalences and obscene cherry picking distortions by a writer employed in legitimate journalism? I suggest it is a lame attempt to give cover to a political party which has completely abandoned truth for falsehood and the Constitution and its preservation for naked power wielded by self-interested factions. It is a pseudo-analytical crock of clearly partisan motivation. It is not informed opinion, it is base propaganda.
11
I understand Douthat is or was a Republican. So you have to keep that in mind.
xxxxxxxxxxx
But ALL particulars aside, let's cut to the chase. We could have had a model of capitalism that works if we hadn't kept cutting the taxes of the "filthy rich" and learned to hate our government in the process. But, since we did, America's economic policy has become filthy and so can't be sold to the world or even to Americans.
7
Again with the false equivalency!
Trump, the so called populist, LOST, repeat LOST, the popular vote. His "populist" mandate is a minority one at best, and, in what seems infinitely more likely, a personal, hate-based, glory-seeking, uninformed and vindictive one. Foreign policy stemming from such a mandate mirrors economic policy based on the ludicrous belief that "greed is good".
Trump is such a poor excuse for a human being that to attribute any rationale to his actions, no matter what their outcome, reveals an imagination stretched to the breaking point.
4
Wow....Ross, really? Donald's win was not a vote against Barack Obama, it was a win for Russia!
There is plenty of evidence that Putin wanted Donald in office and he got his man!
America, is being damaged daily by a Republican president.
6
There are two points--both lies by Trump--that need to be made before anyone can thoughtfully assess the meeting in Singapore:
1) Trump and his allies in the media and congress continue to act as if Kim would not agree to meet until after Trump's rhetoric (such as it is) and threats of annihilation "brought them to the table." That is total balderdash--the Kims have wanted to meet with a US President for 70 years now. US Presidents have held that possibility out as an incentive for the Kims to make real concessions prior to that meeting, a point of leverage that Trump threw away like a used kleenex.
The meeting itself helped Kim look like an important world leader and not a brutal thug. Score one for Kim. You want to claim that the approaches of the others did not work? Not true: Kim has had nukes for 12 years now. He could have continued on being ignored. Trump initiated and escalated this crisis, not Kim. Time is on our side, not his.
2) Trump continually says of the Iran deal (in words more or less like this quote): “In seven years, that deal will have expired, and Iran is free to go ahead and create nuclear weapons.”
The JCPOA’s prohibition on Iran’s building nuclear weapons does not EVER sunset, and other international agreements to which Iran has committed itself also prohibit the development of such weapons.
Trump tossed a good deal away and made a bad deal.
That's how they negotiate in Bizarro World.
6
Obama and Trump both get out of bed in the morning and put on pants.
That's where their similarities end.
Nice try though.
8
Ross,
Do not even attempt to lay ANY of this off on President Obama.
This fool's game is owned by Trump, and Trump alone.
5
After WW2 the US represented almost half of world GDP, today it is closer to 20%. The military and trade burdens the US could afford and made sense then is different now.
As the US experience in Iraq reinforced, for a change of government to be lasting it has to originate from within the country and be supported by its people. We can't blithely assume that everyone agrees the US system of government is superior and that everyone wants it for themselves.
When Russia attempted to use neighboring Cuba to threaten the US in the 1960s Kennedy went to the precipice of war in response. The US shouldn't be surprised that China and North Korea are similarly prickly NIMBYs in that corner of the world.
While Trump has many faults, it does seem he understands that the US's approach to and relationship with the rest of the world needs to change. Mr. Douthat summarized it well, I think: "makes deals with erstwhile enemies and makes more demands of longtime friends."
What benefit does analogizing Trump to Obama give to the analysis of Trump's foreign policy? I saw no insight that couldn't be revealed by simply looking at what President Trump says and does.
3
That's a lot of words to push an obvious thesis: that both presidents had foreign policies, even though their objectives, methods, and style were totally different.
That's ultimately all you were saying, isn't it?
4
Of course "Kim’s regime still envisions an endgame in which America retreats and South Korea submits" - that's what the NK definition of "denuclearization" - which our very own Dear Leader just signed onto - means. The US removes troops and weapons from the Korean peninsula, sits back, and lets the North Korean regime do its thing.
Whether that's what our very own Dear Leader thought he was agreeing to is a good question. One which I'll bet the South Koreans are very interested in right about now.
1
A simple song from my Girl Scout days explains the difference in Obama and Trump’s foreign policy: “make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold”
1
I will agree that both Trump and Obama are no Neoconservatives on foreign policy a la Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, JEB!, et. al. The neocons see our military not only as a defensive force, but also as a force for proactively forcing global change. A lot of Obama's support in 2008 over Hillary was that many Dems agreed with Obama's non proactive stance on the military use best described by Obama's "first, not doing stupid things". I voted for HRC in 2016 for obvious reasons, but I hated her stance that America should use the military as a force for good around the globe instead as just a defensive force. Sadly, now, Trump who is a psychotic fraud, is often speaking that we should reduce our military footprint, which I support doing. This all makes me quite uncomfortable.
1
I am truly confused...I can't understand how this comparison holds any water. This kind of fuzzy thinking is starting to feel like Fox news.
This goes against reason...a hand grenade and an orange are both round. You can always find something in common about any two things! My sense tells me that this is dangerous propaganda.
4
Ross, this is highly offensive and dead wrong. There is nothing remotely similar between Trump and Obama. How can you impute a foreign policy strategy to someone who knows nothing about history, nothing about geography, and who does not read - and then compare them to our last president, who is well educated, well read, and highly disciplined? Laughable!
4
Obama was always able to keep several balls in the air while juggling: the economy, wars, negotiations, and international relations, to name but a few. Trump is the proverbial one-trick pony. The only thing he knows how to do is to draw attention to himself.
5
I dunno Ross, me thinks you`re according far too much to Trump by implying he has anything resembling a plan with foreign policy---an area especially remote from his `business`experience. Some have suggested that Trump approaches diplomacy from a businessperson`s perspective, much as he governs more as a businessman than a politician. If so, then this proves the criticism that business folk are most poorly suited to public office, given how they are short sighted and cannot see the bigger picture beyond merely `business`.
Yes, America is fatigued with hegemony, having developed a case of Weltschmerz recently. As I have stated before, the desire of America to gradually abdicate its responsibilities as defender of the west mirrors how America has increasingly abandoned its social responsibility to its own people. Trump cares nothing about the consequences of his actions, he merely seeks attention for its own sake. Hope I`m wrong, but I doubt anything substantial will ever accrue from Trump`s endeavors.
Your argument only holds water if the Kim-Trump deal actually accomplishes something positive for the US and the world. We do not know what is in the deal, so far from what we have seen of trump's deal making his art of the deal needs a lot of work.
2
This kind of analysis is why more and more I'm finding it a waste of time to read these so-called conservative thinkers. I have long welcomed contrary opinion for the challenges to my own conclusions, but I find intellectual dishonesty tiring in the extreme. Is this what conservative philosophy has come to--a propping up of arguments with lies and half-lies? Perhaps Trump is the inevitable end to a school of thought that is built on deceit.
8
While pointing out a similarity in the realities both presidents face with the limits on US power in the world, it overlooks the key policy and strategy differences. While Obama did anger the Israelis and Egyptians with his opening to Iran, Trump is not only disturbing a key ally (Japan) with his approach to NKP, he is simultaneously weakening our major European allies. I struggle to see the similarities under the umbrella of recognizing the limits of US power.
1
This argument has questionable basis. The idea of Trump having policy and a well conceived world view is, indeed, more of a wish than anything derived from observations to date. Obama does have a world view; and his temperament stems from the alliances and historical bases that have evolved over time.
Donald Trump has no world view. He has only a slogan: Make America Great Again, which makes good sound bite, but does nothing but stir contempt from within our country and from the allies that America has cultivated over time.
Let's face it, Donald Trump is an amateur dictator. He hob-nobs with professional dictators (Putin, Xi, Saudi kings, and, now, Kim). His dictatorial attitude allows him to insult our neighbors, upset international alliances, and overturn decades of peace and cooperation that the US has garnered. His selfish rise to stardom looks good only in the mirror and to the cronies who anoint him. It's only a matter of time before the world's professional dictators will play him for the buffoon that he really is. By then we will see either the collapse of Trump or the collapse of the great country that we have grown to know and love. OR BOTH!
4
The benefit of the Iran deal was Iran dismantling its nuclear program and facilities and subjecting to international inspections. It worked. http://beequeenhair.com
5
The similarities Douthat sees are so basic and simplistic -- the equivalent of saying both Trump and Obama carry umbrellas when rain is forecast and wear a coat in winter, so somehow they must be pursuing fascinatingly similar weather policies?
And who are these "foreign policy establishment blob" folks who object to anything that might reduce active American hegemony and policing of the world, and all the expense required to do it?
Come on Ross - if this is all you've got on foreign policy, find another topic that's more in your lane...
4
Ross, your article is another GOP/Trump victory. By putting Obama in the same sentence as Trump, you have added to a disgraceful attempt to normalize a narcissistic, misogynistic, crude, racist, likely criminal, embarrassing President.
3
'after a cool liberal academic, a roaring populist'
Ross, your contrast of Obama v. Trump is a joke and plain stupid.
Obama is certainly cool and liberal, however not just academic but a brilliant expert of constitutional law, backed by solid years of public service, holding elected office from state level to Senate. Trump a populist?, the joke does not deserve a comment, a selfish money makers with zero record of public service.
4
OK for starters he had a very lackluster career as a state level senator150+ "just present " votes and his claim to fame while in DC was a NO vote on the war/surge. Granted he was a learned man, a scholar and more importantly a Ponderer who thought about a lot of things but never really acted on them.
Spare America the coupling of Obama and Trump in the same breath.....please!!! At a cost of 10 trillion the Obama
doldrum 8 years in review sums to not much more than
stale - rhetorical --- air.. The delusion not the dream is over
1
Obama eases relations with a small Socialist nation with no nuclear weapons and a small conventional military that has been unevenly beaten up on for years by Americans trying to win elections, affecting none of our alliances, except making our allies respect us more.
Trump freaks out the entire Pacific alliance, right after insulting the entire Atlantic Alliance by going Dennis Rodman on nuclear ballistic missile North Korea. Trump elevates said despot into a virtual international hero in return for nothing except sucking the marrow of celebrity out of the bones for himself, leaving both the Atlantic and Pacific alliance and the American people picking over the bones for looking for the nourishment of his actions.
2
How about this: Kim is just following Trump’s playbook. Tell them what they want to hear. Make them think you are going to do exactly what they want. Get what you want from them. Then keep doing exactly what you have always done. “Complete denuclearization”, “Drain the swamp”, “We are going to change history”, “If it doesn’t work out 6 months down the road, I’ll make up some excuse why I was wrong”. When you throw darts in the dark, don’t expect to hit the target. But you can always rationalize missing as not because you are a lousy darts player, but because someone else turned off the lights. And the fans will support you like you are the worlds best darts player, even though you are just picking up the game for the first time. It’s a win win for everyone involved.
2
I wasn't aware Obama was president anymore...why is a Trump still competing with him.
2
Trump is suffering from inferiority complex.
1
I guess, I mean, if you look hard enough, or conversely, are superficial, you can find all sorts of comparisons and parallels between certain items, individuals or policies......the net net of which renders the whole idea of finding these similarities of no consequence whatsoever.....meaningless....and those who seek out these hidden equivalences generally do so in order to shape and twist circumstances and facts to fit their preconceived notions......
2
To suggest that the possibility of the North Korean regime could "enter America’s orbit instead of Beijing’s" is anything other than "fanciful" defies belief. Perhaps this will come as a surprise to the members of the Trump personality cult currently running American foreign policy, but Beijing, (unlike the GOP establishment) is not the least bit intimidated or impressed by the American "Con-artist in Chief". They have gone to war once with America in order to protect their interests in North Korea, and they would do so again in a heart-beat.
I have noticed that Mr. Douthat has over the last few months taken on the role of as the unofficial Trump apologist in this newspaper. Like all Trump apologists, the role requires him to engage in logical contortions which -- again -- defy belief. That said, I have to admit that he is getting pretty good at it.
3
Yes. He has. We should all boycott his column!
Douthat, as always, is 100% wrong. Comparing Trump to Obama is not only wrong because it is offensive - it is also simply incorrect. Nothing Obama did in the foreign policy realm was initiated by self-interest. Everything Trump does is. One is a policy. The other is a pathology. And normalizing Trump is as indefensible as normalizing Kim Jung Un. Shame on you.
5
Seriously, Mr. Douthat? It is incredibly irresponsible and reckless to even suggest that there is a shred of similarity between Trump and Obama. When are supposedly intelligent people like you going to acknowledge that this would-be emperor in the White House is wearing no clothes?
3
Sorry, but I don't think you found a needle with which to thread a logical argument to support parallel thinking in the haystack of foreign policy examples.
1
Well, here you have it. Trump is finally ‘normalized’.
A whole bunch of false parallels. One was a thoughtful man was driven by facts and was sober and pragmatic. The other is a heartless, vindictive, lunatic, driven by a singular obsession to undo anything Obama did. One lifted America up. The other, far from MAGA, makes honorable people ashamed to be Americans.
4
'What would we be without wishful thinking' comes to mind.
This summit was purely about optics for Trump. His "Nixon to China" moment. Yes, its better than "Fire and Fury", but as always with this idiot those are false choices and former saber rattling was as pointless and dangerous as the "Kim is a great guy and maybe we'll pull our troops out of S Korea".
Everyone who enters Trump's orbit seems to leave diminished. That, apparently excludes tyrants, dictators, and traitors. It does not exclude we the people, unfortunately. The country is in a lower place than it was even a week ago.
2
???????
- Mr. Obama has reached a deal with Mr. Chatami but he has never met him to avoid any PR for Iran. This argreement is not ideal but consistent, reliable und verifiable
- Mr. Trump boasting about deals as loud as he can all the time has met Mr. Kim raising an unprecedented worldwide media hype giving more popularity for NK than Mr. Kim might have dreamed of in his wildest dreams while Mr. Trump has signed an absolutely content-free MOU not going beyond a fierce "Wonderful to see you today, we should meet again soon" stance with a half-life period to the next tweet of the Tweeter-In-Chief.
How to compare this? I don´t know. But after reading this Op-Ed it´s very clear: You don´t know either.
So all negative American comments are well deserved.
Mr. Douthat, there is a proposal for you.
You have written:
"But it means acknowledging that neither the “pay any price, bear any burden” Cold War model of American leadership nor the “unipolar moment” model from the late 1990s and 2000s fits current realities very well."
That´s a part of the story and that´s true indeed sxcept it started in the early 1990s. Why you don´t tackle these issues directly instead of making such weird detours?
2
The NK summit has nothing in common with any foreign policy achievements of Obama; the past few days in Singapore have been smoke and mirrors minus the mirrors. Trump's giveaways reveal a comprehensive absence of analysis or consideration of possible outcomes; a TV reality show masquerading as diplomacy. Trump recognizes that his followers care not about details, what-ifs, or rationales. They don't need them to grasp the daily high-calorie, low-fiber sugar high of Fox news.
2
The only relevant and inescapable fact of why America is retreating from the Pax Americana that has existed since World War II (either under Obama or Trump or anyone else for that matter who will come after) can be simply explained by the following exchange between two neighbors, all the analyses from Mr. Douthat notwithstanding.
Are you going on vacation this year?
No.
Why not?
Oh, a thousand reasons.
Name one.
I don't have any money, among others.
That's ok, you can keep the other 999 to yourself.
Like all empires before us (and we have been an empire since WWII), we are running out of money, and the people of this country know it instinctively. All they have to do is see the social safety net and security of those we have protected for seventy years, and compare it to theirs.
1
It is truly offending to put President Obama at the same level of Trump. There are striking differences: Obama is honest, intelligent, level-headed, strategic and thoughtful; on the hand, Trump is reactive, bully, ill-informed and liar. Your false equivalence is simply false and demonstrates lack of intellectual honesty on Mr. Ross Douthat part.
3
This is nonsense. There is absolutely no comparison between Obama, a thoughtful president with a sane and productive foreign policy, and a narcissistic buffoon whose only "strategy" as such is self-aggrandizement.
1
BINGO! Brilliant analysis.
First time I've agreed with Mr. Douthat in years.
The "haters" and "nevers" just don't get that Trump, in his crude way, is actually playing 3-D chess and upending most of the norms.
E.g., those war games may continue--if denuclearization doesn't progress--and other alliance activities surely will, but the South Koreans will be paying for a much larger share of whatever comes in the future.
Many good insights here, although to purist any comparison between Trump and Obama will upset most of either's partisans. And their world views and dreams of what would be the better arrangement were different. But on the need to regroup and rebuild, they both on similar paths to doing that. \
"Trump is angering a traditional set of allies (the Europeans and now Canada) while pining for a détente with an authoritarian rival (Russia); Obama had a similar approach to realignment in the Middle East, angering the Israelis and Saudis while seeking an accommodation with Iran."
The parallel that Douthat seeks has one blaring error: In the case of Obama, the agreement with Iran provoked a direct consequence for Israelis and Saudies. In the case of Trump, the conflict with the Europeans and Canada is due to the imposition of tariffs and rejection of various international agreements and not to his attempt to mollify Russia.
Obama to the Ayatollah, "You've got some great beaches, I can see condos right over there."
The Iran deal looks better every minute now that we've seen the great negotiator in action...
1
This is a whataboutistic, false equivalence which purports to explain the Obama --> Trump voter. While it has superficial merit, what it leaves out is Carville's operating principle during the Bill Clinton campaign: "It's the economy stupid." Trump won via exploiting the upper mid-western blind, angry disgruntlement of 77,000 voters over economic, not foreign policy issues, abetted by 3 non-economic coms: commies, Comey and the complacency of would-be Clinton voters who thought she was a shoe-in and didn't bother to vote. If they thought about foreign affairs at all, which few voters do, it was in passing. Trump won, to the amazement of most observers including himself. Once elected, to quote Boss Tweed, he "seen his (economic) opportunities and took em." This piece is one of the rare times Ross made no mention of sexual politics. Guess he couldn't think of a way to include them.
Obama was a leader. Trump is not even leading leading from behind. A real leader would not rollback useful policies implemented by his predecessor only because he roasted him at a press dinner. Oh so you think its funny? I'll just undo everything you ever did. Dreamers, healthcare, Cuba, housing, education, environment, trade, immigration...
2
Dear Ross, you must have had an absolutely head-exploding migraine after pulling this load of nonsense together.
Trump has no grand strategy, no grand plan other than commanding the stage and photo-ops by using his frustrating, frightening but nonetheless now boring and mindless tactics of: lying, name-calling, bullying, or, whenever a dictator is involved, a symphony of sympathy and sycophancy.
Your taxpayer funded White House Staff spent no little amount of time producing a propaganda mini-movie for N. Korean and world consumption. The only thing I expect Fox & Friends got right this week was in referring to "the two dictators".
Come on, Ross, this is just embarrassing for you.
3
For his next column Mr. Douthat will compare apples with oranges. Oh, wait, that's what he did here.
2
The mother of all false equivalence -- Barrack Obama and Donald Trump. Obama spent years negotiating with Iran. Trump apparently has devoted a few hours to negotiating with North Korea.
2
Yes, if you strip out all the details and the disgusting behavior and the ignorance of the truth on the ground and the ability to speak in complete sentences, among other things, ....yep, Trump is just like Obama. Good grief, Ross, is there nothing you won’t do to rationalize or normalize this racist, mysoginist, kleptocrat who appears to have never read the CONSTITUTION?
3
Ross, I think you win the bothsiderism, pretzel logic essay of the day. You are in tough competition with all the other conservative writers who have found some astoundingly creative ways to whitewash, gaslight and dissemble in the Trump era. Trump isn't fit to polish Obama's shoes. Not as a man, not as husband and father, not as a leader.
3
Congratulations, Mr. Douthat. I know you don't like Trump but you understand some of Trump's appeal. So many others who don't like Trump, including many who have commented on your article have such contempt for Trump that they can't see what you have pointed out. Democrats will remain the party of out of power if they fail to understand Trump's appeal or dismiss his appeal as something that only idiots or racists respond to. Hillary was better educated and experienced on foreign affairs than Trump but her support and encouragement for overthrowing Quaddafi with disastrous results in Libya was deeply distressing to me. When during the Obama administration Assad crossed the "red-line" of using poison gas there was a lot of common sense sentiment that however evil Assad was, it would be foolish for the US to intervene in the Syrian civil war given the fact that the US would not have the interest (and probably not even the ability) to intervene in a beneficial way.
1
"But there is also a mirror-image quality to their gambits and ambitions. Trump is trying to make a deal with North Korea, a last Cold War holdout, much as Obama did with Cuba."
Not at all the same thing.
Obama didn't go to Cuba with a warm embrace and gushing words for the Castros. He didn't coo over them and wax poetic about their great relationship. He also didn't do any of this two days after lambasting our allies.
When. not if, you and your friends have finished destroying our democracy think back to the lies you willingly parroted.
2
Obama's interaction with Iran was substantially different from Trump's fawning schmoozing media event with Kim.
Obama actually went in with a plan, a brain, an appreciation of the complexity and difficulty of the venture. Came out with a significant achievement.
Trump went in.
2
America's closest and most important allies are Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, South Korea and the United Kingdom.
America's least important and most worthless "allies" are Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
America's most challenging foes are China, North Korea and Russia along with al Qaeda, Boko Haram, ISIS and Taliban.
While America's lesser "enemies" are Cuba, Iran, Libya and Syria.
The Grand Strategy reality is that America annually spends as much on it's military as the next eight nations combined. Including 9x Russia and 3x China. Along with the fact that since 9/11/01 a mere 0.75 % of Americans have volunteered to wear the military uniform of any American armed force. While Congress refuses to debate, declare and pay for our wars.
The rest of us pretend to be brave honorable patriots by standing and singing the National Anthem and saluting the American flag at sporting events.
MAGA?
3
No way any of these supposed parallels passes the laugh test. Trump is a substance-less ignoramous who just gave away major concessions to Kim Jong Un literally for nothing. Obama was his complete opposite in nearly every respect.
1
Excellent analysis of the dilemmas of US power without domestic consensus or primacy .But the resemblances are more than offset by Trump's stupidity, ignorance and cupidity. The rest of the world including traditional allies no longer look to, or depend on, US judgement, influence or , indeed, power. The differences between Obama and Trump in confronting similar problems is instructive.
1
Yeah, I guess there are similarities between Obama and Trump. For instance, they both wear shoes that are hard to fill.
The difference is that Obama's were hard to fill because he was talented and intelligent, and Trump's are hard to fill because they're clown shoes.
2
Good grief, you got yourself trapped in an intellectual rabbit hole there, Ross. And there is no exit. If The US is simply responding to “the world as it is” (a nod to Ben Rhodes intended) are you arguing that it doesn’t much matter who is President?
You must have been hard up against a deadline to let that one through.
2
Cuba is not anywhere close to as oppressive as North Korea.
3
Rick, you are the one ignoring critical facts. In 2011, President Obama turned his back on Hosni Mubarak, one of our most loyal allies. He stabbed Mubarak in the back and supported the Arab Spring. Mubarak was ousted and the Muslim Brotherhood took over the government. As for Russia, Obama was caught on a live mic telling Putin that he would have more flexibility after the election, and of course Hillary Clinton passed her famous red Russia reset button. You are entitled to your own opinion, not your own facts.
The two men and their governing motivation could not be more different.
Our so called President is still a tool. He plays the part well because total authority, attention and satisfying his greedy impulses are what he craves and his only guiding 'principles'.
If all goes well, Trump International will be building in North Korea, Ivanka will have all the patents she needs to setup more sweat shops and China and Russia will be smoking cigars and drinking vodka to their new worldwide dominance at the cost of the destruction of Western alliances.
Kim just got the best present ever from Trump and gave nothing in return.
Stop comparing a President who loves his country (Obama) with a narcissistic President who would sell his country to the highest bidder (Trump).
2
The second half of this piece is sound and wise. Pity about the first half which reads like a separate essay from a different writer from some different planet:
The "mirror image" hypotheses here posited are mirages:
1. Obama was not responding to any threat from Cuba, his was an overdue detente without obvious ulterior motives. Trump's play-acting with North Korea, helping normalize its lying and cheating its way to nuclear power status, is not remotely analogous.
2. Ignorantly insulting and trying to start childish fights with Australia, Canada, Britain and Germany is not the same as sticking to American principles and interest in the Middle East. Germany has been a steadfast NATO ally for close to 60 years. Canadians, British and Australians have fought and died with Americans around the world for decades. Israel and Saudi Arabia have some shared interests with America but no comparable mutual defense commitments nor long histories of military integration ala NATO.
3. There is no shared "grand strategy" between Obama and Trump for the simple and obvious reason that Trump has never had, and is clearly incapable of ever having, a coherent grand strategy beyond selfish self-promotion.
As another commenter recently asked of another columnist (paraphrasing): what part of Romney's "Trump is a phony" statement (of the obvious) can you not understand or do you insist on denying the salience of?
Douthat says:
"In all things Trump is cruder than Obama, more willing to make subtext into text, less (or not even remotely) detail-oriented, more careless of diplomatic norms and dismissive of humanitarian concerns."
Gee, such insight and perception. Ya think!?
2
Mr. Douthat, you couldn't be more mistaken. Whatever regions or countries unfortunate enough to be caught in Obama's foreign policy "vision" have become pits of violence and mass murder. Obama never grasped that he had to deal with the world as it is, a world where the murderous only listen to those who possess power and are willing to use it. The Iranian mullahs and Revolutionary Guards understood this and took advantage of this unaccomplished, inexperienced naif. Assad correctly read that his Red Line was in fact a soft, feminine pink. So did the Russians and our Allies in the region, who ultimately grew to despise him.
When academics are finally courageous enough to write objectively about him, they will note the millions of lives lost and horrifically disfigured as a direct result of his foreign policy.
2
I think we can assume that Kim hasn't changed the NK view of the peninsula from his father and/or grandfather. He wants a unified Korea that he controls as their 'god'. We must remember that the people of NK are indoctrinated for more than 70 years now to believe that their leader isn't a mortal leader, but a mortal god with the power and authority to decide who lives, who dies, who eats, who starves, etc.
Why would we be foolish enough to think that Kim is going to suddenly tell his people that he's just a man and if they don't like his ideas or governance they can remove him? Never going to happen. And that's why trump giving Kim a win with his presence and worse with his promise to remove over 30,000 troops from South Korea is only going to embolden Kim to move against South Korea.
Ross - Reading you is like gazing at the stars and stubbornly insisting that with only a few more adjustments here and there the harmony of spheres can yet be made to work. Nostalgic indeed - but maybe you just might want to give Copernicus a try. It would be a shame to waste an entire life in an exercise in futility.
1
Well, it certainly is bizarre that we now have a president who has a good relationship with North Korea and a bad relationship with Canada, Britain, Germany and France. I would call that pathetic, but that goes without saying. We are just now all along for the ride on the Trump train. You now know what it was like to live in Italy during the 1930s. I hope we don't get to find out what it was like to live in Italy during the 1940s.
2
There is still a large difference between Obama and Trump, Obama was not afraid to call out foreign leaders, like Castro in their human rights issues. He did not pull punches and he did not project image of cowardice, buffoonery and fealty to dictators.
2
Sorry. As usual, there's something to what you say because Trump's response to everything is to say "Obama did wrong: I will do the opposite." He tried Korea because Obama didn't.
But the Korea deal at this moment is far, far worse than the Iran nuke deal (JCPOA). The ROK in 1992, Clinton in 94 and Bush in the early 2000s made better deals with the DPRK, which collapsed largely through the North's cheating but also because we made mistakes, per Condoleezza Rice.
Big picture, either Trump aims at a Fortress America (super isolationism) or a Russia/China/U.S. condominium (TRIDOMINIUM?). Aside from producing pandemonium, neither is as safe for us as a policy of maintaining the democratic alliances which have kept us safe from all but self-inflicted wounds (Vietnam, Iraq, increasingly Vietnam.
Such a policy will turn our military into Hessians, impoverish the nation and promote nuclear proliferation.
It's interesting the Mr. Douthat completely leaves out trump kissing up to Putin. How much of trump's actions are from the strings pulled by Putin. trump is Putin's puppet. Proof? Has trump said a single word against Putin's meddling in our 2016 election and current meddling? For example, a California referendum will be put on the ballot to break California into three states.
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-california-split-three-states-...
We already know that much of the funding came from direct and indirect funding by Putin and his henchmen.
How much funding of the NRA comes from Putin?
Putin is masterful as he pits Americans against each other; and trump is a divider... not a uniter.
Perhaps, Mr. Douthat, you would write an article to explain trump's behavior in light of how he interacts with Putin.
3
The sight of those many North Korean flags interspersed proudly between the Stars and Stripes is truly a vision. Concentration camps to rival the gulag perhaps, but they have great beaches. He's really quite a nice guy after all. This is what winning looks like.
Douthat's parallel is interesting. Two intelligent men, both outsiders see the same sort of opportunities. The difference in results figures to lie in the difference in men.
Obama largely failed at foreign policy, typified by the Iran deal which ended up having no chance in the Senate. He was inexperienced in foreign affairs. His upbringing was typified by his mother's friendship with Bill Ayers - he was a classic 'red diaper' baby.
Trump's foreign policy agenda is much more ambitious. It is much bigger than fixing the irritating problem of protecting a US west coast city from being vaporized by NoKo. He actually wants to fix the international trading system for the long haul.
The situation right now is good for the US in the sense that we are trading financial claims (pieces of paper called US Treasury Notes, et al) for real goods and services. The eventual problem here is that sooner or later these claims become so large that it becomes in our interest to cancel them. That means depression and war.
Trump understands this, and he knows debt from both sides of the table. I have to wear my MAGA hat.
1
The media has done to our leaders what it has done to all of us: set each and all of us in contentious disrepect with one another. Though alike in party like the Sneeches we are, we have now added another star to our bellies that separates us further from the singular Sneeches, When asked, we used to say "the devil made me do it." Well, the devil is now the media who have us swinging this way and that, with our noses glued to our cellular feeding tubes or 5 foot-long 4K vistas . As the Mafia would say, "Hey! it's nothing personal. It's just business." We reap what the media have sowed, and we are all the fools for it.
2
C'mon... If Obama and Trump are so mirror/mirror, Mr Douthat, why did the latter tear up the former's Iran Deal (which is beginning to look like the Magna Carta)? If inversely squared is what you REALLY mean w/ regard to our Lincoln-logged Obama, HRC -- as a Ulysses S Grant in lieu of Trump's feint at Andrew Johnson (basically repealing Emancipation & Reconstruction) -- is suddenly looking far better if we're to somehow continue sparing our Gettysburg dead from having sadly died in vain.
Only a partisan like Douthat could compare Trump to Obama with a straight face and no shame. Every candidate runs on a platform of certain ideals and proposes solutions to certain problems in our nation. Trump ran on one notion and only one notion: He was the answer to all our problems, because he is a genius, a statesman, a grand negotiator, and a king. Those who crave simple answers for the world's problems accepted Trump at his word. They should be now acknowledging that this was a huge mistake, but they are still hoping against hope that they were right, even as our government is being dismembered around them and their tax dollars are being used to destroy our institutions. Time will tell, but in the long arc of history, Obama's actual policy ideals and efforts to move our nation forward will make his Presidency recognized as a bit more positive than the unraveling disaster and kleptocracy we are seeing with Trump.
2
Because of Li'l Don's ego and unrelenting personal need to undo anything Obama; let's redo the Pacific pivot and pull forces from the Pacific for Young Kim so the Chinese can have the Malaca straight and "... have the most beautiful beaches ...."
We have a special bond, after all.
So much winning. As a NAVY guy, I give the putative leader of the US the ol' Hawaiian salute (thank you, men of the USS Pueblo).
Oh Ross, I'm no fan of Obama's foreign policy but with him America did not fall into ridiculousness and remained a standard for some sort of decency.
Plus, there was some sort of strategy that could be confessed publicly...
1
How ironic that the only positive things Douthat can say about Obama have to be in comparing him to Trump. The differences would make a better op-ed, but then he'd have little or nothing good to say about Obama. The world is upside down, my friends.
1
Hey, after reading this column, I noted that a mouse and and elephant are quite similar. Both have four legs and a tail, both have two eyes and ears, both are mammals...I could go on and on. Therefore, I conclude that and elephant and a mouse are really not that different after all.
1
Unike my fellow liberals, I am not offended by comparing Obama and Trump in terms of foreign policy. Both have responded to the failure of our intervention in Iraq by considering a less intrusive role for the U.S. on the world stage. However it is a stretch to say that Trump has any long-term strategy or even an appreciation of the complexity of foreign affairs or the consequences of his actions..He is interested mostly in indulging his need for attention and the approval of his base. There is no foreign policy, and the emperor has no clothes
1
We are in a changing world. I believe that both Trump and Obama understand that in ways that many politicians don’t. Americas place in the world is changing. There are new realities forming that no longer put the United State in the center of everything. In addition, the foundation for much of the unrest and migration happening now is the environment. This factor is bigger than any nation alone. Right now we have an administration that doesn’t acknowledge reality in a way that will ultimately make a more sustainable world order. I believe that Trump is a perfect candidate for parts of the electorate that want to go back to the good old days when we didn’t have to worry so much. Unfortunately the worries and challenges are going to continue to mount until we find an electorate and politicians willing to face the real issues in a substantial way. I am not holding my breath in hope.
Ross, I can't disagree with you more. The Islamic State, the Syrian war and the massive refugee crisis were a direct result of the US destruction of the security apparatus in Iraq under Saddam during the Bush administration. We won the war and left a security vacuum that was eventually filled by arming and training many of the Sunni's who became the bedrock of ISIS. That was all done by the Neo Cons under President Bush. Bush had agreed with the Iraq government to leave along with the timeline before President Obama was ever sworn in.
The Iranian Nuclear deal was a brilliant multi-lateral deal that kept us from going to war in Iran and leaving a power vacuum that may well have exploded like it did in Iraq.
Paris and TPP both multi-lateral deals were also brilliantly conceived and executed by a professional foreign service. The US foreign service, like our alliances and multiparty agreements have been gutted by President Trump.
Obama, through multilateral deals was strengthening international norms and law. The two things need to really reduce WMD's and Nuclear weapons across the globe along with dealing with global environmental issues, trade disputes and refugee matters. President Trump is depending on his own personality to dominate the globe without any standards or norms. It's not a grand strategy, it's a path to global war.
6
Ross has little to say here --that there are continuities between Trump and Obama Re North Korea --and obscures that by trying to over generalize his point.
The "foreign policy differences" Ross dismisses as "obvious"involve matters at least as important for finding policy as those for which he sees continuity between Obama and Trump. Furtherr, the major matter of the break with traditional US allies is undervalued and the stress on avoiding US troop entanglements and casualties is old Bush-I Colin Powell policy, a thirty year old policy orientation only relaxed by Dubya.
Moreover, the key Korean continuities -- wishful thinking about decisive Chinese assistance, bravado about never allowing a North Korean nuclear power based on denial Re national unwillingness to risk many hundreds if thousands of North Korean lives--are offset by Trump's year of militaristic ranting and by his apparent recent abandonment of future war games with South Korea.
On the related matter of Trump and Hillary Clinton corruption, there is the small matter of Hilary conscientiously steering clear of criminal activities -- well stated by an op-ed here in 2016 by Richard Posner, the same hyper astute Posner who nailed down Bill Clinton's impeachsble offenses in his 2000 AN AFFAIR OF STATE.
1
People are often surprised by how gradually foreign policy changes from administration to administration, despite whatever may have been said on the campaign trail. That is because foreign policy is inevitably highly dependent on foreigners, who do not change when administrations change. So, while the style, aims, and general competence of the Obama and Trump administrations are different, the changing world in which we live, the direction of that change, and America's place in that world, all remain the same. There should be no surprise that circumstances force successive administrations to act in similar ways. This has happened many times before, and is largely the reason why foreign policy is often the most bipartisan form of policy; it's mostly a reaction to the foreigners, rather than something we can initiate ourselves.
1
Well, maybe. Let's see how this N Korean engagement actually turns out.
If Trump is successful, then he will win Congressional approval of the deal and it will result in a treaty. That would imply rigorous inspections of N Korea. At the same time, we should watch the S Korean and N Korean peninsular moves to see whether or not trade, communications, and movement are allowed.
If all of that happens, Trump will have accomplished something nobody else has accomplished.
If it doesn't, Trump will have accomplished nothing of sustaining value.
President Obama faced similar issues with one huge caveat.
Yes, Trump and President Obama decided to do things differently because the trend policies were not yielding improvement.
Their methods are different.
One critical factor that contributed to President Obama's methods was the obstructionism of the GOP Congress. Nothing that President Obama proposed as policy was considered by the obstructionists and everything he tried to accomplish was fought by them.
In contrast, we have a quiescent and complicit GOP congress which supports Trump. Let's see what happens when the Mueller investigation submits its findings. Then we'll see just how similar and dissimilar the two presidents' foreign entanglements have been.
While President Obama is much more the type of person we'd rather have leading our country, history will always judge a generation's leadership by the results of its policies.
Jury is out for now.
6
For the foreseeable future, US will remain an economic and military superpower. That’s not a goal or ideal, it is just reality.
With that status, isolationism is simply off the table because it is impossible. We take actions to protect our global interests: adequate supply of necessary resources, like oil, economic stability and security in global markets for businesses, our products and services and protection of geographic territories.
Neocons, like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, are unilateral interventionists. With no need for obtaining real consensus , this resulted in the Iraq fiasco and the Afghanistan nightmare. Obama was a multilateral interventionist, which provides an inherent check and balance on the worst of our Lone Ranger mentality.
Trump is obviously a unilateralist but not, at this point, an interventionist. Unfortunately, he is the Lone Ranger, gone rogue. His trusts his gut instincts, honed in the gray world of luxury real estate development. And his gut tells him to throw in his lot in with the cattle rustlers against the townspeople. This doesn’t end well.
5
While your assertions about the fundamental similarities in the challenges facing US foreign policy seem spot on, it glosses over the profound differences in the particular arenas that Obama and Trump are dealing in. Obama inherited a nihilist vacuum, where neither the players (ISIS) nor the dynamics (Assad and Russian proxy) were predictable. Trump, on the other hand, is wading headlong into a regional chess match where all the players are well known and the strategic priorities and long term ambitions fairly clear. Well known apparently, that is, to everyone except Trump … and the sycophants he calls advisors.
5
At last! An opinion piece that is not just anti Trump or Obama, but rather considers the realities that both were confronted with. Thank you for your insightful consideration of this challenge.
4
Your reader's comments only serve to reinforce your thesis. Mentioning Obama and Trump in the same paragraph is heresy. Usually smart people lose their ability to listen or even think objectively.
The broader point is alliances and ways of the past will not always serve us well in the future. We are looking for the next new world order. Both leaders understood this no matter how cool and calculating one was and how ham handed the other.
3
The difficulty most of us face is believing that trump understands anything that doesn't directly benefit him. It's impossible to believe that he met with Kim for any reason other than he believes he will now be entitled to a Nobel Peace Prize.
4
'What Trump and Obama have in common is a skepticism about received foreign policy wisdom'.
No, Mr Douthat, you do not get to equate Obama's analysis with Trump's visceral reactions. The latter is only capable of thinking of his own ratings and bottom line.
But I will grant you that he 'accurately reads what domestic public opinion will bear'. So far, domestic public opinion has borne Trump's refusal to provide tax returns, his government of grifter family members and corporate toadies, the evisceration of the diplomatic service, attacks on a religious group, the forcible separation of migrant kids from their parents, the abandonment of Puerto Rico, a tax bill that favours himself and big business, his continuted profiting off the presidency and endless games of golf.
Trump only had one insight: that he could shoot someone on 5th avenue without consequence. That was all he needed to know.
19
Douthat engages in magical thinking.
"Obama and Trump triumphed politically in part because they seemed more sensible than Clinton and her Republican counterparts about the need to make strategic choices, to cut losses and to cut deals."
The idea that Trump was the more sensible candidate is absurd. Sensible is building a wall and getting Mexico to pay for it, as Trump promised? Sensible is torturing prisoners, as Trump promised? Sensible is vowing indiscriminate bombing, as Trump promised?
There was nothing sensible about Trump's pitches. He didn't show any strategic thinking on the campaign trail at all. Sure, he liked to talk about cutting deals, but he never went into specifics, and as we can see from his first year, he doesn't know how to cut deals.
Trump got elected because he positioned himself as unreasonable, unrealistic, and cruel, a bully who enjoyed lying.
The comparison is tortured.
10
Right or wrong, Obama thought things through, knew the facts, weighed consequences, made a policy decision and then stayed engaged to see it through to implementation. Trump simply gets an idea, often from someone on Fox News, drops a “policy bomb” in the center of the room and then rushes off to the next rally. Think healthcare, DACA, gun reform, infrastructure, you name it. Big talk, no action....that is Trump’s modus operandi. Perhaps in the short term we are safer for his ignorance and ineptitude, but that is no formula for success in a rapidly changing and dangerous world.
22
Douthat seems compelled to blame Obama for Trump. He claims that improving relations with Cuba is the same as Trump's reality television event with North Korea. I suspect that he will live to be embarrassed by making this comparison.
9
Ross, Ben Rhodes wrote:
“When you distilled it, stripped out the racism and misogyny, we’d run against Hillary eight years ago with the same message Trump had used: She’s part of a corrupt establishment that can’t be trusted to bring change.”
I agree. As insane as it might seem, Trump was perceived as a change agent by a significant number of swing voters.
IMHO, the silver lining of his beyond awful administration is that it is setting the stage for the election of an authentic liberal-progressive change agent - be it Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders.
5
And it’s all comes down to style. Obama’s was appealing but unproductive. Trump’s style seems unappealing to past traditions, but cannot yet be judged by results. The biases drive the conversation, but we don’t yet know.
2
What you don't mention is that Obama could not get many things done because the Republicans had decided from the very beginning that they would obstruct anything and everything. See McConnel (our focus will be to make him a one-term president) and not letting him nominate a supreme court justice. Disgusting and in my opinion driven by racism. Well, guess what - payback time. Forget about going high when they go low. We will beat them at their own game. It might take some time but the Republican party has outed itself as what it has always tried to hide and we have taken note.
1
One can take Mr. Douthat's point, but it is a limited one, and should have gone deeper. If Obama and Trump seem similar because of a more pragmatic take on foreign policy, saying so does little to explain why their choices are so different. An exploration of the differences would be much more relevant to voters.
5
I was dazed and unhappy about Trump’s election, but by now I’ve had my fill of knee-jerk reactions and stubborn denials of reality. It’s time for more sober analysis, which is what I see in this column. I don’t see any attempt to equate Trump and Obama, though many commenters seem to.
I quite often disagree with Douthat’s opinion pieces, but I almost always read them. He appeals to my intellect rather than my emotions, and he treats his opposition with respect.
3
Ross, when you liken the posturing of a carnival barker with no principles, an inability to see or tell the truth, and with values centered on himself, to the deeds of an outstanding statesman with a strong desire to improve the world for posterity, it is time to get a new profession.
20
" “America First” and “leading from behind” may sound very different, but they can reflect similar impulses and produce similar results."
Well said, and to the point: facing up to the end of the American century
The mirror image Ross sees here, is a mirage because it is so temporary. It assumes that Trump has some sort of method and not just madness. It is temporary because it is not the product of deep or even superficial thinking. It is the product of no thinking at all. Obama's position, which I thought was laughably conservative and dispiriting, was at least the product of serious thought, however misguided and fatalistic. But until you understand that Trump is not only not a deep thinker, but instead is not a thinker at all, you will fool yourself into thinking you see something that isn't really there. There is no there there. His epitaph should read, "he's here," because it will finally be true.
8
Mr Douthat is atypically incoherent. There are vast differences in style and potential effect between the North Korean and Iran Deals, or potential deals. As was typical with Mr Obama, the Iran deal was conducted behind a curtain with faceless Mullahs and not a single public handshake. It was an Obama/Rhodes coproduction. The significant third party, Israel, was not on board. With North Korea we have seen a (literal) hands-on beginning, with the enthusiastic support of South Korea. It has been a Trumpian reality show production. One rather imagines that, down the road, there might be Senate and Congressional oversight and approval. Since everything so far has been in the open, criticism has been forthcoming and often appropriate.
And those who are pointing out the limitations of what has occured to date should be aware that the Iran deal, as far as the Iranians are concerned, never included the
single most significant requirement, viz., IAEA inspection of Iranian military nuclear sites. This could present a teaching moment for Mr Trump and his negotiators.
2
Comparing Obama to Trump, even in the limited context of foreign policy, is a bit like comparing herb encrusted roast pork to spam. Sure there are some ostensible similarities, but do they really belong in the same cookbook? Probably not. Obama had a carefully crafted series of gambits driven entirely by a calculus that placed America's long-term interest above all other considerations. Donald Trump... not so much! The Donald isn't driven so much by reality, it's more like he really wants a shiny medal, too!
17
I'm not sure who wrote this or what he's done with Mr. Douthat.
For once an intelligent and reasonable column. I disagree with the simplistic notion that "dealing with Iraq 'offshore' led to the rise of the Islamic State" Self-determination has always been at odds with national borders, especially when they were as badly drawn as those in the Middle East. Iraq is not a nation, it is an idea created by imperialists over a 100 years ago. The region will see peace when those borders are replaced and the regimes (including Saudi Arabia) are erased.
All in all, though both Obama and Twump are just the latest to face the reality that US power is limited - as it should be. We 350 million should stop acting like we are more entitled than the remaining 7 billion who share this rock. We are more alike that we are different as our two last presidents appear to have learned.
1
Yes, in many ways night is very similar to day; hot is quite like cold. You may compare the methods used by the two men, but their goals were as opposite as could possibly be. Obama twisted reason and reality into torturous coils in order to appease terrorist-sponsoring Iran and citizen-crushing Cuba, while giving the cold shoulder to long-term ally Israel. He ignored the threat of North Korea altogether, and sat by passively while Russia invaded Ukraine, whose borders the US had guaranteed to protect. Trump has put the two largest global threats, Iran and North Korea, on no uncertain notice, and made it clear that he will act swiftly to protect US interests around the world.
1
I believe Mr Douthat makes the same mistake many commentators do: believe Trump follows some king of well-thought strategy. Trump's only strategy is to run a show to captivate his audience, with all the theatrical surprises required to draw attention. One day he trashes Canada, a close ally. The next day he praises Kim, a murderous dictator, turning a simple photo shoot into an historic agreement (which contains just what was already previously promised but never kept). Once you understand Trump is still in the entertainment business (as fame gets you elected these days), all he does becomes clear. Try to find another logic that fits his actions ("shake the international order", do you really believe he knows what that is?), and you will quickly be faced by actions that defy the logic you just presented. But is it's to just continuously run the greatest political show on earth, whatever the substance, it all makes sense.
6
From the comments, it seems as if you lost most of the readers by simply attempting to compare Trump to Obama. That alone is scornful to some.
But considering Trump won because two-time Obama voters chose him over Clinton, Mr. Douthat's point is certainly apparent to some.
1
No. You misstate the case. The scorn arises because Mr. Douthat did not seek to "compare" the positions. He sought to equate them. And that is a very important distinction.
2
Even taking your assumption (though "mirror-image quality to their gambits and ambitions" only comes after one compares the two, regardless...), your "distinction" is meaningless.
The issue is simple: how the Obama-Trump voter sees the two men. They compare and contrast, and come to see them as similar on the issues presented here, according to Mr. Douthat.
You also make the mistake- like many folks here- of not noting that Mr. Douthat acknowledges the many (very many) faults of Trump.
But really, any time anyone anywhere EVER mentions Obama and Trump in the same sentence favorably, they risk a backlash- like here.
That was the biggest mistake of this column.
The Obama/Trump comparison bandwagon has just about had the wheels fall off. When you cannot make a clear distinction based on face value, you go for the low hanging fruit and do a comparison which ultimately is of little or no value. But the band plays on.
4
There is a difference between Obama's Iran deal and Trump's North Korea deal. The media, did not look too deeply into the Iran deal--but cheered wildly regardless.
And it doesn't seem to matter what Trump achieves with North Korea. He could denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, open up North Korea to the West (as in Nixon in China), and essentially defuse a situation that 4 different presidents found unsolvable. It doesn't matter--at all. The NY Times and the mainstream media would find some way to minimize the achievement, and then hand all the credit to Obama.
1
Things to be remembered:
1. Trump’s mentor was Roy Cohen;
2. The Iranian takeover of the US Embassy and holding of hostages was a national disgrace
There’s plenty of blame to be shared.
I noticed this parallel as well, and I sincerely hope Trump makes real progress on North Korea. It is clear that the "received foreign policy wisdom" is not working, and I part ways with many of my fellow liberals in thinking that talking with North Korea may be a good thing.
But, it is hypocritical in the extreme, not to mention damaging to our national interests to simultaneously argue for engagement with North Korea while tearing up the agreements made by the previous administration.
I think staying engaged with Iran is absolutely essential. If we can talk to North Korea and cosy up to Russia, surely we can continue dialogue with Iran and Cuba.
The problem is, unlike Obama, Trump needs things to be all about him. The Iran and Cuba deals were not, therefore he feels free to trash them. Not good for our country or the world.
3
President Obama and Donald trump have the following in common: they are carbon-based forms of life. It ends there. The mental and moral gymnastics that it takes to even try to equate the two men gives support to the argument that trump supporters and enablers have willingly made themselves impervious to facts, and have superhuman abilities to withstand cognitive dissonance.
15
Insightful, wise words. WAKE UP AMERICA!
2
As a Canadian I am very disturbed as to where Trump is leading US to. When he calls our Prime Minister names he has lost our respect completely. He seems to respect dictators and turning his back on countries that have backed US, I hope that US does not start a conflict with Iran and fall in Israel's trap which is looking like a good possibility.
4
If only we could depend on Trump to actually tell us the truth, I might believe he is acting in our country's best interest. But after all the grandstanding and lies it is hard to believe he went to North Korea to protect us.
Trump's continuous outbursts on Twitter, his saying one thing one day and then reversing the decision the next, does not give any comfort that he should be negotiating on behalf of the United States.
This whole meeting is probably more about distracting us from the Mueller investigation, than anything more meaningful.
Forgive my cynicism, but Trump and this Administration has not proven yet that they can be trusted.
9
Thanks - Its about time someone pointed out that the "expert class" is being told via the democratic process that they are no longer driving the bus, nor should they ever drive, their place is analysis and facts
Militarily we are over extended. Bases in the Far East are using equipment and facilities not upgraded since the Sixties and a fleet that is overworked and exhausted. Both the crews and the ships. America's Wealthy and businesses don't want to pay for it. Making America great again like in the 1950's requires a world in shambles and an upper tax rate of 90%. Trump looks to be only focused on the shambles part.
1
The "endgame" is that North Korea will never give up its only life insurance policy and denuclearize. They may agree to a form of Nixonian "detente," but the fly-in-the-oinment is the aggressive, hostile axis of Bolton-Pompeo-Trump who love the idea of regime change and seem oblivious to the reality of a nuclear confrontation. There is certainly no "Obama-Trump grand strategy" with the former grounded in reality and history and the latter unmoored from both. We can only hope that our regime will change before we get to that point.
5
Please! This is not even remotely fair comparison. Cuba is no North Korea, and Trump is no President Obama, not in strategy, not in implementation, not in temperament. Whereas President Obama carefully, deliberately considered all the variables, how a decision may affect other relations, consequences of using a certain strategy and then deployed the strategy. Trump, on the other hand, jumps into the TV news cycle, offends the allies, not with strategies but outright offensive behavior, even language, then tries to justify with made up statistics that defy his own government's numbers.
His on TV statement "take the guns first, then go through the due process" is proof of his ability to think and reason. No, they do not deserve to be mentioned in a hyphenated title as their policies are based on vastly different foundations.
8
interesting, though I don't agree. Just granting Trump the notion of an actual strategy is far fetched, but you can't compare North Korea and Cuba, nor Trump's attacks on NATO allies vs. Obama shunning Israel and Saudi Arabia for a nuclear deal with Iran (which made our allies safer, whereas Trump just gave away the house for nothing on North Korea). Also, the Iran deal didn't move us away from international commitments, as Ross states, but rather deepened them - this was a deal negotiated with 6 world powers. I don't think any of these are apt comparisons, and I think his conclusions are wrong.
11
This comparison of Trumps foreign policy to that of Mr. Obama's lacks credibility. Trump operates without a knowledge of history or even more current events and is merely reactionary to the events of the day. Mr. Obama's actions were of a planned nature using all information available with a long term goal in the plan.
Think about Trump's rejection of the Paris accord on Climate, the TPP, Nafta, G7 meeting accord, the giveaway at Singapore, Nato weakening. all without a replacement long term plan.
4
Mr. Douthat
".......the wooing of Kim represents a gamble that the North Koreans really want to change their posture, to reap the possible benefits of normalization, even to enter America’s orbit instead of Beijing’s......"
The chance of pulling Kim Jong un out of the Chinese orbit is nearly zero percent. First of all, the Chinese government has propped up North Korea for the past seventy years. China has been the economic and military lifeblood of the North Korean dictatorship - besides saving the regime from certain destruction during the Korean War. Obama tried and failed to pull Syria out of the Iranian orbit, and it failed for the same reasons - loyalty (and reliability) toward Iran.
Secondly, Trump tossed the Iran nuclear agreement. That undermines his attempt to negotiate a deal with Kim Jong-un. At the same time, when he moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, he made it plain as day that he was willing to throw the Palestinians under the bus. In the mean time, Trump has cozied up with Israel and the Saudis threatening war with Iran. In the broader picture, Kim Jong-un will find it difficult to trust the Trump administration.
The successful plucking of Ukraine from the Russian orbit occurred because of Ukrainian resentment of Russian domination since (at least) the Bolshevik Revolution. Those conditions are absent in North Korea (and Syria); thus, it's a fantasy that the US will be able to woo North Korea out of the China sphere of influence.
10
Excellent column to begin the day, and it made for stretching out for the tall cool glass of water, ignoring the two enormous poisonous-looking cupcakes that someone must have left on the side during the night.
2
I don't see how the comparison between Obama's outreach to Cuba and Trump's outreach to N. Korea.
Cuba's leaders were old and transition was about to happen; Obama reached out to be there with minimal drama when that transition happened, hoping to make it smooth and easy first steps to building a new relationship.
N. Korea? New Alpha Male; and the outreach has been totally centered on creating drama and uncertainty, including provoking our allies.
22
Although I have not been trained in diplomacy, I would imagine the first lesson would be to keep our word. Reneging on treaties makes any deal we sign suspect. Sending a leader with a reputation for lying, would also cause some suspicion.
Calling world leaders names and having tantrums ordinarily would not make an effective diplomat.
But who knows?
10
Ross forgets all the time it took Obama to repair the relations with other countries before he could even strike out on his own in foreign policy. Trump seems simply determined to undo any work done by Obama regardless of the consequences.
19
You ignore crucial facts. Obama did not try to eviscerate long established political and military alliances, which is what Trump is doing. Obama tried to pull back where America had overreached under Bush 43. Obama did not lobby for Russia's readmittance into the G-8. Trump's action align more closely with Putin's desire to weaken the Atlantic alliance than a continuation of Obama's foreign policy
18
There is a strange continuity between the Obama/Trump foreign policy just as there was between Bush/Obama and presidents before them. The United States does seek to be the world hegemon, but that role has little to do with pat phrases like Pax Americana.
In our globalized capitalist world, US finance capital seeks to dominate. It relentlessly pursues cheap resources, cheap labor and the strategic control of energy and has done so since 1945.
The tactical approaches have differed, but the strategic goal has not, and therein lies our problem. The US could do just fine in a multi-polar world where engagement and cooperation for mutual benefits is the goal.
Given the crisis we all face with global warming and the massive human disruption that is likely to follow this is the only path that makes sense.
But old ideas die hard. So instead we seek to neutralize Russia, control the energy corridor from Syria to Khasikstan and confront China in her own backyard.
The origin of the N. Korean crisis stems from this plan to dominate. The N. Korean weapons program originated from rogue scientists from Pakistan who were developing nuclear arms to counter India.
We looked the other way as this unfolded because we thought India was getting too close to the Soviets and needed to be taught a lesson. This constant manipulation has more than once brought the world to the brink of disaster.
While Trump's meeting may defuse this latest crisis, it won't change our flawed strategic outlook.
7
Douthat is trying to make Trump's instinctive approach fit the big picture. Any similarity is really a coincidence. It's all simple: Kim needed to appear on the world stage with the US President to bolster is reputation back home. Trump needed to appear on the world stage with the North Korea President to bolster his image back home. It was love at first sight.
16
Here's the bottom-line similarity between Mr. Trump and Mr. Obama and between the GOP and the Democrats: Neither POTUS or political party wants to take on the military-industrial complex that thrives on wars. If we spent the same amount of money on humanitarian aid as we spend on weapons and warfare we could address the humanitarian crises that result from the civil conflicts across the globe without being complicit in their creation. No one paid attention when Eisenhower warned about the military-industrial complex and we are paying the price today and apparently will be paying the price in the foreseeable future.
23
Please, please keep writing, Ross. The comments to your work are awe inspiring for me. That there are so many bright, incisive and articulate people in the readership that take the time respond provides me with great hope. My sincere thanks to all of the responders!
3
One man has character. The other man is a character.
20
I am glad it is clear to Mr. Douthat that President Trump has a big picture. The REAL challenge would be to coherently explain what the picture is.
14
After a week of trade talks in Washington with Chinese officials, why did Trump pivot from harangues about China's trade imbalance to rants about Canada's supply management of diary products and "millions" of European cars (Many, BMW, Nissan, Toyota, Kia, Volkswagen, Daimler, Fiat, made in the States!)?
In Singapore, why did Trump unilaterally reduce sea and air multi-nation training exercises--as the Defense Department set a record for arms sales, $76 billion booked last year. Trump's cancelling US multi-national military (air and sea) global training, weakens force readiness!
Trump's defunding "national security" “war games” in a dangerous part of the world, suspending the computer and live fire exercises required to perfect team work, to internalize the practice and standards of war--in preparation and deterrent for country, regional or internal threats--affects force readiness. Imagine a SEAL team that didn't train. Without training, you are handing over a huge military advantage to your foes. By suspending the exercises, Trump is offering unconditional, internal surrender to China.
That $500 million cross-channeled upfront put Trump's Malaysian resort in the middle of an international upgrade and has seen immediate returns! Trump rescued China's spyware consumer firm for a billion in fines, opening the US market to sweeps of US data through high tech spyware. Now, Trump has accepted North Korea as a proxy state, and China gains another backdoor to US technology!
12
One can always find personality similarities or matching actions when comparing people.
The question is: what is the motivation and what is the outcome? Without question Obama's motivation is diametral to Trump's. The outcome, however, can be the same.
Quoting Mephisto: "I am the power that always denies and always creates the good." This surely applies somewhat to capitalism (the big picture, not the 'details') and may at times apply to Trump.
However, nothing to rely upon.
5
Dear Mr Douthat,
While the general parallels you point out are convincing, the form could not be more different. The Iran and Paris deals were major successes, alas. At the same time, we should be seeking peaceful democratic solutions in the Middle East while distancing ourselves from the Saudi gangsters. Alas.
19
It's well past time the media stopped referring to America as a "superpower". Over the past two decades the much smaller and weaker nation of Afghanistan has beaten us and stripped us of the right to call ourselves a military superpower, just as they did to the USSR long ago. And unlike the USSR, we have enjoyed the support of nearly the entire developed world as our allies in this war. And if we were an economic superpower, China and Europe would not be so defiant in standing up to Trump's "take it or leave it" trade policy. When you can't influence other nations economically or through military force, the label of "superpower" has no meaning.
12
Not buying it. Trump isn’t making these moves because he’s trying to upend what hasn’t worked, he’s making these moves because it’s the only thing he knows: say everything is going to be great, even if it’s all lies. What matters most is what people believe is happening, not what is actually happening.
29
The only thing President Obama and trump have in common is a Y chromosome. Other than that, they are polar opposites. One is courteous, cerebral, contemplative, intellectually curious, strategic and honest with real values and integrity. The other is trump.
96
There are many informed comments and some that are more reactive than responsive. Most seem to miss a key point, for me, in Douhat’s analysis, his desire to understand the Obama-Trump voter and the rejection of Hillary Clinton by Democrats when she ran against Obama (and a sizable minority when she ran against Sanders) and by a large number of otherwise likely Democratic voters when she ran against Trump. Let me say in this context that I supported Clinton in all three races. From that perspective I believe Douhat has a point about the similarities in worldview of Obama and Trump and an important part of the American electorate that supported both candidates. This can be true without denying their significant differences in both substance and style. After all, the former selected Clinton as his first Secretary of State while the latter has sidelined (dismantled?) the State Department while selecting John Bolton as his National Security Advisor. Need I say more?
14
Point taken.
I think many of us acknowledge the point of the analysis here.
It's just that we are taken aback by any attempt to find common attributes, especially when the context of such comparisons are left out of the equation.
10
Ross, you completely overlook the issue of intent. Our man-child President's skepticism is not grounded not in any reading of history but in his wildly delusional belief in his own ability to make deals. The rest of the world, who does not need to come to grips with the fact that this uninformed incompetent is running their country, is able to to look clearly and see Trump for what he is - a mercurial buffoon and con-artist who is incredibly uninformed.
He doesn't have policy or strategy. He has sales pitches.
28
To find similarities between Obama and trump makes no sense. Obama was a scholar with the knowledge of the world, had great foreign policy, and always did his homework before meeting with other world leaders. Trump, on the other hand, uses simple language, meanders all over when he speaks, has no understanding of how to interact with the head of other countries, and as far as foreign policy, he tries to make deals, forever a salesman.
16
President Obama was the first African-American president of the United States.
President Trump is a birther who milked that movement for all it was worth.
It's very difficult for me to get far enough beyond the core differences to entertain any notions of commonality, even with respect to overarching principles or approaches.
16
Trump is one of a kind. Comparing him to any other American President is wrong. Comparing him to any Democratic politicians undeservedly enhances Trump's reputation. Trump has NO integrity. NONE. Comparing him to any of his predecessors or any Democrats puts him on an equal footing with them. That's FALSE to reality.
The current New Yorker contains an essay about Kaiser Wilhelm ll that asks "What Happens When a Bad-Tempered, Distractible Doofus Runs an Empire?" That's a sensible comparison.
Some classicists compare Trump to Nero or Caligula. Both of those cruel, insane emperors are known to have acted generously during their lives with their personal funds -- something Trump has never done. Conservative ideologues (hoping to secure sinecures) have compared Trump to Trajan -- a long lived emperor noted for his success in war and his wisdom in peacetime. That some conservative scholars compare Trump to Trajan proves that no matter a person's age or education, having a healthy fantasy life is always possible. There's hope for you, Ross.
16
I believe a better comperison is: Trump is and will do to US what Berlusconi was and did to Italy.
Bush 41 won a glorious victory over Sadam in Iraq and was voted out of office. Why?
Perhaps the reason is that the American fairy tale is taught to all children: how the protection of being isolated by great oceans is god given; how great we are for being willing to save the world, by our heroic and selfless solo actions; We saved the world..... and one else would step up for WW I, WW2 and the Cold War.... AND we were rightous because after the shooting was over... we justify our actions as being founded on our American moral superiority over rest of the world. (never mind the evidence that elites of American capitalism drove us into these conflicts.
We are taught that being American is about fighting a war, WINNING and then LEAVING... and being more virtuous than everyone ... and its FOUNDATIONAL TO OUR SENSE OF SELF.
Why was Bush 1 voted out...after the Iraq victory... perhaps Americans judged that nothing good came out of big wars in Korea, and Vietnam and a return to the fairy tale of fortress America and our self serving moral justifications is what we wanted. We were just behaving as we have been taught.
Bottom line... there is nothing new here ... Douthat's attempt to find an equivalence between Obama and Trump is trying to muddy the water. Trump reflects our ignorant fairy tale history. Obama reflects our actual history and the wisdom of creating a liberal world order.
14
How did this all work out for Iraqi Christians? Boy, I did not expect this argument from Ross Douthat. We get that emerging markets are real. And that the world that the U.S. engineered is coming into place. But it's really hard not to see that this American retrenchment is also a function of what you think Douthat might recognize, which is our decadence. Ben Wattenberg back in the day used to talk about Hollywood, and how it projected American values. As a good thing. Would anyone think that today? Look, if North Korea wants to become a non-pariah state, just do it. Who is stopping them? My guess what is coming from this is people will say, oh, we can live with North Korea, they will always have their nuclear weapons, and unlike East Germany, they continue as a going concern, as trade sanctions are lifted or relaxed. Detente, really, in the French sense of that word, you reduce the tension. But per Cuba, and to a lesser extent Vietnam and China, the dominant party structure will remain in place. Maybe that is not brinksmanship. But it's not an end to the Korean stalemate, and the ongoing threat of war.
2
Jaw dropping! So Mr Douthat believes there may be method after all to Trump's madness because what he's doing to bring NK into the family of nations looks like what Obama did in Cuba? Except Cuba wasn't at all a basket case among nations, but a progressive society bedevilled by indefensible outdated sanctions on the part of America (and America alone!) and by normalizing relations with Cuba and reuniting families Obama above all wasn't desperately trying to change the subject from an endless parade of his people (the best people!) being charged with felonies, some pleading guilty and co-operating with the Special Council, others wearing ankle bracelets to prevent flight. North Korea is an abomination of human nature. So is Trump.
49
Cuba was and is a communist dictatorship. They may seem progressive, but only compared to ghastly N. Korea. I’ve talked to friends who have visited. Armed citizens joined Castro against dictator Batista and, after victory, Fidel confiscated their weapons so he could not suffer the same fate with his dictatorship.
Obama did the right thing for many reasons. “Progessive “doesn’t quite fit but they do have national health care.
“And given that Trump is a longtime huckster who’s feeling his way entirely by instinct, there should be a lot of skepticism about how well this is likely to turn out.”
This is the bottom line. A medical doctor’s assessment of a patient’s condition is far more reliable than someone playing a doctor on TV. And it goes without saying that allowing a layperson to perform a particularly difficult surgical procedure on oneself is reckless bordering on suicidal. And make no mistake... if by some miracle a person with no medical knowledge or experience manages to avoid killing a patient, the risk was still exceedingly foolish and, in most cases, highly illegal.
Obama at least gave things some thought, but the Trump administration goes into things without preparation and has been burned before. In some cases, their goal was unconscionable anyway, so their incompetence was a mercy. The Muslim ban. The wall (so far). Destroying the ACA (so far). But in others, lack of forethought could become a problem. The Iran Deal, punitive tariffs on allies, improvisational nuclear negotiations... these involve factors and consequences beyond our borders. Some people love the rush of high stakes poker and watching Trump go all-in every hand. That strategy works every time until it catastrophically fails. But it’s not bankruptcy Trump might face now. He’s making uneducated gambles with human lives and livelihoods, both our own and in other countries. He should take it more seriously.
14
Trump has no policy. It's all, always, about him. Any similarity to Obama's governance is purely coincidental.
20
Mr. Douthat, Along with agreeing that "any similarity to Obama's governance is purely coincidental", I believe that comparing President Obama to Mr. Trump is, with all due respect, totally ridiculous. President Obama took the high moral road when attempting to make decisions that would have had potential impact on human lives. Mr. Trump generates reckless behavior, makes decisions on the fly without concern for human life for the purpose of getting his ratings up and to protect himself. It appears as if his motivating factors for decision making is how it could benefit him and his family. Comparison???
Ross, this essay is one of your best ideas to date. Write an essay contending that President Trump is actually pursuing a foreign policy agenda identical to that of President Obama. Sure the arguments will have to be fatuous. That will not matter in the least to your intended audience of one. Once somebody explains your essay to President Trump (you know there is no chance he will read it himself), he will go into a rage over the notion that he is bound to follow President Obama's approach to foreign policy. With any luck, he will unwittingly reverse his disastrously foolish path and avert a disaster. You are making a valiant attempt at reverse psychology. Right?
26
Other than the false assumption that Mr. Trump reads and comprehends anything, this is a reasonable notion.
Yes, we need to change our alliance with European democracies. Instead of status quo, how about pay as you go? The next time we need their help...and that day will come....they can charge us too or just decline because we're too deep in debt to be seen as a good credit risk.
Undoubtedly Dueterte will be quick to come to our aid in the Pacific, especially if he can bash a few heads together. If we don't stand committed to free elections and free press, we can put Putin on speed dial. Xi and friends are already dancing in the streets thanks to the two Dear Leaders finally joining hands.
Trump has found a new alliance. As long as we stand for nothing, we will have more new friends than we ever thought possible. Who needs old friends anyway?
It is time for everyone to re-evaluate their financial portfolios. Beach front properties in North Korea are going to be hot. Believe me. Canada is just so last two centuries.
13
The situation is becoming simpler and simpler. The Chinese state is becoming dominant economically and the politically. Like Great Britain post WWII and the U.S. is in evident decline. Whether or not North Korea keeps its nuclear weapons is not very relevant or important because he will not use them. We strut around as if this is the end of WWII but the times have changed. We cannot dictate to our allies let alone China so we need to develop our own people and state. This summit is simply noise. We need to stop spending money on foreign wars and develop our own society before we turn into a Brazil look alike. Lets hope we figure this out sooner rather than later.
6
Obama didn't belittle and insult Israel or any other allies while he negotiated with Iran (And prevented them from getting nukes) and opened diplomatic relations with Cuba.
On the other hand we have trump. He's insulted and threatened every ally we have while cozying up to the worst dictators on earth.
There's absolutely nothing in common with these two men.
Except perhaps being bipedal males from the same species.
16
An interesting analysis or point of view but I doubt its validity. Trump is a transactional person and views everything in his win or lose lens. So I doubt he has done any of the analysis implied here that he has done. To me this is his biggest gamble for the mid term: to have a win, a reality TV moment. We will see how it goes.
4
I really liked this article. While many might rightly disagree with its ultimate take on the issues (particularly its comparison between trump and obama), I felt that the reasoning was strong which in turn at least rendered its conclusions a candidate for serious reflection. The article was balanced, nuanced and I think a great example of what excellent journalism is.
5
The difference between the two presidents can be found in your last paragraph. It was so well written, Obama wouldn’t be able to ignore it. While Trump wouldn’t understand it.
5
Speaking as a Canadian who once loved the USA. There are essential difference between Obama and Trump. Obama inherited a hopelessly polarized America and tried to unite it with kind words, empathy and understanding. This proved to be a mistake and his term ended with America even more polarized and increased hatred of the other side.
Trump came to power because he knew America was hopelessly polarized and used that polarization and his ability to exacerbate that polarization to serve his personal desires.
I fear Obama's love of country did not serve him well and Trump's understanding of country will see him triumph.
I have never feared North Korea but watching a once great country dissolve brings tears to my eyes and interrupts my sleep.
33
I don't think Trump is anything like Obama. Obama tried a thoughtful approach to foreign policy but was hampered by internal enemies.
Trump is in a long Republican tradition of blunder in, mess around, pick the worst dictator to install in client countries, make money for American special interests then leave a big mess behind.
The big difference between the 1950's, 1970's, the Iraq gulf wars and now is that today foreign interests are at the core of the American establishment and manipulating US factions to their own ends whereas in the 1950's - 1970's the aggression was on behalf of AT & T or the Oil industry.
6
Mr Douthat is overreaching in trying to cobble together disparate facts to support his tenuous theory.
"But there is also a mirror-image quality to their gambits and ambitions. Trump is trying to make a deal with North Korea, a last Cold War holdout, much as Obama did with Cuba."
This entirely discounts the underlying imperatives for these actions. Cuba is a relatively benign island posing no threat to United States. Obama voluntarily chose to open negotiations with Cuba. Had he not done so, the world would not be much changed.
Trump was confronted with the prospect of a North Korea that could threaten to blow up American cities. He had no choice but to deal with the Hermit Kingdom in some way, and so far he chosen diplomacy ahead of war.
I am certainly no fan of Trump but if he pulls this off, and that is still far from certain, then he deserves a large amount of credit.
8
Here's a difference between Trump and his predecessors that may enable him to succeed with North Korea: Other presidents tried to induce North Korea to denuclearize; Trump will try to induce North Korea to pretend to denuclearize. It's similar to the strategy behind the wall on the Mexican border. The process will take years. By the time we find out that it didn't work, Trump will be out of office, probably resentful that he didn't win a Nobel peace prize.
28
Usually one is inclined to think Mr. Douthat is at least basically decent and means well.
But this is transgressive.
Trump is an abusive president who lies all the time, a cowardly bully, who thinks he is smart but is profoundly ignorant and stubbornly stupid with it. He is in no way fit to be compared to intelligent thoughtful Obama who carefully tried to do his best for the American people, even those who treated him as an enemy and made his job as difficult as they could. One of Obama's greatest achievements was the Iran nuclear pause, which Trump has ripped to shreds, to the danger of humanity.
Trump is a menace. Obama was a gift.
I am sick and tired of Republicans doing their best to rewrite history and smear Obama. It is not an alternative version of the facts, it is flat out lies.
Stop trying to be more catholic than the pope. Go back and read the gospels, and try again. Obama was more of a true Christian than the monsters who pretend their self-worship, otherblaming, violence, greed, and exclusion come from Jesus.
Like calls to like. Trump's favorites are not leaders of demoracies but tyrants and bullies.
It's a mad bad dangerous world. Don't add to it!
233
If Obama was a gift, it was the gift of permitting the world to become a more dangerous and deadly place. I'm glad we sent it back.
Susan, this is one of your best comments ever- really well said.
1
Interesting observations--some accurate, most old news, and some odd errors. The de-stabilization of the Middle East and subsequentality, Western Europe, was the criminal invasion of Iraq.
This war set the world aflame and set us on the course to our own destruction as a democracy. Look around and pay attention.
19
Obama managed to get the financial crisis turned around. Obama started winding down George W's Cheney Wars. Obama created portable, comprehensive healthcare that served those with preconditions equally.
Trump handed Wall Street/wealthy: the halving of corporate taxes, the elimination of estate taxes, an expiration of the income tax cuts but a retained $1.5T price tag, an annual deficit now rising due to boosted defense spending, the effective closure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the stripping of EPA regulations, and an immigration plan to double the number of new high-skill citizens and to convert the low-skill lottery into an expansion of visa workers (never citizens).
Working people will figure out that Trump and Sessions are now creating Tent Cities for THE NEW POLICY separations (children) - in order to dramatize a crackdown and get their votes. NO NEW PENALTIES FOR EMPLOYERS, of course.
In today's WSJ, the Fed has started it's explanation why MORE workers will be needed. Expect another bump in annual work visas, just like last year's 15,000.
It's a BIG SHOW of a harsh round-up TO GET VOTES! Republican leaders WILL NEVER subject businesses to tightened labor markets that drive wages up.
14
There is a reasonable argument here, buried under some very bad understandings of the facts of many cases. I agree that Obama was dealing with the reality of the decline of US power. He was trying to manage that decline while still maintaining American primacy. The outreach to Iran was based on a recognition that much of the US policy towards Iran was irrational and unnecessary and driven by interests in Israel and Saudi Arabia who were trying to use the US to fulfill their own ambitions and maintain their positions. By contrast to Obama's recognition of these realities, Trump is actually trying to expand American power. His worldview, such as it is, however, was formed in the 1970s and reflects very little thought. It is more an explosion of bile from a very jingoistic perspective. Trump hopes to reverse American decline by turning the US into an outright predator state, with no friends, which uses its power to exploit and bully the rest of the world. Arguably, this particular goal has been common to most Presidents, but most felt the best way to enhance American power was through institutions. While the US often broke the rules (far more than other states) it at least paid lip service and it recognized the advantages of cooperation. Trump believes that cooperation is for patsies and that the only way to deal with other states is by bludgeoning everyone else into submission. This cannot work - the rest of the world will turn against the US.
19
What are you talking about? The grand US strategy in the Pacific was the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The Pacific equivalent of the Western Alliance. Obama and team spent eight years trying to establish a deal to reorient American power. This despite suffering Bush 43's Middle Eastern legacy. What is Trump's solution? "Little Rocket Man." This about the most twisted historical comparison I've ever witnessed. I've seen analysts fired for less. Good thing columnists aren't required to be accurate in their profession.
76
build that wall
Ross. Well done. Thank you
5
I'm not sure that this column goes any deeper than "Neither Trump nor Obama is a neocon",
But Obama is a not neocon out of considered thought about national interests; Trump is not a neocon because he's not anything other than impulses and selfishness.
It's the difference between a working Iran deal and the Great Singapore Unhatched Chicken Counting that Trump supporters are falling back on ("Hey, as far as we know, Kim is going to come around in six months, about the time the ACA replacement and the infrastructure bill might show up").
5
Valid points about the delicate balance needed to try to right the wrongs in this world of ours; unfortunately no country is blameless, witness the blatant invasion of Irak by "W", and the disbanding of Saddam's army (Sunni) causing the emergence of ISIS, the brutal and violent radical Islamist fanatics, creating havoc, and even triumphant in making our life more miserable (air travel, anybody?). And the failed 'Arab Spring', and Assad's murderous spree, and Russia's aggression to deal with (or not), and Iran's rise scaring the Middle East...until the signing of a supervised nuclear deterrence. Each new president has had to deal with the unfinished business of it's predecessors...but no one more ill-prepared that the current ugly American in-chief, his arrogance and vanity notwithstanding. Therefore, trying to compare ignominious Trump with a decent and knowledgeable Obama would be insulting, to say the least. Trump is pure braggadocio, and the only thing that distinguishes him from all others is that he is a superb liar (whenever he opens his mouth). But I digress. I do not see, for now at least, any well thought-out strategy on Trump's side, used as he is in 'shooting from the hip'
4
Obama was amenable to engaging with America's adversaries because engagement poses more potentials than isolation. (Please note that "engagement" need not entail weak negotiating or giving away something for nothing.)
Trump is amenable to engaging with America's adversaries because:
- he enjoys cavorting with autocrats
- there's no need for him to sweat the substance
- it's all showbiz
(Please note that unlike his predecessor, Trump is also amenable to treating America's longstanding allies as though they, too, are adversaries.)
With all the celebration of Mr. Rogers these days, can you say "false equivalence," Ross? Can you say that?
15
President Obama and the SCPOTUS have nothing in common except the office. I would say that you are comparing apples and oranges, but really you are comparing the sublime to the ridiculous.
5
Obama and Trump's alleged hostility toward rigid fealty and loyalty to our allies is not new. This has transpired many times before.
1) In 1956, the US publically chastised Britain, France and Israel for attacking Egypt.
2) There is a long record of principled criticism of hawkishness in our Foreign Policy. Arkansas Senator Williiam Fulbright led an investigation into the Vietnam War, and his 1967 book, "The Arrogance of Power," looked askance at the right wing coup we engineered in Greece, the use of the military to quell democratic and socialist rebellions throughout Latin America and our destruction of both North and South Vietnam. In 1968, Robert Kennedy said that America was trying to impose a Pax Americana ala a Pax Romana -- a peace maintained by slavish submission. RFK noted that at Ben Tray the American officer in charge said "We had to destroy the Town in order to save it."(Listen to his March 68 speech at the Univ of Kansas)
Ditto Gene Mc Carthy, George Mc Govern, Wayne Morse and towards the end of his life, JFK.
3) Although George Bush Senior was a staunch atlanticist he was chilly towards Israel: During Gulf War One he refused to share air traffic codes with Israel which would have enabled Israel and the allies to refrain from crashing into one another; ergo Israel was compelled to abstain from involvement and some Israelis were killed in scud missile attacks. Jimmy Carter was biased against Israel in ways too numerous to mention.
1
There was so much wrong and forced in
this piece that I simply gave up reading after
halfway through. The colunnist is an intelligent guy but should stick to a subject he knows something about.
9
Wow was that a tortured comprison. You could began the piece with explaining the core difference between the two men.
Obama and his team of professional diplomats worked out an agreement with allies before getting the Iranians to agree to work within a viable structure. Obama & company worked this treaty out while holding their noses in dealing with the authoritarian regime.
Trump and his thrown together third-rate employees with no diplomatic skills have tried to make sense of Trump's nutty comments and demands while excluding South Korea and Japan and are willing to believe without verification the non-binding. Trump fully embraces the worst tyrant and institutional murder and holds Kim in envy for what is capable of doing with no restraints.
Now Ross, use this reality as a platform for your analysis.
35
It can’t hurt to wrap Trump in Obama for the sake of stubborn Democrats. Covering a bitter pile in peanut butter works well for getting the dog to swallow it as well. Cream cheese works too and doesn’t smell up your hands.
1
Obama and Trump are nothing alike. In fact, to compare Trump to almost any other human being is a stretch.
19
Obama made real changes to promote economic engagement with the people of Cuba. The Iran deal had actual measures that put the brakes on Iran's nuclear program. Trump's photo op with Kim and love of Putin is ridiculously unsubstantial and illogical in comparison.
21
Comparing Donald in any way to Obama is absurd. It’s incoherent fabricating bullying twitter twerp versus eloquent, erudite, restrained elegance. Grasping at straws and lashing out at allies versus meticulous preparation and consultation with allies
Donald did not discuss Otto Warmbier. Always the coward, except in the land of twitter.
5
Donald Trump talks like a populist but governs like a corporate oligarch. Please stop calling him a populist. None of his policies benefit the majority of Americans..by design they are fleecing us and robbing us and destroying our institutions and agencies that make us great.
5
The ideas of similarities between Trump and Obama are absurd.
8
Oh, come on. There is no equivalency between Trump’s actions and Obama’s. Obama’s hammered out detailed, verifiable agreements, that actually had rational objectives aimed to increase America’s security - that, when achieved, he certainly never oversold.
At this summit, Trump did everything short of licking the boots of a blood soaked dictator as he tripped all over himself to praise a man who holds 100,000 of his own people in concentration camps, made major concessions that left Our regional allies and our own military stationed in the area dumbfounded, and generally threw any American commitment to human rights and regional security into the garbage, in exchange for a few pictures that put him on exactly the same level as the above mentioned blood stained dictator. And this gets us - what exactly? The promise that North Korea would be nicer in the future? Lord knows I’d like these negotiations for denuclearization to succeed, but right wing punditry is acting as if this depressing spectacle is some unprecedented stroke of genius when it had yielded nothing we haven’t gotten from North Korea several times in the past (and gotten without any past president prancing around humiliating America on the world stage). None of these past promises achieved anything, so all the celebrations of Trumpian genius are premature at best.
11
These two fatmen are peas in an unseemingly pod.
5
A compliment from Lenin's Bay Area.
"But there is also a mirror-image quality to their [P Obama's and PT's] gambits and ambitions."
Respectfully suggest, Mr D, you take a healthy cut at supporting this sentence with a supplement which includes chapter and verse.
This based on my read and but also on many of the 81 comments published to this moment, which assert and offer a goodly amount of evidence that it can't be supported.
Prefer to see your rejoinder before making a judgment.
This is far and away the best, most thoughtful column that you have written in quite some time. I would only offer one further assessment: “Little Rocket Man” has successfully made stooges of both Obama and Trump. Obama shrank from close engagement because he despises despots, and was weary of more right wing vilification (which he got anyway), and Trump chose it because he assumed that he was Michael Corleone and could cow another gangster. He was correct—Kim knew that Trump would indeed pull the trigger—but when the big sit down came, Trump turned out to be Fredo. A big blustering Fredo, but still, as Michael said, “Stupid and weak.”
4
"Pax Americana" was the last gasp of colonial power excess as the United States attacked Vietnam with more force, bombs and troops than utilized in WWII.....and got kicked out of the country by a bunch of kids, I mean girls and boys, with passion for their country. Good riddance "Pax Americana".
1
and here we are! Settling comfortably into our well-earned, and well-deserved 2nd position in the world. 2nd best economy (see China), second best citizen wealth (see China), 10th best health care system (see most of Europe, others), 3rd best in space (See Russia, China), 3rd best computer hackers/crytpographers, cyberwarriors (see Russia, See China), 10th best rail system, (see Japan, Europe), 10th best education of the lowest 10th percentile (See Korea, China, Japan, Europe).
We are just finding our new level.
Happy @Republicans ??
4
And it took only 18 months to get here!!
1
Nice try. Conservative intellectuals are twisting into pretzels trying to prove they are still Conservatives in the age of Trump, even as they're rejected by their own party. All of the presidents I've witnessed since Kennedy have more in common with each other than anyone has with Trump. No matter their philosophy or whether their decisions turned out well or not they at least had a plan they could credibly claim was well thought out. As with everything he does, Trump's meeting with Kim was ill-conceived. Advised by sycophants he finds on Fox News and with a child's attention span and sense of history, Kim saw the perfect opportunity to play Trump and get what he's always wanted- legitimacy and the easing of sanctions. I'm sure he couldn't believe his good luck when he realized how easy it would be to manipulate the incompetent Trump.
All presidents are fallible and make mistakes. But no matter their party or our opinions and allegiances have we seen someone in that office who has nothing but the perverted belief that they are so wonderful that they are always right.
Your time and considerable talent might be better spent convincing other Republicans, who are more afraid for their jobs than their country, of the peril we all face while this man is in the White House.
21
Douthat really puts something disgusting into the party punch bowl with this column. Has he decided to offend and defy NYT readers?
As with so much nonsense, there are grains of truth to flavor this. They are worth picking out to show how he's used them.
Yes, both Obama and Trump took the same approach to defeating Hillary, riding rejection of things as they were combined with presenting Her as the candidate of status quo in all its mistakes.
It was strange that the Democratic Party forgot why they'd made their choice, and why they were right to do so. It is even stranger that Obama forgot what had worked for him, something he invented and used with great effect. It is too bad the mantra of the day about Team of Rivals led him to take inside and empower exactly what he'd run against.
It is true that America's allies had grown overconfident, willing to defy the US under Obama. He tried to push them, as with the 2%, but in the end he let them get away with it.
But then Douthat takes off into nonsense. Blowing it up is not the same as being firmer with an alliance. Blowing it up is not the same as fixing a deal on essential matters like nuclear weapons and climate change.
I support the dramatic opening with North Korea. I remember that Obama also promised that, but backed down from The Blob. Such drama requires a deft hand, which Obama had, so he could have pulled it off, as he did with Cuba and Iran. Trump blew up both of those, not a show of a deft hand.
5
Just sitting on a deft hand is worth only the thrill it gives to they sitting on it and not one I’d want to shake either.
A simple factor in America's retreat from policing the world that Mr. Douthat left out:
Iraq.
Our greatest foreign policy disaster ever, which was foisted on us by a lying republican administration (aided by the chattering class) depleted us, financially and spiritually. Even the conservative rural folks I saw daily at the time knew it was a bad idea, but were resigned to it, and, as loyal Americans, supportive. Hundreds of thousands dead, trillions spent, a country unraveled, left in chaos. And all the talking head supporters, in and out of government, just moving on, taking no responsibility for the disaster or pretending it was a victory, somehow. Calling that war the horror that is was was one of the few instances when trump told the truth during the campaign. Of course, bringing Bolton on later shows he was only using words like the rest of us use utensils.
10
Trump’s Korean bargain? He shook hands with Kim. Shaking hands is good. It’s progress. But that handshake isn’t a bargain, and even if there was something in writing with signatures neither one of them can be counted on for standing by the same ‘bargain’ the next day, much less their own words.
5
Talk about stretching a comparison,,,Douthat has blown a giant bubblegum bubble that should collapse into a sticky mess all over his keyboard.
14
In Father Douthat's next column, he will entertain us with the uncanny similarities shared by Mother Teresa and Rahab the Harlot.
Let us pray now...for more insanity.
247
The Obama and Trump positions on NATO are the same.
Obama called out some NATO allies as "free riders" who were not meeting their 2% of GDP defense spending commitment. These allies largely ignored Obama, and now Trump is bluntly and loudly insisting that they meet their commitment. Maybe he'll have more success. Maybe not.
Trump has also continued and even expanded the U.S. participation in the Baltic defense/deterrence efforts started by Obama.
Both Trump and Obama recognize that an Asian "shift" will require Europe to be capable of its own military defense for an extended period of time. The limitations of the U.S. to fight on two fronts was clearly articulated in the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review and these limitations continue to exist today.
5
I would describe Doubthat as ignorant, but that would give ignorance a bad name. Doubthat sees Trump's failures and is trying to make them seem like Obama's fault. Doubthat and all Republicans should lose the right to vote.
64
amen. something needs to be done here, maybe that is the answer because trying to sift thru the abominations of Republican horrors and hypocrisy has become such a full time job these days, not even NYT offers much relief anymore. When and where will the madness end? With the end of Trump would be a nice start, and the "end" can feel free to come in ANY manner at all.
The approach of Obama with Cuba and Trump with N. Korea is not comparable. Obama restored relation with Cuba because he loved leftist forces in the world who were ideological critic of America and scared to confront Kim like dictators because Obama was weak. Trump is capable of dealing with Kim like characters because he is strong willed, but he won't be in favor of dealing with Castro the way Obama did. Since Obama was a weak willed, he tried maximum appeasement to sign an agreement with Iran, but Trump simply cancelled it. Trump used Maximum pressure to initiate talk with Kim, but Obama didn't even try. It is a stretch to say that Obama and Trump have the same grand strategy.
2
"Maximum appeasement" in the Iran deal? I guess you don't follow the news much, outside of Fox News, that is.
How is removal of 98% of Iran's fissile material appeasement? Also destruction of most of their centrifuges, continual anytime anywhere inspections - which the inspectors show Iran was adhering to the deal. Oh, and the requirement, written right in the deal to NEVER create nuclear weapons, in any timeframe.
"Maximum pressure" pushed us toward the brink of nuclear war - if Kim hadn't started the diplomatic process we might be in one right now. Retreating from his foolish insults and threats does not make Trump a diplomat, or a leader.
Obama was strong enough not to need empty bluster alternating with phony handshakes that have nothing behind them.
Obama was also strong enough to figure out that we should stop punishing Cuba, and help it along toward democracy by engaging it instead of isolating it to pander for Little Cuba votes in Miami.
Wait a year for actual results before awarding Trump his Nobel - there won't be any, because Kim played him like a cheap fiddle.
5
This president, though never voicing it clearly, would claim that he has a GRAND strategy--and has, and will, claim that he recognizes opportunities, acts quickly and decisively, and boosts America back to a mythic past greatness.
His predecessor, while eschewing the swagger and carnival-barker showmanship, did effectively begin a revising and "pivoting" of American foreign policy. He was notably successful in scaling back costly, overreaching military ventures--and the proof is that his political opponents worked extra-hard to discredit him. He probably wouldn't claim "grandness", but I think would accept, and deserve, credit for strategically positioning the U.S. for leadership.
Trump's leadership style is boisterous, disruptive, and unpredictable--and we can only hope that the disruption doesn't get seriously out of hand.
12
Leave it to Ross to find evidence of a connection between Obama and Trump, one that satisfies absolutely nobody but those of us with sick senses of humor. The #NeverTrumpers will be aghast and outraged at the suggestion that Obama and Trump could cahoot on anything, even subliminally – heck, Obama wouldn’t even buy Brioni suits because they’re thought to be the armor of Mafiosi capos. And the Freedom Caucus could never accept that their hero would ever take long, hot showers with a man whom they vilified for eight interminable years during which they suffered in a wilderness almost as desolate as the one that serves as home to Democrats now.
Ross may have a point that there is a certain continuity in the two presidents’ strategery. Obama also sought to put our allies on notice that they needed to far better pull their weight on the world stage not so much in superior statements, but in funding for a JOINTLY-maintained defensive moat to keep out the Philistines – and he did it eight years before Trump; yet, unlike Trump, he never drove home the point. Unaccountably, BOTH presidents kept us in Afghanistan, that Neolithic moonscape of blasted dreams so drenched in blood. And the other things that Ross points out.
But Ross must be oinkin’ for a boinkin’.
However, through inattention, a lack of energy and an unwillingness to toss the dice, Obama made little of his good intentions, while Trump … could win. What we ALL should focus on is if Trump wins, we ALL win.
8
The important word is 'if'. What would lead you to believe that Trump will win, as you describe it in this case. So far it appears that Trump, completely unprepared, has been played by Kim and Xi. They at least got a cessation of joint exercises. Trump got the usual vague North Korean promises. China will continue to ease off its sanctions which is what North Korea needed. How do you know that Trump is not rolling Kim's loaded dice? You may be right, but I don't so far see any evidence that this is even a long shot. So explain, if you would, what would motivate Kim to oblige.
19
We are all losers in Trump-ville
16
N K is in complete disarray it’s people are starving I think Kim finally/maybe sees the hand writing on the wall trump/sanctions/Xi backed him into a corner!
You've got to be kidding, right, Mr. Douthat?
President Trump and President Obama are polar opposites in every possible way, including critical thinking, and we're not even going to mention the crass kleptocracy being run by Trump out of the White House where Trump and Ivanka and Jared and all the corrupt cabinet members are selling every possible policy to the highest bidder, including Russians, Saudis, Chinese and anyone else who needs to launder their dirty money.
I think you're punking your liberal/progressive readers just to get our blood boiling, just to get clicks.
Why don't you read Jennifer Rubin from The Washington Post --she's a conservative too -- to see how an intelligent assessment can be written about this debacle called Trump.
Here's a terrific column from her today about the ridiculous Republican response to the summit:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2018/06/12/after-the-...
Perhaps the New York Times should consider replacing Rubin with Douthat.
84
A fine comment! Did I read the end wrong - don't you mean replacing Douthat with Rubin?
2
Amen. Rubin would be a great sparring partner. A smart, reasonable, Female Conservative. And NOT a religious nut. AHEM.
6
As I understand Mr. Douthat's analysis, the main similarity between the Obama and Trump administrations stems from recognition that the US no longer has the power or resources to play a dominant role on the world stage, at least not to the extent it did during the quarter century after WWII. I agree that Mr. Obama understood and accepted this reality, which in itself reflected in part the success of the US in helping Europe and Japan rebuild.
Trump, however, views the world from a narrower perspective, chiefly that of a bookkeeper. He glanced at our trade relations and our alliances and concluded that neither contributed positively to America's bottom line, an evaluation that betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how both benefit the US. Only a man with Trump's stunted intellect would impose protective tariffs on our friends while refusing to punish a Chinese telecommunications giant that had violated numerous American laws.
Douthat's thesis also fails to explain Trump's hostility to our NATO allies. If the US lacks its earlier capacity to influence international affairs, that should make our alliances more not less important. But Trump insults our friends while pursuing detente with countries that do not wish us well. No one can imagine Mr. Obama pursuing such a policy.
18
Donald is George in the old "Opposite" Seinfeld episode.
"I'm going to do the opposite of all of my predecessors," he thinks, "and I will bask in the glory of my loyal base."
Enemies are now friends. Friends are now enemies.
"And I suppose," said Jerry to George when he secured a plum job with the Yankees after insulting George Steinbrenner, "your Messiah would be the Antichrist."
Pretty much describes Donald for me.
12
Good column. I think Douthat is maturing into a grade A weirdo, and the kind of contrarian and outside thinker this paper needs. The redistribution-of-sex and sex-robots with regard to the Incel “threat” was another sign of his budding insight, but this one is equally strong.
And as an Obama-Trump voter, I have a lot of sympathy for the views expressed in this one. Unlike the Incel column - which was weird and good but fundamentally “wrong” - I think this one is weird and good and sort of right.
The reason many of us helped Obama win in ‘08 against Hillary (speaking as a donor and someone who worked as a volunteer in 4 primaries against HRC) was because we detested neo-conservative America Second thinking. The kind of thinking that had W and HRC rushing into wars that wasted red state and poor American blood so some stone aged barbarians could have democracy, while non-profit parasites and State Department careerists could get a nice bullet on their resume.
And while many of us parted ways with Obama and the Dems over the BLM movement and open borders, I imagine many people who like Trump still respect Obama’s pragmatism and foreign policy realism. Not meddling in Syria for instance was a stroke of genius.
2
Proof positive that there really is no difference between (serious) Douthat and Hannity/FOX/Limbaugh.
Somehow, I forgot the part where Obama extolled North Korea's tremendous beaches and pushed the idea of luxury condos.
35
"Trump’s Korean bargain may be a bad one, or it may evaporate."
There is no bargain.
This was a photo op for two people who live for them. The press, the whole press, is Trump's sucker, covering him 24/7, obsessing nonstop about a meeting that yielded absolutely no results.
Dan Kravitz
22
"Alliances need to change..." I guess North Korea is going to replace Canada as our major trade partner.
15
How did we get here. Simple, it is the fault of coastal liberals, the blowback was inevitable. Making blue collar workers compete with illegals for jobs, apartments schooling and medical care was a start. Allowing hoards of immigrants coming to replace American white collar jobs using H1b, l1, b1, j1 and a host of other visas was the next shoe to drop. Finally, treating all republicans with an elitist attitude did it in. Liberals, keep it up and there will be GOP winnings for a long time to come.
4
There are lots of blue collar workers here on the coasts. You think we all live in Trump Tower? And you know what? A lot of those blue collar workers are liberals. And no, we don't look down on Republicans. We look down on people who voted for a narcissistic, impulsive, bigoted, bullying con artist with multiple documented bankruptcies and fraud cases. Plenty of Republicans didn't vote for him -- if they had, he'd have won the popular votes, or at least not have lost it by a 3M margin.
2
Realist, where are the jobs Trump promised? If he was going to help non-elites, why wasn't that his first priority, instead of giving the 1% a tax cut they will invest in some offshore bank?
2
Absolutely Perfect, as an audition for Trumps Speechwriting team. Otherwise, balderdash, misdirection and what aboutism taken to absurd new highs. Or maybe LOWS. Seriously.
69
Clumsy argument. And, no.
"Trump is trying to make a deal with North Korea, a last Cold War holdout, much as Obama did with Cuba."
That's not even apples and oranges. That's apples and marbles. The rest of the comparisons are about the same.
You couldn't even slip this by your average IR 201 instructor for a C. Just...no.
16
Nobody wants a nuclear missile shot at them so I guess that makes us all the same then. Finally, a path to world unity.
1
What did Trump get from the Singapore summit?
For one thing, it makes it look like he actually had a plan. A strategy. This will keep the people of Fox Noise falling all over themselves for weeks. Fox and Friends will go into happy, happy overdrive. Limbaugh will limbo on the radio.
It makes it appear that Trump is wheeling and dealing, even though no real deal was made except we can work toward an agreement later. Sometime. You can get a deal like that with the mafia any day of the week.
Is it possible that the man with funnier hair than Trump actually came to the table because of repeated insults? Maybe. But, as others have noted, Kim got a real big prize anyway, one he dearly wanted: to appear like a reasonable man, instead of a murderer, and as a playa on the world stage. He is a man who had his own uncle and half brother killed and, by reports, ordered the deaths of at least 140. To be in North Korea, citizen or not, is to risk death at any moment.
This grand summit meeting also affirms my own long held belief that half or more, maybe up to 90%, of so called "world leaders" are thugs in $1,000 suits who, because they shake hands and pat each others backs, are accepted as thugs no more, decent people who did what they had to do for their countries, even if it was horridly ugly at the time.
It is said that tragedy plus time equals humor. In the case of Kim, and many others, power washes away sins that would place others in deep the frying pan. Ain't life wonderful?
10
While I can appreciate the argument that "American power is limited, America's grand strategy is outdated or nonexistent," and that this is a reality that presidents now face, Douthat's comparisons here shatter the limits of credibility:
Engagement with North Korea and Cuba!
'Angering traditional allies' like Canada and Saudi Arabia!
3
Recognizing limitations on American power thru "resetting" and leading from behind didn't subvert American commitment to the Atlantic alliance or our Pacific partners. Obama's nuanced commitments may have reflected contemporary muting of US assertiveness but Buffoon's actions don't constitute a subtle inflection of leadership's characteristics but a deliberate subversion of US moral duties toward the world order. Obama knew our centrality and indispensably remains. (Cf. The Nobel speech) Trump would invite vicious murderers and torturers to the Oval Office and alienate the civilized leaders of western democracies. To compare these two men or their policies because of parallels in the framework in their foreign policies is to miss the point that Obama will go down in history as one who moderated the US leadership role and Trump as one betraying it, perhaps for the basest motives.
12
So tiny Cuba is the equivalent of nuclear-armed N Korea, while Saudia Arabia and Israel are the much of a sameness with Western European democracies? Really? Go on, pull the other one.
"Trump’s Korean bargain may be a bad one . . . "
There was no bargain. The communique was less specific than previous N Korean statements, and Trump's unilateral decision to end joint military exercises calls into question the US commitment to help defend S Korea.
Obama ended two ground wars and negotiated a solid nuclear deal with Iran. His foreign policy bears no resemblance to Trump's serial temper tantrums. Mr. Douthat, in his efforts to smear Obama, is merely putting lipstick on a pig, as we would say down home.
19
Mr. Douthat, Trump is doing just a bit more than angering our allies.
Perhaps you should speak with our Ambassador for Germany, Richard Grenell, who is actively courting all alt-right entities within Europe, while thumbing his nose at both the Western Alliance and the EU.
You think he will increase the instability and mistrust?
It is a miracle that Merkel has not thrown him out and he has only been there for a little over a month. Give him time, because there appears to be far more damage to come.
Nor is he pining for détente with Russia and, for that matter China. He has already achieved that and is swapping spit with both leaders!
If anything, they are serving as his role model.
That is a bit more than just angering your allies Ross.
Nor are they just accidents. It is more like throwing them under a Trump Tower in each of their countries. After all, that just might be the asking price to end this phase of Trump's war.
If Kim is changing his posture, then it has everything to do with China and Russia and little to do with the so-called charm offensive of Trump.
Perhaps the real answers lies in whose orbit Trump is actually heading towards, as opposed to questioning the motives of Kim.
The North Korean leadership for decades had every opportunity to modernize their economy and they have China as their model.
They have chosen not to.
Why now?
We all need to stop treating Trump like a fool and seeing him for what he is, a very real threat to our way of life.
21
I will not dwell on the differences between the Castro regime and what is going on in North Korea---so...I will venture into the real problem with Trump...he sees no value in alliances. Everything he does ---his "grand strategy"---is structured around his image--he loves to sign documents and have photo opts with heads of state who have committed war crimes---Assad maybe his next "diplomatic" break through. You may question Obama's strategic moves---granted we do live in a different world---but they were thoughtful and value laded moves. Trump's moves are thoughtless and ratings driven.
21
Ross, I get your point. But it is so overstated to become ridiculous. It presupposes that Trump had some grand plan. He did not. While Obama made many mistakes, he did have a sense of where he was going, with a mix of realism and ethics. I don’t think Obama was particularly successful. But at least he verified,...
9
I agree.
Both Obama and Trump realized that the United States is no longer capable of enforcing the world order on its own. Both were/are loath to state the obvious in so many words. Obama sought to encourage Europe and China to step up and share the burden (hoping that they would agree with the American view of the world), while Trump (under no such illusion) simply walks away, more or less content to let the chips fall where they may.
The underlying facts remain the same. American can no longer enforce "Pax Americana" and a new order must be created in its place. The process is likely to be messy. The quicker the so-called foreign policy establishment comes to accept this state of affairs, the better.
4
"But there is also a mirror-image quality to their gambits and ambitions."
That is by far the most perceptive characterization of Trump's first eighteen odd months in the White House. But that is as far my agreement with Douthat goes. The labored effort to justify Trump's policies in terms of strategy and rationale falls flat. A set of random events can always be presented as some sort of pattern that really does not exist. The truth can be better expressed succinctly in terms of a pithy, contemporary meme: Trump is bizarro Obama.
5
This essay has a strange academic quality, clever but leaving out the most important fact. As if you were comparing John Dillinger or Jesse James to the presidents of the banks they robbed, and finding there was really no difference.
28
Thank you Russ. That was probably the best opinion article I have read in the NYT in quite a while. For a change, you (the writer) is allowing me (the reader) to formulate my own opinion. Whether I agree with you, or not. I appreciate that you presented a fair and balanced opinion, from which I may draw my own conclusions.
Refreshing.
6
You are only right about one thing, that Trump and Obama appealed to the electorate’s motivation. Trump appealed to peoples’ fears, Obama to their hopes. Both sought to undermine trust in their opponent.
“This is not an agreement based on trust” Obama said of the Iran deal.
12
"Trump is angering a traditional set of allies (the Europeans and now Canada) while pining for a détente with an authoritarian rival (Russia); Obama had a similar approach to realignment in the Middle East, angering the Israelis and Saudis while seeking an accommodation with Iran."
Look closer. The analogy does not hold. Trump has been gratuitously rude and aggressive with our allies in Europe and Canada - from throwing a temper tantrum at the G7, bickering about its members, diminishing and complaining about NATO, declining to shake Merkel's hand, lying about terrorism in Europe, mocking London's Mayor, supporting Marine Le Pen, and so on.
President Obama was never in poor form like this. He did stand up to the cynicism of the Saudi Royals and Netanyahu, in a dignified manner and for real reasons. With the Saudis, President Obama curbed their anti-Shiite hysteria, particularly with regards to bombing Yemen and their determination to keep Iran on the fringes. With Bibi, President Obama did not indulge his destructive settlement expansion, his fearmongering over Arabs, his lies about Iran's nuclear capability, or his manipulation of Congress. That was sticking up for right, not picking a fight.
President Obama was not looking for a "special bond" with anyone in Iran, unlike Trump and Kim Jong Un. President Obama was being pragmatic and looking to make the world a safer, better place. It was he, not Trump, who knew how to really do business with the world.
28
I found this column, with its fulsome right wing equivalency and complete lack of analysis of what Trump gave away yesterday (ceasing military exercises on the peninsula in exchange for absolutely nothing -no concrete steps for disarmament, no redress for egregious human rights violations!) to be more dangerous than this week's White House-created propaganda film with Trump's enthusiastic thumbs up to a deified Kim. Clinton and Obama have no place in this column. This column should have reviewed and explained Trump's irresponsible and despotic actions this week, nothing more and...well, can't finish that cliche, because clearly there's nothing less!
30
The analytics here are somewhat confusing. Most of us know Trump doesn't read much, and doesn't pay attention to any detailed analysis. While Obama being just the opposite does delve into the details.
Trump has Bolton and Pompeo, both warmongers. Obama on the other hand balanced every security proposal with his own understanding (he reads the daily briefing). There just is no comparison between the two. Pax Ameiricana has no meaning in Trump world.
This entire Trump Kim meeting was nothing more than a "Reality TV" performance. Two weeks from now, we will hear nothing more about this. Trump will be on to his next "Realty Show".
23
President Obama’s pivot to Asia was one of the smartest moves that he made, however it was one of the first things that trump threw out. Trump has handed the guidance of the TPP to the PRC, America is fast becoming irrelevant! What are our multi national companies thinking, they have become immeasurably wealthy due to America’s paternal attitude to countries less fortunate than ours. Are they all going to be applying for resident visae in China. As for his total disregard for our relationship with our northern cousins in Canada, I cannot imagine what is going on in that muddled brain of his. Will he change his mind again when one of his billionaire buddies point out some of the problems in chilly relations with our closest friend.
11
Seriously?
1) Trump belittles America's allies, but speaks well of its enemies. Obama knew who the enemies were and treated his allies as allies.
2) Trump likes doing a deal with America's nuclear-armed enemies using his gut instincts to verify it will turn out well. Obama had verification built into his agreements so he could see that plutonium stores were removed and not being replenished.
3) Trump often tweets his foreign policy, using the spur of the moment to catch everyone, including his advisors, off guard. Obama surrounded himself with thoughtful people, heeded their advice, and had an eye to the future.
Thee two things are not alike.
21
There's another angle, the old Chinese proverb: the right thing in the wrong hands turns out badly, and the wrong thing in the right hands turns out well. Given that Trump has small, exceedingly wrong hands, we can surmise the end result.
16
I take Trump’s Singapore event as seriously as I do one of his awful “campaign rallies”. Spectacle trumps substance.
16
While one may assess Trump as a "total disaster", we must
further look at the possibility that the preceding Presidents --
Clinton, Bush and Obama -- laid the foundation for our current
situation. And in spite of the liberal adoration for Obama, much
of the fault lies with his administration and his failed understanding
of "the world as it is". Read the Rhodes' memoir carefully. Future
historians will not be kind to the Obama presidency.
2
Obama: temperate, cool, aloof at times, but always reflective on his decisions.
Trump: con man.
Stop trying to normalize this horror movie
201
Sorry, Mr Douthat, but your theory here holds no water.
President Obama made an actual, enforcable, verifiable deal with Iran that led to, at minimum, a major delay in its nuclear weapons program.
Donald Trump made a photo op with a mass murderer that, for unknown reasons, happens to be popular with the willfully ignorant near-majority in this country.
Obama angered the Saudis, who gave us Mohammad Atta; Trump attempts to break up with the UK and Europe, who gave us the twentieth century.
If Trump is skeptical of 'inherited wisdom', its not because, like Obama, he has weighed the merits of said wisdom and found it lacking. Trump saw a shiny object, dropped whatever he was doing, and grabbed for it. Never mind the trip wire.
71
Equating an impulsive, clumsy attempt at rapprochment with North Korea to a long-overdue thawing of relations with Cuba--Cuba!--is completely absurd. Redressing a half century of failed policy vis a vis Cuba posed a national security threat to the US how, exactly? Likewise, when it comes to shattering alliances with Canada, France, Germany, and the rest of the G7--our partners through thick (the Iraq war) and thin (the 2008 financial collapse)--how does that compare with pushing back against the sometimes brutally oppressive policies of the Israeli government, while still giving them $3 billion a year in aid?
This column is false equivalence at its worst.
130
I usually don't pay much attention to Mr. Douthat, and although several of his observations in this column, such as the Iranian deal leading to problems in Yemen and Syria, are a couple of bridges too far, the column as a whole is one of the more sober and thoughtful pieces I've seen today. Yes, there is a sea change happening both domestically and in America's position in the global order, and his call to reassess these phenomena is a welcome change from the usual op-ed that follows one of the well-tread "storylines."
4
Obama was an arrogant person who generally bowed down to everyone, Trump is nothing like that. If you see something here your mental state is in question. Obama is a nice traditional person, Trump is not!!! Viva the difference!!!
1
Thanks for the alt-right foreign policy perspective.
42
Arrogant people don't bow down to everyone.
6
Trump apologists have to work very hard to find a thread of something that could be construed as a coherent foreign policy or doctrine in this administration's chaotic words and actions.
But the very fact that it's so inchoate is what makes it possible to compare it to the previous administration - or to anything else- and say one has found a parallel.
A more interesting mirror image is between Kim and Trump. Both have an instinctive feel for images and spectacles to be fed to the masses; both have complete faith in themselves and demand total unquestioning loyalty to themselves; both interpret events and situations in fantastic terms that bear little resemblance to reality.
But I suspect Kim prepared for the so-called summit.
45
i only been in america all my life and the trillions spent or wasted, your choice, on keeping our interests world wide safe and happy needs to stop. we have thrown away funds for old outdated bridges across our nation let alone the secondary and ancillary roads we rely on. after any flood poisons leech into ground water and nothing has changed except this year the EPA has made it even easier for chemicals to be recklessly stored.
i come here and find an article comparing the similarities between twitter boy and the last President to hold this office. please mr columnist you really look for false equivalencies all the time now. as readers we deserve better.
41
You are right. It is unconscionable to spend all this time arguing about things that don’t affect real Americans when we have so much to do at home.
I suggest Mr. Douthat watch the pro-Kim video that was released by the White House, and to honestly answer the question as to whether Obama would have ever produced such a thing. It is Trump "diplomacy" in a nutshell.
126
As a former institutional finance marketing executive, I watched in awe the "story" Trump created for Kim.
At first Itboght it was a commercial by The Onion.
When I realized it wasn't, I couldn't believe the production values were so, well dreadful. The pitch was so heavy-handed that it seemed like it was created by a dreadfully sincere college media major.
I was most surprised that there wasn't a Trump logo on one of the phoney buildings along the beautiful beaches.
5
He looked into Kim's soul and saw...himself.
295
Nice Stu. Scary thought though.
The facts and implications lead to China calling the shots and commanding its bidding. Obama is the classic and useful GOP scapegoat, tattered and worn--but nothing like the sell out of Trump. Full story (in 4 parts, below.)
The audience co-stars, Trump and Kim, made it to Singapore, Kim on a China-borrowed, American-manufactured plane. Fittingly, they arrived at a golf resort whose beach was built with imported sand. They spoke alone. They spoke with staff. They signed an agreement of general principles written before the meeting to denuclearize the Korean peninsula, a position long sought by North Korea. The moment has been declared as “defining,” “historic,” a “new chapter.” Two bandits and bullies, as heads of state, their handshake. The murderer didn't have to kneel as the nations flags stood side-by-side.
In media reality, essence was replaced appearance. Appearances overwhelmed a myriad of details, and missed descriptions and comparisons—even the media's joyful shame. Shame on media cheerleaders—omitting details of truth/essence.
72 hours before the Summit,Trump and staff viciously attacked Canada's Prime Minister, the national neighbor who hosted the G7 conference to which Trump arrived late and left early. Trump hit Justin Trudeau with made-up lies, smeared him as “weak,” “dishonest,” and used Air Force One's 20 tv's to justify his lies. The media left-out details of Canada's dairy supply management, real answers that defend Trudeau and say otherwise.
49
(Part 2)
Trump quickly flew to shake the hand of the life-appointed dictator of the world's most vicious regime. North Korea denies basic human rights, imprisons and kills its citizens, who are among the world's poor. The media endlessly repeats the endless round of Trump cliches of Kim's talent, love, his being tough at an early age. (Never mind the constant pall of death.)
North Korea had a nuclear warhead and delivery capacity. Canada, by choice, has none and is not a nuclear state. Trump would tell us Trudeau was smeared over the price of milk; Canada's tariffs supports the price for local farmers.
Trudeau spoke before his country's citizens, from a podium in one of Canada's provinces. He wanted to make clear to Canada--French and English, African and Native, to immigrant communities in Toronto and Ottawa, the Asian community in Vancouver, to farmers in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, to the farming cities of Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Calgary on tariffs/trade Canada would “not be pushed.” No bullying, a review of new deals.
None of what Trudeau said on tariffs had anything to do with G7 agreement! Why cancel your signature, and refuse to sign, while projecting “a special place in hell” for Trudeau?
48 hours later, Trump announced a major military policy change as an interview aside.
14
(Part 3)
Trump cancelled South Asia's "war games." Why cancel “peace keeping” military (air and sea) exercises involving South Asia allies? Over concern for "budget" expenses in an administration with $30,000 dining tables in the cabinet office responsible for low-income housing and a $86,000 secure phone booth and personal shopper privileges in the EPA?
Who is blessed by Trump's defunding "national security" “war games” in a dangerous part of the world--suspending the computer and live fire exercises required to perfect team work, to internalize the practice and standards of war--in preparation and deterrent for country, regional or internal threats. Imagine a SEAL team that didn't practice or train. Didn't check standards. Without training, you are handing over a huge military advantage to your foes. By suspending the exercises, Trump is offering unconditional, internal surrender.
That $500 million cross-channeled upfront put Trump's Malaysian resort in the middle of an international upgrade. Trump immediately saved China jobs, rescuing China's spyware consumer firm XTE for a billion in fines, opening the US to sweeps of data through real spyware. In DC, Trump met alone, with North Korea's top spymaster, bearing a secret letter.
Last year, Trump's Defense Department booked record sales, $76 billion. He reduces US multi-national military global training in South Asia as his Pentagon increases weapon sales!
(Part 4)
Oppositional-defiant, he opposes his own principles. He seeks wealth or ruin, nothing matters in-between, only extremes. He nominated for life-time federal judgeships, men who never tried a criminal or civil cause. He nominated a man who had never run a hospital system to head the $6B Indian Health Service. His national security adviser was on the phone with Russia constantly and didn't last a month. The Republican platform on Russian sanctions was changed. Discussions were held with Trump's son about a Russian back channel. Offers of dirt were proffered. Lies are being told. He hits Canada, China lends an American-made plane. He suspends training alerts as China militarizes the South China sea. If North Korea becomes a trading partner, it gives China a new back door to US technology.
Confusing, but follow the street cred: Who is blessed? (Who gets the biggest benefits?)
For whom is Trump making a pathway of ease?
Why did he switch from touting tariffs on China steel to Canada diary, a US' ally, whose sons and daughters spilled blood in US defense, and answered the call after 9/11 terror.
With record arms sales last year, Trump is reducing US multi-national military global training, weakening force readiness!
In the street, when something strange/unexplained happens, folk clarify by asking: Who got paid? Who got Blessed?
And they remember the truly Blessed don't lie or steal.
Ah, "continuities and discontinuities"! A few of the former go unmentioned in Mr. Douthat's column. Under both Obama and, now, Trump, China's expansionism in the South China Sea and gradual abandonment of Taiwan go substantively unchallenged. Although stylistically as different as day and night (or let's say chalk and cheese), both presidents have been glad to leave European affairs to the Europeans. The pivot toward India and away from Pakistan that began under Obama has continued under Trump. Neglect of Africa is a hallmark of successive presidencies, punctuated by occasional humanitarian crises. De-Obamazation under Trump has in some spheres been somewhat more cosmetic than real, for example in policy toward Cuba and Venezuela. Does anyone detect real differences in US policy toward Central Asia since January 2017? North Africa? Central America? Even Syria and the Gulf? Continuity in Israeli policy in the West Bank has been obscured by the advent of Trump and consequent rhetoric and photo ops; American liberals have been horrified, but Palestinians will be forgiven for thinking that nothing much has changed. The greatest discontinuity has been in the US regime's abandonment of multilateralism, both in word and deed, the ultimate results of which we must hope to be able to correct in the post-Trump era.
3
President Obama thought that "resets" were possible if other nations were approached rationally with appeals crafted to take their interests into consideration. Too often, that didn't work out as planned. Too bad things are so complicated; who knew?
President Trump doesn't think much. He reacts from his instincts and his emotions. Kim likes me so much that I can trust him to do just what he has promised, or maybe it wasn't a real promise, but I trust him. He wants to prove something to a world that despises him.
The Iran deal may have polled well, but did most Americans understand what was in it? Trump's supporters aren't known for nuance.
I agree that the US has to think about how it will relate to the rest of the world, but I think Trump's America First is different from what Obama was trying to accomplish. The way Trump behaved at the G-7 meeting suggests that there is an assumption the US can wield more power than was possible even at the height of US dominance. Or maybe it's just Trump and his conviction that he can make whatever he desires happen.
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A bully bullies because that's all he knows how to do. That's all we need to know about Trump and it's also what he's been telling us all along. For some reason we just don't want to believe it.
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It now turns out that Li'l Kim's human rights record never even came up during this meeting- our feckless leader was too busy calling out Canada's tariff "abuses" to bother himself about the millions of Koreans being subjected to torture and imprisonment on a daily basis for the crime of having questioned the rule of their Dear Leader. Kim's name should now be added to the growing list of exemplary world leaders who The Donald has chosen to emulate: Putin, Xi, Duterte, Erdogan, Netanyahu. And he has the audacity to object to our treaty agreement with Iran because of its failure to address other issues apart from denuclearization!
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I understand that it did, but it should never interfere from us getting him to eliminate nuclear weapons etc. I don't care what he does to his citizens, or at least no nearly as much as US citizens not being threatened by nuclear or other weapons.
1
@vulcanex: Last I looked our nuclear arsenal had the capacity to obliterate the PDRK within 30 seconds of an ill-advised preemptive launch on their part. Kim knows this and he's not mad. The U.S. has been "threatened" by nukes ever since the former USSR learned how to develop them. We've managed to live with that threat and have no choice but to keep on doing so. (Why not bomb Pakistan before their nukes are taken over by their home-grown and Saudi-funded jihadists?)
I don't buy your theories on this one Mr. Douthat.
President Obama (Democratic administration) tried to engage with hostile regimes (Cuba and Iran as examples) but backed it up with demands for inspections and changes for human rights.
This President has achieved the reverse, by dismantling the agreement with Iran and now has given the store to North Korea. (simply by shaking hands, having a photo op and giving the prestige of such a meeting to their leader)
I, for one do not feel any safer.
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"President Obama (Democratic administration) tried to engage with hostile regimes (Cuba and Iran as examples) but backed it up with demands for inspections and changes for human rights. "
Right. Can you remind me about the state of human rights in Iran and Cuba after Obama's engagement with them? I think you are confusing Bush's policies with Obama's.
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@IPI
North Korea is the largest labor camp and prison in the world and completely different from Cuba and Iran.
I think you may be confusing Bush's illegal war compared with President Obama's efforts towards peace.
You may try again.
Ross, if Trump and Obama look similar to you, run, don't walk to the nearest eye doctor to have your vision checked.
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Thanks for the laugh. This column doesn't rate a serious answer!
2
So far, this comparison between Obama & Trump foreign policy does seem to reflect some similarities, with, of course, obvious trade offs.
The obsessive harping on the benefits of the so-called Pax Americana by Douthat is something else.
Pax Americana defined by Douthat - " We shop. They drop."
4
What a stretch. What contortions. Obama is thoughtful and looks at the big picture and thinks things through. Trump is the proverbial broken clock, correct twice a day.
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"Twice a day"? Which day was that?
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I really liked most of your comments but I strongly doubt if Trump has ever been correct twice on any day of his presidency. His brokenness is staggering and beyond repair.
7
The right enters yet another post truth alternative universe when the best it can do is postulate an equivalence between dummy trump and the well prepared obama. And this from the very folks who excoriated obama. They have earned the contempt they receive.
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Most of them also excoriated Trump before they learned to love him on condition that he help reelect them.
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The Difficulty with this analysis and with any analysis of the Trump presidency is that there is no reality. It’s like trying to decide whether Coke or Pepsi taste better by simply watching their advertisements.
It’s always healthy to look at how others in the world see our activities. For this it’s hard to argue that Trump gets anything other than an E for a grade. Even with Our new pal North Korea, who have to be scratching their heads wondering what really is going on. Six months ago he threatened to bomb them, and now they are reporting that we are best friends.
I guess my biggest source of anger is for those who reported craziness before Trump. I’m sure a lot of people don’t even listen to the news, because it has been so cantankerous.
Now, when things are truly insane, I believe most people simply think that It’s the media reporting from the fringe.
I would love to be on another planet watching this from afar. Then, it might be amusing.
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@K. Corbin - Luckily, this eventuality was anticipated by South Park, so your fantasy has been committed to film history:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0705900/
The key to our little reality show down here is ratings from the watching Universe; so we're lucky to have a reality show carnival barker hogging the camera ?
Does anyone know if Orange even transmits well across the Galaxy ?
2
that Douthat would even attempt to make a legitimate comparison between Obama & Trump negates any credibility he may still have...
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Well they are both men with children and have been president as well as being American (take that Mr President!) They also both eat, breathe and sleep, so they’ve got that in common. I think that about somes it up Mr D.
4
Ross is trying to maintain his Trump audience in the same way the reckless GOP leadership is trying to maintain Trump voters by rolling over for Trump at the expense of our national security and dignity.
5
OK. Here is more sophistication.
“Can you imagine how the the citizens of the US would react if any normal President showed so much disdain for human rights and decency having cozied up to a murderous dictator like this?”
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I told my wife this morning that she will read that somehow credit for this geopolitical master stroke of Trump will go to Obama. Hilarious.
2
Does turning his back on our actual allies also rate as a geopolitical master stroke? No, not hilarious.
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OK, so you reckon the US is the policeman of the world and should be doing all the heavy lifting...70 years after WWII?
Real allies and friends pull their weight, or don't YOU have any friends or allies?
"America's grand strategy is outdated or nonexistent."
Yes it is. For far too long we have tried to order the affairs of the world from Washington. This has led to a series of catastrophic wars which we seemingly cannot end because that would imply defeat. For those of us who participated in the conflicts of fifty years ago this is an old sad story.
The Washington foreign policy establishment "blob" which Ben Rhodes refers to no longer enjoys the support of the public. Away with them.
14
For the "bargain (to) be a bad one, or it may evaporate" presumes that there is an actual bargain at all. From what we've seen, North Korea has merely restated their goal of denuclearization, which has been their position for a long time. The president, because he never met a photo op he didn't like, executed a negotiation to appear on camera and declare victory.
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A victory, alright- for Kim and the Chinese. They got our feckless leader to scrub joint military exercises with the ROK. How much longer 'til we withdraw from the Korean Peninsula entirely and leave Seoul to the tender mercies of a (still) nuclearized PDRK?
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If you want to really compare Trump and Obama, consider this. Obama thought about policy, relationships, consequences. Trump doesn't. Trump doesn't even really have any policy of his own. He just negates Obama and calls it a day.
Obama had more than his share of problematic actions, but I'd take him in a heartbeat. Obama was brains and pragmatism; Trump is ego and impetuousness.
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exactly -
unfortunately for all of us, the party that nominated Hillary failed to read the public's dislike of Mrs. Clinton. And the fact that she wanted to be appointed as the first woman president, soured her among many. But, and this is a big but, she was head and shoulders of our supposed leader we have now. And I am being the nice Jeffrey. Find me on a bad day...
4
"Appointed as first woman president"?
Excuse me? No, she RAN for president just as hard as any man ever did, and a lot harder than most. She prepared for years, in public service and putting an organization together. She campaigned among Democrats and won THREE MILLION more votes than her challenger. And then she went on to win THREE MILLION more votes than her opponent in the general election, despite vast amounts of lying propaganda, domestic and foreign, hurled at her. And you say she was "disliked"?
She wanted to be president like every man who has ever run for the office. Please explain to me how she did anything different than a man, except being a woman. And yeah, that was a big deal. We represent 50% of the country, and 0% percent of presidents or vice-presidents. For 240 years.
I am not sure you can say President Trump does not think about policies. He may not express his thinking on issues in the polished way President Obama did, but he does think about them. We may wish for a more sophisticated discussion, but the erudite rhetoric of the last administration created, in part, the divide between well healed white collar constituents and blue collar workers.
Please note that the ability to think is not determined by what college degrees one has. It comes from dealing successfully with life's ups and downs.
And as pointed out in other media outlets, the irony is that the Right lambasted Obama for making concessions to Iran for little more than a promise not to build a nuclear bomb for 10 years while looking the other way as it builds it ICBMs, finances terror proxies with billions in cash Obama allowed released (the excuse being it was Iran's money plus interest to begin with, but conveniently forgetting the US had garnished a larger amount in damages against Iran inflicted on US property and American lives but Obama dropped the claims), while looking the other way as the mullahs cracked down bloodily on pro-Democracy demonstrators and publicly hung gays. All with the hope that the atmospherics would eventually lead to peace.
Now Trump has made a few concessions to North Korea, the main one being a suspension of US/South Korea war games (which can be easily restarted if necessary) but has not dropped sanctions. And he didn't bring up human rights abuses except it's reported discussing kidnapped Japanese citizens to be repatriated. Instead, the hope like Obama with Iran is that improved atmospherics will lead eventually to real peace. And like clockwork, the Trump haters -- the very same times that gushed over the same Obama strategy with Iran -- are lambasting Trump for doing similar.
15
The benefit of the Iran deal was Iran dismantling its nuclear program and facilities and subjecting to international inspections. It worked.
That’s nothing like what Trump did, which was to accept Kim’s assertion of a desire to denuclearize someday as a “deal”, and downgrade our alliances in the region faster than you can say “Munich”.
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This is not well reasoned. There are very few similarities between the deal with Iran and this PR campaign. The Iran deal involved concrete proposals, blessed by our closest allies. This photo op comes after outrageous statements Trump made recently maligning the man he now claims is brilliant, and says after turning our back on allies.
The Schzophrenia in this WH is so pervasive, Trump could run against Trump in 2020.
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Amen, and well-said. Correctly, both Presidents expect our allies to bear more of their defense costs. America can no longer afford this burden.
President Obama did little to follow through, other than cut military spending. (In general a good idea if done correctly) President Trump has more backbone, which annoys our Western European allies who have been freeloading for decades. Germany, with huge trade surpluses, is the worst offender.
Obama thoughtfully nurtured and repaired the frayed relationships with our important traditional allies that were damaged by W's administration. Trump is trashing those relationships in a way that may be irreparable in favor of obsequious advances to brutal dictators. Any comparison between the two is ludicrous.
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Obama was a realist and was detail oriented.
Obama made deals to benefit the US and the world, particularly our allies.
Obama maintained good relationships with our allies, and let our enemies know where they stood.
Obama was brave.
Obama was smart.
Obama was graceful.
Obama was honest.
Obama was and remains a loyal American, who would not sell America's interest to benefit himself or his family financially.
Trump is none of those things.
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Barack Obama was, and still is all of those things.
3
Obama was not 'seeking an accommodation with Iran' - Obama was dealing with allies who were ready to break ranks on harsh sanctions PLUS the U.S. Courts had ruled that the U.S. had to return to Iran $ 1.5+ Billion$ per the SCOTUS ruling:
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/20/474962528/supreme-cou...
which Obama and our allies were smart enough to try and keep Iran from using such funds to develop their nuclear capabilities, by concocting the Iran Nuclear Deal in advance of releasing the funds:
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/30/congress-iran-nuclear-deal-obama-vet...
Obama didn't have very many options, since keeping our allies in line regarding harsh sanctions on Iran was becoming more and more difficult.
It is much much too cavalier an airbrushing of history to reduce these actual facts and details to 'seeking an accommodation with Iran'.
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That NPR link you provided does not say that the money had to be returned to Iran. Just the opposite. The money "should be turned over to Americans who U.S. courts had found were victims of Iranian terrorist attacks."
@Childe - Good catch; thanks ! It was at the Hague Tribunal where the U.S. felt it was about to lose, and thus negotiated a cheaper settlement with Iran:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/23/opinion/the-fake-400-million-iran-ran...
as well as a verifiable nuclear reduction regime, which would keep all the allies acting in tandem instead of a free-for-all.
Our point still stands that Obama was not 'seeking accommodation with Iran', when it manifestly was trying to make the best of a bad situation with legal facts which were against the U.S.
5
It's good to know that at least readers are paying attention. NYT's columnists, and occasionally reporters, sure aren't. I've never seen this analysis in the NYT. Thank, R Law.
Our embargo of Cuba for 60 years is a national disgrace. Barack Obama couldn't do anything about that, thanks to a hostile Congress, and what little he did do had no real effect. Nothing is happening with Cuba. Nothing probably ever will.
North Korea is a different story. There's no way to ignore them and their provocations and do business with them. Donald Trump had to do something about it. And he's no huckster. He knew the thing to do was make a bold move and see what the reaction is. (Just like Napoleon Bonaparte: "First you move and then you wait and see.") We'll need to wait a while before we see.
I suspect Donald Trump will surprise many by reaching a lasting deal with North Korea. That will mean that he deserves a Nobel prize. Sadly, Barack Obama won one without ever doing anything to deserve it.
18
"And he's no huckster."
You lost me there; who is no huckster?
Five times bankrupt. Star of Reality TV.
Rose into politics on the crest of the birther lie.
No huckster, huh?
Listen, you got any money to invest? I got a deal that will make you fabulously rich. Believe me.
The problem with , "first you move and then you wait and see", is Kim has a lifetime to make a counter move. Trump has until November or - at best - 2020 for something to materialize that looks like "victory"... Promise, stall, promise some more, stall some more... That's all Kim has to do. And, as Trump grows more frustrated that we all don't "grok" what a stable genius he is, he will become more and more volatile. And, the more experts harp on the fact that we made concessions while Kim made none (read: Trump is a bad deal maker) the more Trump - because the poor sod can't help himself - will lash out at his own staff, our allies, "fake news", etc. Trump is desperate to be taken seriously outside his own base but his need for adulation keeps him from trying to reach beyond it. I just hope he doesn't do something really stupid when all "hoopla" dies down and we realize we've accomplished nothing... BTW, I hope I'm wrong... We agree on one thing: Obama did not deserve the Nobel when he received it. But, I do believe he tried to earn it afterwards.
Obama did normalize relation with Cuba, only to be closed again by Trump. Where were you?
Despite my doubt, I do sincerely wish Trump success in reaching a denuclearization treaty with NK. But time will tell, let's not get ahead of ourselves here.
This is painfully foolish logic. Worse, it misses the danger we're already in.
The fear among foreign policy cognoscenti, the Washington elite that Mr. Douthat dismisses, was Trump would give away the store in his tete-a-tete. A sigh of relief could be heard when the empty-of-substance statement emerged. Then came the hiccup, Trump's unilateral offer to stop joint US-South Korea military exercises, those with bombers. But that seems less serious that offering to pull US troops out of South Korea.
This analysis isn't too complex, it's too simple. The danger with Trump isn't a grand promise. It's that he breaks promises. Trump will have to walk back his commitment to cease joint exercises, because the US and S. Korean military will demand it. Kim will insist that Trump negotiates in bad faith. Trump, humiliated, will go ballistic.
The risk with Trump isn't facts, it's emotions. He's seriously corrupt, morally unhinged, and a narcissist. Obama was nothing like him. Trump won't have the spine to buck demands that he break his concession of no joint exercises. He'll lie outright, deny he made any commitment, and the N. Koreans and Chinese will flip. They're not bamboozled by his con-man style.
We're in the middle of a slow-motion crash, which is what all crashes feel like. Mr. Douthat is distracted by the strangeness of it all. I hope we're lucky, and avoid oncoming traffic. But don't hold your breath.
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Yes, He forced this silly analogy. Cuba (a) has no nuclear missiles; JFK took care of that more than a half century ago, and (b) hundreds of thousands of former citizens live here and many, after the first generation at least, want access to the island.
This is gibberish.
We can understand the Obama-Trump voter as a person who is so fed up with the political system as it is that they are willing to give the newcomer outsider a chance.
As far as the foreign policy argument, President Obama had a coherent foreign policy that can be summarized as just peace pragmatism outlined in his Nobel Lecture. (History will tell US why he never named it such) He understood the importance of multi-lateralism in global affairs and worked to strengthen both regional and global multinational organizations.
Thus, he was able to achieve the Paris climate accord that every nation on earth now supports except the Trump administration. He brokered the TPP, a deal that is going forward without the US and without our values thanks to Trump. President Obama brought European nations together with China and Russia to craft the Iran nuclear deal that Iran kept and the United States violated thanks to Trump. President Obama brought the world together to lock down loose nukes. I doubt if Trump even knows that such a program existed.
President Obama organized sanctions against Russia for its military theft of Crimea and put it out of the G-8. Now Trump wants to allow Russia back.
Both President Obama and Trump understand the limits of American power, however, President Obama worked toward a world working together with American leadership solving problems. All Trump has is petulance, ignorance, insubstantial flash, and possible treasonous criminality.
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I suspect there is a very small fraction of voters who were Obama-Trump voters. I further suspect that many voters within that very small fraction could not pass a fact test on the issues.
There is in this column a kernel of insight, which is that both Obama and Trump came into office with a sense that the old shibboleths of statecraft badly needed a refresh.
But, I think Douthat's thought process soon derails due to two omissions. The first is that Obama never, as far as I can remember, fawned over authoritarian despots like Putin, KJU, Erdogan, et al. You could not ever reasonably conclude that Obama wanted to replace the Atlantic Alliance, TPP, the Paris Accords and international relations with a strategic turn to strong-arm, one-man leaders.
Second, Douthat's case for Trump's attempt to upset the applecart of traditional diplomacy would make more sense if Trump actually favored the Iran nuclear deal. Talk about doing something completely different in the Mid-east! But Trump tore up the deal and in doing so, cast all his marbles with the increasingly reactionary Bebe Netenyahu and the Israeli police state.
Trump's foreign policy (and his domestic plans) are actually driven by avenging Barack Obama's clear distaste for him. Trump is driven by visceral hatred, and his policies are intentionally shaped by doing away with everything his predecessor tried to do. Thus, one can conclude, Obama was the adult, Trump is the petulant child.
167
Yes, the only unifying thread I see in Trump's policy decisions is that if Obama was for it, he is against it. I think it comes largely from that time that Obama humiliated Trump at the White House correspondents dinner.
1
I don't blame Ben Rhodes for trying to bring out any similarity between Mr. Obama and Mr. Trump. He dishonestly suggests that Trump needs to have "racism and misogyny" stripped out leaving the two men with a view that Hillary Clinton is "part of a corrupt establishment that can’t be trusted to bring change.”
It is Mr. Obama that was part of the corrupt establishment for eight years. Putting aside his race, he was unable to move the economy or create jobs for those most in need. When it came to international trade he put intellectual property first and jobs second because Obama didn't put people first - ever. Even Hillary reluctantly concluded that it was time to put America first, but Trump had already won that contest.
Obama led on Cuba but he didn't care about the Cuban people or the Cuban economy. Obama respected Castro's decision to let communism rule. Trump is working with China, South Korea and Japan to Offer North Korea a business model that can work without a military - Something which Kim knows from his years in Switzerland.
Trump is a "longtime huckster" to some who invested in his businesses; but he is America's huckster now. Wish him luck.
5
I agree with you about Obama, but I don't think you realize what got us here. Republicans and neoliberals (right-leaning centrist Democrats) are what got us here, to this place where there are fewer and fewer middle class jobs. It all started with the phrase, "It's morning in American," and it has all been downhill since Regan. Republican economic policy, which we have essentially had for forty years even under Democratic Presidents, is what has failed us.
1
"It is Mr. Obama that was part of the corrupt establishment for eight years. Putting aside his race, he was unable to move the economy or create jobs for those most in need."
Do you mean corruption as in keeping the economy from falling off a cliff or corruption as in extending health care to tens of millions of more Americans? Or corruption as in no members of the Obama administration had to resign because they were corrupt? The Obama administration negotiated a detailed plan to block Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Trump scrapped this deal as being worthless. On the other hand, Trump meets with the dictator of North Korea, gets no agreement, and declares the nuclear crisis with that country solved. Yes, Trump is a huckster. Wish us all luck.
1
W Bush gave us two "tax cuts for the job creators" and we got 3 million jobs.
W Bush took a balanced budget, zero deficit from Clinton and gave Obama a whopping $1.4 Trillion deficit and the worst recession since the Great Depression.
Obama got us through the Great Recession, gave us the "jobs killing" Obama care and we got 11.5 million jobs, almost 400% more than Bush.
Obama also cut the deficit by almost 2/3 to $550 Billion.
And 20 million got health care.
And all that with Republicans trying their best to block everything he did.
1
Let's see. No definition of denuclearization; no timetable; no verification; no mention of ICBM dismantling; no mention of taking conventional artillery aimed at Soeul off hair-trigger status; nothing about human rights abuse; no apology for the family of Otto Warmbier. Ponder what his family must feel about the gushing praise just heaped by our president upon this brute.
For this we voluntarily removed a crucial anchor of American and Asian security from the world's hottest flashpoint and we accord the dictator of an all but failed nation, who is perhaps the world's most brutal tyrant, equal status with the most powerful and civilized nations on earth.
Slaying family members with anti-aircraft machine gun fire? Killing another nation's soldiers completely unprovoked with submarine torpedoes? Launchong missiles into the civilian areas of a non-combatant neighbor? Conducting cyber warfare worldwide? Hey, everybody does it; what's the problem? Anyway, Kim is a really funny guy; he makes great deals. You see, Trump has this instinct.
Just imagine this for a brief second. If Barack Obama had returned from Singapore with such a deal the Greek chorus of the GOP would have screamed bloody murder without cease, without mercy, and without a scintilla of shame.
Donald Trump himself would have ripped-up such a deal in the blink of an eye.
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It's depressing to see how polarized America has become. Each side and its supporters divinely believe they are the sole owners of the truth and dismiss everyone and every other view as blatantly false.
Yes, I don't disagree that the GOP, along with FOX, would be in full screech mode if it was Obama; however, if Obama had orchestrated the Singapore rendezvous, then CNN, MSNBC and the liberal left would be singing their praise and optimism.
1
What?! He had one meeting. You write like he just removed all 50,000+ US troops from the Korean Peninsula and handed the 7th Fleet over to Kim.