Tag Archives: Donald Trump foreign policy war

Trump threats against Iran are in line with his playbook 1

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy • Tags: ,

Press TV. Listen here.

US President Donald Trump’s threats against Iran are in line with his playbook and should not be taken seriously, says an American political analyst in Virginia.

“The comments that Donald Trump has made recently, as well as the particular policies that he has threatening to impose are fairly in character with both Donald Trump’s personality and, as well as the general policies that the American government has followed,” said Keith Preston, chief editor of AttacktheSystem.com.

“Donald Trump is prone to a lot of blustery rhetoric but rarely does he ever follow through on anything of that type,” Preston told Press TV on Tuesday.

“We can remember that he was at one point threatening the North Koreans in a similar way and then he actually turned around and did an about face on North Korea and he could very easily do that with Iran,” he added.

Trump threatened Iran on Tuesday with “obliteration” if the country launches any attack on American forces in the Middle East region.

In a Twitter rant railing against the Islamic Republic, Trump said, “Iran’s very ignorant and insulting statement, put out today, only shows that they do not understand reality.”

PressTV-Trump threatens Iran with ‘obliteration’

PressTV-Trump threatens Iran with ‘obliteration’Trump has said has threatened Iran with “obliteration” if the country launches any attack on American forces.

Tensions have been running high between the US and Iran since Trump’s decision in May last year to abandon the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions on Tehran as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign aimed at forcing it to renegotiate a new deal that addresses its ballistic missile program and regional influence as well.

The US has also sent warships, bombers and additional troops to the region in the wake of suspicious tanker attacks in the Sea of Oman, which it has blamed on Iran without providing evidence.

Despite repeating threats and baseless accusations against Tehran, Washington has also been calling for negotiations.

Tehran has time and again asserted that it does not seek war with the US, yet stands ready to defend its interests in the region.

Tucker Carlson Tells Trump in Private: No War With Iran 4

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Interesting if true.

The Daily Beast

In the upper echelons of the Trump administration, hawkish voices on Iran predominate—most notably Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton. But as tensions between the U.S. and Iran have escalated over the last few weeks, there’s been another, far different voice in the president’s ear: that of Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

A source familiar with the conversations told The Daily Beast that, in recent weeks, the Fox News host has privately advised Trump against taking military action against Iran. And a senior administration official said that during the president’s recent conversations with the Fox primetime host, Carlson has bashed the more “hawkish members” of his administration.

While some Fox News hosts have argued that a conflict with Iran would be justified, Carlson has consistently criticized U.S. military intervention abroad, particularly in the Middle East. In recent weeks, he has questioned whether war with Iran would be “in anyone’s interest.” Last month, he publicly chided Bolton, saying he was intentionally escalating tensions, and that a potential conflict would “be like Christmas, Thanksgiving, his birthday wrapped into one.”

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Understanding the Trumpian Foreign Policy Reply

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Pete Escobar published an article in the Hong Kong press when Trump took office that is a must read for anyone that wants to understand his administration’s approach to foreign policy, particularly US-Russia relations. Read the article here. Virtually everything Trump has done with regard to foreign policy fits with the paradigm described in this article.

The source of the Trump administration’s foreign policy ideas appears to be the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Trump’s foreign policy approach seems to be a move away from the neocon paradigm that has dominated Republican foreign policy approaches since the Reagan period, and a return to the Nixon/Kissinger approach of the Rockefeller Republicans. This is consistent with Trump’s New York background. His administration is moving back toward the Nixon/Kissinger approach and away from the neocon Republican or liberal internationalist (neocon lite) Democratic approaches. He’s been more of a neocon on domestic policy than on international relations, though in a very pragmatic way.

Trump’s economics seem to be the standard right-wing Keynesian approach that has dominated the Republicans since the Reagan period, although on trade he has departed from that a bit (although Reagan did so as well on a selective basis).

My guess is that a lot of folks among the power elite now regard having let the neocons run foreign policy as a mistake, and as having created too many liabilities and are now pushing them to the side. Notice even the neocon mouthpieces at FOX, who have been reluctant Trumpians, are getting upset about the Putin summit. The only exceptions have been Tucker Carlson, the token paleocon on FOX, and Hannity, who only cares about his ratings, and the fact that most of his fans are diehard Trumpians.

Thus far, Trump seems to be pursuing Nixonian detente with Russia for the purpose of reducing the potential for nuclear conflict, expanding the petroleum trade with Russia, containing jihadi terrorism in Central Asia, and wooing Russia away from an alliance with China.

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Trump Doctrine: Work with Russia, Draw Back NATO, Stop Arming Syrian Rebels Reply

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About the only worthwhile thing about Trump is that he seems to genuinely disagree with the more extreme elements of the neocons’ foreign policy agenda and the neoliberal economic agenda.

Sputnik News

“We will have a very good relationship with Russia” promises the mercurial Republican nominee for president who once referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin as his 60 Minutes “stablemate.”

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Indiana Theater Sunday, May 1, 2016, in Terre Haute, Ind
© AP Photo/ Seth Perlman
Donald Trump: Ten Thousand Syrian Refugees Are Threat To America

Republican nominee Donald Trump is anything but conventional bandying around suggestions that the United States force Mexico to pay for a wall to keep undocumented immigrants from fleeing into America, refinancing US debt as though the faith and credit of the dollar were akin to high-risk junk bonds, and declaring “you bet your ass I would” bring back waterboarding because the other side is “chopping off heads and drowning people in steel cages.”The man who has played a starring role over the course of the presidential campaign in celebrity dust ups with the Pope and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg often elicits scorn from the mainstream media who point to his fervent nationalist streak, history of controversial investment dealings, and outright bigoted statements against Mexicans and Muslims calling the former murderers and rapists while remarking that the latter should be banned from the country altogether.

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‘Trump trying to appease Republican hawks, US power elite’ Reply

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Press TV. Listen here: http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2016/06/07/469332/Donald-Trump-GOP-hawks

Keith Preston said “Donald Trump is talking out of both sides of his mouth.”

Donald Trump’s reversal of position on American intervention in Libya shows he is trying to appease hawks in the Republican Party and the US power elite, an American journalist and political commentator says.  

Keith Preston, chief editor and director of AttacktheSystem.com, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Monday when asked to comment on Trump’s latest statement about Libya.

In an interview with CBS News on Sunday, the presumptive US Republican presidential nominee said he would have ordered a “surgical” strike to kill former Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

“I didn’t mind surgical. And I said surgical. You do a surgical shot and you take him out,” said Trump, who had earlier said that US meddling in Libya was a mistake.

Trump’s statement “completely contradicts the things that Donald Trump had said in the past about Libya,” Preston said. “In the past, Donald Trump had attacked Hillary Clinton for her actions in Libya during her tenure as secretary of state.”

“He has, I think correctly, in his earlier statements pointed out that because of what the United States did in Libya in 2011 it has turned [the country] into an actual failed state, and because of that the Libyan society has fallen apart, Libya’s government has fallen apart, Libya’s economy has fallen apart,” he stated, adding and Libya has “become a haven for terrorist organizations.”

“So Trump had said in an earlier statement that Mrs. Clinton and the Obama administration in conjunction with NATO had made a serious mistake by eliminating Colonel Gaddafi — now he seems to be backtracking as saying, well, perhaps he would have used some sort of surgical strikes,” the analyst stated.

In March 2011, when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, the US and its European allies started airstrikes in Libya to help militants fighting against the government of Muammar Gaddafi.

Gaddafi was deposed and murdered later that year after the fall of the capital Tripoli to militants in August.

The ensuing power vacuum allowed various militant groups, including many extremist and terrorist organizations, to gain power in the country and exploit its natural resources.

Nearly five years after the overthrow of Gaddafi, Libya has become a failed state, with the central government holding no sway over the country.

‘Trump talking out of both sides of his mouth’

Donald Trump speaks during a rally at the Sacramento International Jet Center in Sacramento, California on June 1, 2016. (AFP photo)

Preston said “Donald Trump is talking out of both sides of his mouth. The only thing he has been consistent   is his inconsistency.  Donald Trump is someone that changes his positions on things constantly.”

“Donald Trump has been criticizing Hillary Clinton for her foreign policy record for a while now in this campaign. Now I suspect what he is trying to… appease hawks in the Republican Party,” he stated.

“In the Republican Party, I think he’s trying to reach a wider audience not only within the party itself but also within the ranks of power elite in the United States,” the commentator said.

“He’s probably trying to indicate that he’s an acceptable candidate to the power elite in the United States,” Preston said in his concluding remarks.

The Donald Trump dove myth: why he’s actually a bigger hawk than Hillary Clinton 4

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By Zach Beauchamp

Vox.Com

Hillary Clinton is, without a doubt, a hawkish Democrat. She has been consistently to the interventionist right of the party mainstream on issues like the Iraq War, the Afghanistan surge, and arming the Syrian rebels.

Donald Trump, by contrast, has criticized the Iraq War and the Libya intervention. He’s been skeptical of America’s commitments to defend traditional allies in Europe and East Asia, and said the Middle East in general is “one big, fat quagmire” that the US should stay out of.

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