I just felt that the transcript of Fareed Zakaria’s My Take  fit so well within the last blog on the Saudi attack.   Fareed looks at all the crises:  North Korea Disarmament talks, China Trade war,  Israel – Palestine conflict,  Afghanistan disengagement and talks with the Taliban,  and concludes Trump has failed badly,  because he isn’t a good negotiator.

But he held out some hope for a US-Iran deal, something which would allow the Iran nuclear deal from unraveling.  Fareed’s piece was likely concluded just prior to the drone attack on Saudi Arabia.   The US now threatens to bomb Iran, in part because that’s what the Saudi’s would like.   Now,  none of these conflicts are new, except the hostilities between the US and Iran.  This occurred because Trump and the Republican party waged war against the Iranian nuclear deal.  The China trade wars are new, but the problem of China’s unfair trade practice are not new.

So, bottom line, Trump hasn’t really resolved any of the international conflicts he inherited from Obama, and has added Iran nuclearization to the heap of threats.   I would add climate change as sixth major threat, which Donald Trump has taken a giant step backwards by pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord.   The next president will arrive in 2020 with his or her plate full.

Diplomacy is the art of the compromise.   It is our strength.   It is why the US pushed for international organizations, like the UN, World Trade Organization, World Health Organization, the International Atomic Energy Commission which is still doing the inspections in Iran, and many others.   It is soft power, and it looks like we are losing it.

Stay tuned,

Dave

Links:

 Trump’s foreign policy is in shambles (Fareed Zakaria)

Soft Power