Posted on 04/19/2018 5:10:30 AM PDT by Louis Foxwell
Trumps Art of the Deal in North Korea, Israel and Syria Understanding Trumps America First foreign policy. April 19, 2018 Daniel Greenfield
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism.
Its really not that complicated.
But President Trumps Syria strikes have reopened the debate over what defines his foreign policy. Is he an interventionist or an isolationist? Foreign policy experts claim that hes making it up as he goes along.
But theyre not paying attention.
President Trumps foreign policy has two consistent elements. From threatening Kim Jong-Un on Twitter to moving the embassy to Jerusalem to bombing Syria, he applies pressure and then he disengages.
Heres how that works.
First, Trump pressures the most intransigent and hostile side in the conflict. Second, he divests the United States from the conflict leaving the relevant parties to find a way to work it out.
North Korea had spent decades using its nuclear program to bully its neighbors and the United States. Previous administrations had given the Communist dictatorship $1.3 billion in aid to keep it from developing its nuclear program. These bribes failed because they incentivized the nuclear program.
Nukes are the only thing keeping North Korea from being just another failed Communist dictatorship.
Instead, Trump called North Koreas bluff. He ignored all the diplomatic advice and ridiculed its regime. He made it clear that the United States was not afraid of North Korean nukes. The experts shrieked. They warned that Kim Jong-Un wouldnt take this Twitter abuse and we would be in for a nuclear war.
But the Norks folded.
The Communist regime held high level talks with the United States and South Korea. Its reportedly planning to announce an official end to the war. That probably wont amount to much in the long term, but it shifts more of the responsibility for the conflict away from the United States and to the Koreas.
Trump accomplished more with a few tweets than previous administrations had with billions of dollars.
An instinctive negotiator, Trumps realpolitik genius lay not in ideology, but in grasping the core negotiating strategy of the enemy and then negating it by taking away its reason not to make a deal.
When Trump called North Koreas bluff, its nuclear weapons program was transformed from an asset that it used to blackmail aid from its potential targets into a liability that could end with its destruction.
Trump did the same thing with Jerusalem.
The PLO had refused to make a deal with Israel because its constant refusals to negotiate allowed it to keep escalating its demands. The more it sabotaged negotiations, the better the offers became.
The PLOs Palestinian Authority didnt have nukes, but its weapon of choice was terrorism. And it had played the same game as North Korea for decades. It would begin negotiations, demand payoffs, then sabotage negotiations, threaten violence, and demand an even higher payoff for ending the violence.
The PLO/PA knew that it could get the best possible deal by not making a deal.
Just like North Korea, Trump cut the PLO down to size by negating its negotiating strategy. Instead of the deal getting better and better, Trump showed that it would get worse by taking Jerusalem off the table.
Previous administrations had rewarded the PLO/PA for its refusal to make a deal by sweetening the pot. Instead Trump threatened to take away Jerusalem, the biggest prize in the pot. And then he warned that the PLO would lose even more of its demands if the terrorist group continued to refuse to make a deal.
Unlike Clinton, Bush and Obama, Trump did not overcompensate for the US-Israel relationship by pressuring the Jewish State to make a deal with the PLO so as to seem like an honest broker. Instead he leveraged that relationship to move the United States away from the conflict.
Moving the embassy to Jerusalem sends the signal that the US-Israel relationship doesnt depend on a deal with the PLO. Thats the opposite of the messages that Clinton, Bush and Obama had sent.
Their old failed diplomacy that made the US-Israel relationship dependent on a deal with the PLO had given the terrorists control over our foreign policy. The US and Israel were perversely forced into appeasing the terrorists of the PLO just to be able to maintain a relationship with each other.
Trump kicked the PLO out of the drivers seat. And the terrorist group is becoming isolated.
Saudi Arabia and its allies are much more focused on Iran than the old proxy war against Israel. And, for the moment, that leaves the PLO with few allies. If it doesnt make a deal, then the United States will rebuild its relationship with Israel around regional security issues. And the Saudis have signaled that they are willing to do the same thing. Then everyone else exits the conflict except Israel and the PLO.
Trump left it to the South Koreans to decide the conflict with North Korea. Ditto for Israel.
The United States will put forward proposals, but the long game is to get America out these conflicts. And Trump does that by turning the United States from an eager mediator to a bully with a big stick.
He made it clear to Kim Jong-Un that he would have a much easier time negotiating with South Korea than with America. And hes made it equally clear to the PLO that its better off turning to Israel than to its allies in the State Department. The message is, You dont want to get the United States involved.
Previous administrations believed that the United States had an integral role in resolving every conflict. President Trumps America First policy seeks to limit our involvement in foreign conflicts without robbing us of our influence by making those interventions as decisive and abrasive as possible.
It breaks every rule of contemporary diplomacy. But it has plenty of historical precedents. And it works.
President Trump wants to get out of Syria. But he doesnt want to hand Iran another win. And he doesnt want to get the United States bogged down in another disastrous regional conflict.
So, just like in North Korea and Israel, he sent a decisive message of strength.
The strikes were a reminder that unlike his predecessor, he was not afraid of using force. But just as in North Korea and Israel, the show of strength was only a lever for disengaging from the conflict.
Instead, Trump wants to bring in an Arab force to stabilize parts of Syria. That would checkmate Iran, split Syria between the Shiites and Sunnis, and Arabize the conflict while getting America out of it.
The threat of more strikes would give an Arab force credibility without an actual American commitment.
And the threat of a Sunni Arab force is meant to pressure Assad into making a deal that would limit Irans influence over Syria. If Assad wants to restore complete control over Syria, hell have to make a deal with the Sunnis inside or outside his country. And that will limit Irans influence and power in Syria.
The debates over chemical attacks were never the real issue. Keeping weapons like that out of the hands of terror-linked states like Syria is good policy. But there was a much bigger picture.
Iran took advantage of the Obama era to expand its power and influence. Trump wants to roll back Iranian expansionism while limiting American exposure to the conflict. Once again hes using a show of strength to mobilize the local players into addressing the problem while keeping his future plans vague.
Assads biggest reason for refusing to make a deal was that Irans backing made his victory inevitable. Iran and Hezbollah had paid a high price for winning in Syria. But they were unquestionably winning. The only thing that could change that is direct American intervention. And Trump wants Assad to fear it.
Trump is offering Assad the rule of his country. But to get it, he has to dump his biggest partner.
When Trump came into office, the two bad options were arming the Sunni Jihadis or letting Irans Shiite Jihadis win. Instead Trump has come up with a third option. Either keep the war going or force a deal.
Either the conflict will drag on, but with minimal American involvement. Or Assad will sell out Iran.
None of these are ideal options. But there are no good options. Not in North Korea, Israel or Syria. The Norks and the PLO arent likely to reform. Syria, like Iraq, will stay divided between feuding Islamic sects. None of these problems will go away at the negotiating table. And Trump understands that.
Trump is too much of a dealmaker to believe in the unlimited promise of diplomatic agreements. He knows that it takes leverage not just to make a deal, but to keep it in place. And he doesnt believe that the United States can make a deal work when a key player really doesnt want the deal to happen.
Trumps Art of the International Deal identifies the roadblocks to previous agreements, breaks them down, puts the local players in the drivers seat and then makes fixing the problem into their problem.
Obamas people dubbed his failed diplomacy, Smart Power. Call Trumps diplomacy, Deal Power.
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Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.
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Trump refuses to allow these nations put the monkey on America’s back. It’s their monkey. They must deal with it.
Thanks. Excellent article.
Brilliant article. Please add me to your ping list.
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In before the concern trolls from the state department litter the thread with negativism.
The evaluation of the “Trump” negotiation in foreign policy is very thought provoking. We have been told that Trump is an idiot, hardly I understand he has a nearly 160 IQ, likely the highest since Thomas Jefferson. What is amazing is how quickly it is working. Kim understands that his Nukes have no power then he has no power unless he negotiates that power. I think Assad is between a hard place and a rock, if the US won’t allow Iran to control Syria then Assad could lose power by the people of his country revolting. If he is willing to negotiate a settlement that gets rid of Hamas he can maintain power.
Trump is shrewd and knows how to play the game that our State Department doesn’t have a clue about.
A great president.
Please put me on the ping list.
D. Greenfield understands that Trump is a professional negotiator, especially when compared to light-weight nitwits like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Greenfield is always a pleasure to read.
Deal Power...
PING! The best stories I’ve read from Daniel Greenfield. He really diagnoses what Trump is up to. Fascinating! Thanks for posting.
Brilliant, easy to understand article by Greenfield describing the brilliant new approach of our POTUS / CIC. This is the very best analysis of Trump’s foreign policy that I’ve read!
Hmmmmm.... like The J. Carter flying the Jolly Roger coming back into port and Kim's facility tunnel going boom and loosing 200 Newkh enganeers?
I know the dates of the 2 I mentioned are separated by about a month, by about a month which makes you wonder how they are related, however it begs the question what will we never know about...
https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/americas-most-secret-spy-sub-returned-to-base-flying-a-1807568498
Previous administrations had given the Communist dictatorship $1.3 billion in aid to keep it from developing its nuclear program.
These bribes failed because they incentivized the nuclear program.
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If a liberal had been smart enough to come up with the above, he would turn the insight into a best selling book. With Greenfield it's just an opening to a column. Amazing.
I agree.
Here is a very recent one he wrote that is in the same class:
Watergate Every Week: Using the FBI to Suppress a Political Revolution
“From Steele to Mueller, the cost of overturning the 2016 election. “
FR Comments: https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3647040/posts
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bump
It’s beautiful analysis of what he’s up to. And with all the talking heads we read and listen to, Greenfield’s take is fresh and pretty compelling.
Cause enough of a ruckus to shake up people. And that lays the groundwork for solving the problem themselves.
I’m gonna post a fabulous interview with Scott Adams that makes the another key point. Trump doesn’t tell China what to do, but convinces Xi that he’s going to enhance his own legacy and leadership by “doing what you feel is right” — which plays into where Trump wants to take the guy...
The Art of the TRiUMPhant deal!
Wow, another splendid Greenfield column! Thanks much for posting the link.
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