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Posted on 05/14/2025 9:13:01 AM PDT by Heartlander
In what was probably the most important presidential speech in decades, President Donald Trump repudiated decades of failed interventionist U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East during an official visit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday.
Not only did Trump lambast neocon “nation-building” in the region, he more or less vowed never to pursue the kinds of neocon misadventures that spilt American blood and treasure over the past 25 years in the insane pursuit of creating western liberal democracies in the Middle East.
In stark and unmistakable terms, the president reminded the world of the abject failure of decades of neocon and liberal interventionist U.S. foreign policy under both Democrat and Republican leadership. He specifically called out the trillions of U.S. tax dollars wasted in a totally unsuccessful attempt to turn Iraq and Afghanistan into western-style democracies as part of the global war on terror.
“In the end, the so-called ‘nation-builders’ wrecked far more nations than they built — and the interventionists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves,” Trump said. “The gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation-builders, neocons, or liberal non-profits like those who spent trillions failing to develop Kabul and Baghdad.”
His speech, which came after a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the signing of economic agreements totaling $600 billion in new trade deals, heralds a new approach not just to Mideast politics but to American foreign policy generally. By disavowing the nation-building ideology of the neocons and liberal interventionists that dominated U.S. foreign policy under the Bush, Obama, and Biden presidencies, Trump articulated a vision of American engagement with the world that is both more tolerant, more transactional, and less concerned with the internal affairs of other nations.
In other words, Trump’s vision of American foreign policy isn’t driven by a zeal to remake the world into some version of a liberal western democracy. In Riyadh, he was saying that Saudi Arabia and the other Arab states can just be Islamic monarchies, and as long as they present no threat to American interests, and as long as they promote peace and stability, then we can do business with them.
He said much the same about Iran, no doubt much to the consternation of establishment neocons in Washington who are itching for war with Tehran. “I am here today not merely to condemn the past chaos of Iran’s leaders, but to offer them a new path and a much better path toward a far better and more hopeful future,” Trump said. “I want to make a deal with Iran.”
In doing so, Trump was in some ways repudiating the entire post-WWII liberal internationalist project, which was predicated on the idea that America would act as a guarantor of human rights and civil liberties for every backwater nation on the planet, ushering in an era of cooperative globalism and international harmony. The seed of this utopian ideology was planted even earlier, with Woodrow Wilson’s fatuous notion that it was America’s job to “make the world safe for democracy.” It turns out, that’s both impossible and morally insane. And even if it were possible, it’s not necessarily America’s responsibility to make it so. America’s responsibility, as Trump rightly sees it, is to look after her own people and their interests, which is how most American leaders prior to Wilson understood our role in the world.
All of this hearkens back to a defining moment of Trump’s first campaign for the presidency, during one of the first 2015 GOP primary debates. Standing on stage with more than a dozen GOP candidates, he was the only one who dared breathe a word of criticism against the last Republican president, George W. Bush. He said the Iraq war never should have happened, that it was a colossal mistake. By doing this, Trump was actually giving voice to what most Republican voters in 2015 actually believed. None of his rival primary candidates dared to say what everyone by then knew: America’s intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan was a debacle, and those responsible for it or who supported it should never be put into power again.
But the episode was a window into Trump’s idea of a sound American foreign policy, which is really just an extension of his idea of sound domestic policy: look out for the American people and the American people alone. If it doesn’t profit or prosper America to be meddling in some foreign backwater, then we should leave it alone. If they threaten us, we should make clear that the cost of harming us is higher than they can pay. This is peace through strength, and it’s one of the reasons America didn’t get involved in any new foreign wars during Trump’s first term in office.
Critics will simply repeat platitudes like we fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here, or that a world of liberal democracies is in the American interest. Maybe that’s true in theory, but in practice it amounts to a carte blanche to intervene anywhere in the world for any reason. What’s more, no one seriously believes that America has the ability or competence to plant stable democracies in Africa or Asia — or anywhere, for that matter. The reason for this is simple: stable democracies cannot be planted by any outside power, no matter how rich and powerful. They have to grow organically and domestically from the people themselves. We can applaud emergent democracies, we can do business with them, but there is precious little we can do to guarantee them, much less build them in the first place.
And not every nation has to be a democracy. The great lie of the Bush-era war on terror was that all people yearn for freedom and democracy. No they don’t. Some yearn much more for justice, or righteousness, or simply revenge. Some will be hereditary monarchies, or Islamic caliphates, or any number of other things. That’s fine. We shouldn’t be troubled by our differences with other nations, so long as they don’t threaten us. The idea that we could turn Afghanistan into a modern democratic state was perhaps the greatest delusion of the past quarter-century. As Trump said on Tuesday, “I am willing to end past conflicts and forge new partnerships for a better and more stable world, even if our differences may be very profound.”
That is actual tolerance, not the fake tolerance of liberal interventionists. And it comes from being clear-eyed about who you’re actually supposed to serve. In Trump’s case, he believes, correctly, that his job is to serve the American people, not the “global community” or international NGOs or the military industrial complex. Again from Trump’s speech: “In recent years, far too many American presidents have been afflicted with the notion that it’s our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use U.S. policy to dispense justice for their sins … I believe it is God’s job to sit in judgement — my job [is] to defend America and to promote the fundamental interests of stability, prosperity, and peace.”
That’s exactly right. This interests-based approach to foreign policy is how Trump can offer a fig leaf to Iran, Syria, and Lebanon in a speech praising the leaders of Saudi Arabia. He lauded what he called “a new generation of leaders” in the region, who are “transcending the ancient conflicts and tired divisions of the past, and forging a future where the Middle East is defined by commerce, not chaos; where it exports technology, not terrorism; and where people of different nations, religions, and creeds are building cities together — not bombing each other out of existence.”
Now, this is certainly optimistic. And of course it remains to be seen whether this rosy future for the Mideast will actually come to pass. After all, the American military recently had to carry out massive airstrikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen to keep international shipping lanes open in the Red Sea, and the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran still looms over the entire region.
But what’s certain is that the neocon approach of starting and funding interventionist conflicts all over the world has not worked. Nation-building has not worked. It has actually been a disaster for the United States and the hapless countries we have tried to remake in our image. This week in Riyadh, Trump announced definitively that America is done with all of that. Good riddance to it.
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Trillions spent to “nation-build” after 9/11 which should have gone to the cause of eradicating Islam.
This seems big.
It is big. The idea that Sanctions on Syria solved anything was always a fool’s errand. 40 years of sanctions and Assad murdered perhaps 200,000. Sanctions did not work. So try something different. (rest assured that Assad never suffered during the sanctions, nor did his family - they fled to Russia without consequences for their murders.
NeoCon foreign policy no better example of Sunk Cost Fallacy
He’s not wrong about this. And if one of thoese islamic monarchies wants to go to war with the US then so be it. Far better to fight an identified and national army then a shady bunch of terrorists.
2. "...if they threaten us, we should make clear that the cost of harming us is higher than they can pay."
3. "...peace through strength
4. "We shouldn’t be troubled by our differences with other nations, so long as they don’t threaten us."
What good is "peace through strength" if you don't use that strength now and again? When, how, where, and how frequently do we actually USE that strength? If you don't use it, it loses all deterrence value.
If you think that they think that Trump won’t exert military strength when needed you you way off
Uh-oh. He’s just threatened the jobs, careers, and pensions of everyone in the CIA and the State Department. I hope he’s got better people than the Secret Service watching his back.
Of course he will. He bombed the crap out of ISIS in Syria in his first term. He’s been obliterating the Houthi’s in Yemen.
I just see an inconsistency in blasting the hell out of our enemies to get them to settle down on the one hand and saying we aren’t “nation building” on the other hand.
We are saying “if you behave and join the peaceful nations, we won’t touch you. But if you step out of line and harm us, we will destroy you.”
That’s fine, but, to me, it just seems to be a different kind of “nation building” because we are bending them to our will (i.e., get them to be peaceful and not troublesome).
That’s the inconsistency I see. Do you understand what I am saying?
“...What good is “peace through strength” if you don’t use that strength now and again? When, how, where, and how frequently do we actually USE that strength? If you don’t use it, it loses all deterrence value.”
Trump demonstrated peace through strength with the Houthi’s and I believe the world got the message. Trump has made it clear, FAFO, and if you don’t, we’ll leave you alone.
Trying to democratize Islamic cultures is a fools errand. Trump is channeling George Washington “Beware foreign entanglements”.
People do not yearn for democracy. They yearn for utopian dictatorship.
No more wars to launder money and enrich the MIC.
“ We are saying “if you behave and join the peaceful nations, we won’t touch you. But if you step out of line and harm us, we will destroy you.”
Read what he said or listen to his speech or look at the treaty
Stop wasting my time. That is not what’s going on here
Go work for AOC or Newsom.
Newsom is about to pretend to give a crap about his state which he has driven into the ground and exported millions to Texas to flip it for him to win in 2028
“Trump demonstrated peace through strength with the Houthi’s and I believe the world got the message.”
Did you notice how LITTLE press coverage there was of the assault on the Houthis? It was a MAJOR operation involving a huge amount of our forces in that region. Yet there was almost NO coverage of it.
It’s almost like the MSM doesn’t want to cover President Trump’s successes.
My point is that peace through strength means obliterating your enemies now and then and bending them to our will to behave as a good member of the community of nations. That may not be “nation building” in the neocon sense, but nevertheless we are making them behave and be members in good standing among the nations of the world. So it’s just another kind of “nation building” without remaking them into Middle Eastern versions of western liberal democracies. But the effect is the same in the end.
“ We are saying “if you behave and join the peaceful nations, we won’t touch you. But if you step out of line and harm us, we will destroy you.”
Read what he said or listen to his speech or look at the treaty
Stop wasting my time. That is not what’s going on here
Go work for AOC or Newsom.
Newsom is about to pretend to give a crap about his state which he has driven into the ground and exported millions to Texas to flip it for him to win in 2028
I have NO idea what you are blathering on about.
Nor do I have any idea what you are blathering about. Go work for the dems if what you pretend Trump is doing is so bad.
And, seemingly, to facilitate a muslim invasion of our country.
Now we get to fight them here so we don't have to fight them over there.
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