S P Seth<\/p>\n
If you are Donald Trump, the world appears upside down. It wasn\u2019t always like that. From Trump\u2019s perspective, it is all the fault of the past US presidents for allowing other countries to take advantage of the United States, bringing it to its present state where things are out of control and need to be fixed. And Trump is the strong man who will fix it.
\nAs Trump put it recently, \u201cThe world is in trouble, but we\u2019re gonna straighten it out, OK? That\u2019s what I do \u2014 I fix things. We\u2019re gonna straighten it out. Believe me.\u201d And where would he start, with so much needing to be fixed? There is China, of course, there are Muslims, there is Islamic state and there are US\u2019s so-called friends and allies who have got used to its protective security umbrella at virtually no cost.
\nIn the Middle East, Iran is proving a thorn given a new lease of life under Obama\u2019s nuclear deal. Imagine its audacity for testing a missile that is a violation of the terms of the nuclear deal, Trump would argue. In any case, the nuclear deal with Iran was a bad idea, because they are not going to abide by it.
\nAnd its proof, the argument would go, is the recent test of an Iranian missile as part of its continuing work on a delivery system for its nuclear weapons, which somehow the Iranians, despite the freeze under the nuclear deal, will continue to perfect. Indeed, Trump had promised that as President, he would undo this deal. And the first step, so opportune after the missile test, is to put Iran on notice.
\nAs Michael Flynn, Trump\u2019s national security adviser (now forced to resign under a Russian cloud)reportedly said, \u201cAs of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice\u201d, describing the missile launch as a violation of the relevant UN Security Council resolution.
\nIran denies it is in breach of the resolution and, until the Trump administration took over, it had reportedly test-fired ballistic missiles since the 2015 nuclear deal without any serious reaction. The US is now putting some selective sanctions on Iran to show its serious intent.
\nIt is part of Trump\u2019s commitment, of sorts, to Israel to, more or less, bring back the US\u2019 tough regime of sanctions and possibly some military retaliation. It is not only the ballistic missiles\/nuclear question that needs sorting out, it is also Iran\u2019s disruptive and destructive activities in Iraq, Yemen, in Bahrain, in Syria with Hezbollah acting as its proxy and so on \u2014 the argument would go.
\nIt is imperative for the US to demonstrate its military strength to reestablish its primacy \u2014 to make America strong and great again.In this Iran could be made an example. Some such scenario is outlined in a recent book, The Big Stick: The Limits of Soft Power and the Necessity of Military Force, by Eliot A. Cohen, reviewed in the New York Review of Books. He is all for restoring America\u2019s big power credibility, like Reagan did in some ways, by invading the tiny state of Grenada in 1983. And the recovery of American credibility today, \u201cwill probably occur only when the United States actually does something to someone \u2014 wiping out a flotilla of Iranian gunboats\u201d, for example. And he wants this done soon before Iran has nuclear weapons, which he takes for granted despite the fact that under the nuclear deal Iran\u2019s nuclear program is shut down for at least fifteen years.
\nIn his view, \u201cThe heart of Iran\u2019s emerging military power lies in its nuclear program\u201d \u2014 no ifs and buts about it despite the 2015 nuclear deal which has frozen Iran\u2019s nuclear program over many years. And: \u201cOnce Iran does have nuclear weapons… a nuclear armed Iran will, eventually, pose a direct threat\u201d to the US. In other words, Cohen is not advocating this course necessarily for Israel\u2019s security but to remove a potential security threat to the United States.
\nBut Iran is no Grenada. Therefore, the US would need to use massive force to disable Iran, with all sorts of unpredictable results that might get out of control. One that comes to mind immediately is how Russia will react to it, considering that Trump wants the US to become chums with Putin\u2019s Russia. In Syria, for instance, Iran and Hezbollah are an important part of Russian-led operations to save Bashar al-Assad regime from IS and other terror groups. And for Trump IS is a major threat, which Russia is spearheading to combat and defeat. And if Iran\/Hezbollah are disabled\/destroyed and Iraq is regarded as Iran\u2019s proxy in the region, it would prove a welcome boon to IS and its ideology.
\nBut the US needs to show its power now and then to prove its credibility, as propounded in, what has come to be called, Ledeen Doctrine, named after Michael Ledeen, who is the co-author with Michael T. Flynn of a recent book: The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies. The so-called Ledeen Doctrine propounds that, \u201cEvery ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.\u201d But Iran is not a small crappy little country and throwing it against the wall might not be all that easy, leading to a chain of events not knowing where it will all end.
\nBut in this new world of cowboys and Indians, the new frontiers to subdue are not just Iran but much of the world. I examined in my last article how things are heating up in South China Sea, and even poor Mexico is a target. And the European Union is not sacrosanct as Trump would like more cases of Brexit-like defection in its ranks. He is unhappy with Germany as they don\u2019t buy enough American cars and keep expanding their exports to the United States.
\nAt the same time, he is unhappy with Merkel\u2019s Germany for letting in Syrian refugees, thus setting a terrible example and creating more potential for terrorist attacks. In any case, he doesn\u2019t feel comfortable with multilateral institutions, be it EU or United Nations as they are less likely to submit to US dictates. And NATO, in his view during the election campaign, is already obsolete, and they don\u2019t even pay their dues by spending more on defense.
\nAll in all, it is a very dangerous world out there with Donald Trump as America\u2019s President. This is best summed in the words of America\u2019s celebrated novelist, Philip Roth. In an email exchange with a reporter of the New Yorker, Roth wrote, \u201c… what is most terrifying is that he makes any and everything possible, including, of course the nuclear catastrophe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
S P Seth If you are Donald Trump, the world appears upside down. It wasn\u2019t always like that. From Trump\u2019s perspective, it is all the fault of the past US presidents for allowing other countries to take advantage of the United States, bringing it to its present state where things are out of control and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13242","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-article"},"yoast_head":"\n