Quote (IceMage @ Aug 13 2020 03:27pm)
To me this just shows how completely unrealistic you are towards foreign policy... as if it's always possible to get a great outcome. Bush tried maximum pressure to force regime change, Obama cut a deal to stop Iran's nuclear program, and it was working, until Trump brought back the Bush playbook of naive dreams of regime change. In the process, we've ensured that another deal can't happen because the hardliners, who never wanted a deal, were shown to be right that the US can't keep it's word. The regime is still standing, and their behavior has been troublesome. What lesson should North Korea take from that? Obama tried to counter China by deepening our economic ties to their neighbors, which would probably have been more effective than Trump's unilateral trade war. But the reality show star killed that deal as well.
Sure, you can point to individual countries where our alliances are stronger, like Israel and Saudi Arabia. But on the whole, you'd have to admit that US alliances under Bush got worse, and under Trump have gotten worse. If Trump wins a second term there's no telling how destructive it will be for our alliances. He'd probably pull us out of NATO, which at least the pre-Trump Bogie might care about.
It isn't always possible to get a good outcome. In the case of Iran, sanctions were successful and domestic unrest was destabilizing the regime. That's not a "good" outcome, as the regime continues to exist, but it's not a bad one either, as the ability of Iran to project force regionally has been greatly reduced, and domestic unrest was making interventionism costly.
Obama negotiated poorly from a position of strength and cut a desperate deal to appease a donestic audience (and presumably bolster those Nobel Peace prize credentials). The deal gave Iran a clear roadmap to a bomb via sunset provisions, along with suspect enforcement (as Iran itself said, military sites were "off limits") and hundreds of billions of dollars in effective monetary relief.
Iran reacted predictably, and proceeded to wage proxy wars throughout the region that have continued to this day. The Gulf states felt abandoned, and that insecurity and paranoia has manifested itself in the Saudi invasion of Yemen.
I've been a long-standing proponent of the TPP, although we'll never really know how exactly it might have looked. Trump was wrong to discontinue talks. But he has been right to aggressively press American interests on China to a greater degree than any previous administration in recent memory. Trump is not wrong to pressure American allies into renegotiating imbalanced trade treaties. Once upon a time the United States might have been able to finance the prosperity of other, poorer nations. But they're no longer poor, and the United States can no longer afford the cost.
Trump should not and will not pull the United States out of NATO, but it is long past time that the United States demand greater contributions from our European allies, especially when it comes to defending European affairs. The United States is fundamentally a Pacific power, and the US won't always have the luxury of fighting wars on all fronts at all times. As the United States pivots to Asia, Europe will have to do more to manage its own affairs.