The John Batchelor Show, January 9
January 11, 2019 "Information Clearing House"
- President Trump was wrong
in asserting that the United States destroyed the Islamic State’s
territorial statehood in a large part of Syria—Russia and its allies
accomplished that—but he is right in proposing to withdraw some 2,000
American forces from that tragically war-ravaged country. The small
American contingent serves no positive combat or strategic purpose
unless it is to thwart the Russian-led peace negotiations now
underway or to serve as a beachhead for a US war against Iran. Still
worse, its presence represents a constant risk that American military
personnel could be killed by Russian forces also operating in that
relatively small area, thereby turning the new Cold War into a very
hot conflict, even if inadvertently. Whether or not Trump understood
this danger, his decision, if actually implemented—it is being
fiercely resisted in Washington—will make US-Russian relations, and
thus the world, somewhat safer.
Nonetheless, Trump’s decision on Syria, coupled with his
order to reduce US forces in Afghanistan by half, has been “condemned,”
as The New York Times approvingly reported, “across the
ideological spectrum,” by “the left and right.” Analyzing these
condemnations, particularly in the opinion-shaping New York Times
and Washington Post and on interminable (and substantially
uninformed) MSNBC and CNN segments, again reveals the alarming thinking
that is deeply embedded in the US bipartisan policy-media
establishment.
First, no foreign-policy initiative undertaken by President
Trump, however wise it may be in regard to US national interests, will be
accepted by that establishment. Any prominent political figure who does so
will promptly and falsely be branded, in the malign spirit of Russiagate,
as “pro-Putin,” or,
as was Senator Rand Paul, arguably the only foreign-policy statesman in
the senate today, “an isolationist.” This is unprecedented in modern
American history. Not even Richard Nixon was subject to such establishment
constraints on his ability to conduct national-security policy during the
Watergate scandals.
Second, not surprisingly, the condemnations of Trump’s
decision are infused with escalating, but still unproven, Russiagate
allegations of the president’s “collusion” with the Kremlin. Thus, equally
predictably,
the Times finds a Moscow source to say, of the withdrawals,
“Trump is God’s gift that keeps on giving” to Putin. (In fact, it is not
clear that the Kremlin is eager to see the United States withdraw from
either Syria or Afghanistan, as this would leave Russia alone with what it
regards as common terrorist enemies.) Closer to home, there is the newly
reelected Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who, when asked about Trump’s
policies and Russian President Putin,
told MSNBC’s Joy Reid: “I think that the president’s relationship with
thugs all over the world is appalling. Vladimir Putin, really? Really? I
think it’s dangerous.” By this “leadership” reasoning, Trump should be the
first US president since FDR to have no “relationship” whatsoever with a
Kremlin leader. And to the extent that Pelosi speaks for the Democratic
Party, it can no longer be considered a party of American national
security.
But, third, something larger than even anti-Trumpism plays
a major role in condemnations of the president’s withdrawal decisions:
imperial thinking about America’s rightful role in the world. Euphemisms
abound, but, if not an entreaty to American empire, what else could
the New York Times’ David Sanger mean when he writes of a
“world order that the United States has led for the 79 years since World
War II,” and complains that Trump is reducing “the global footprint needed
to keep that order together”? Or when President Obama’s national-security
adviser Susan Rice
bemoans Trump’s failures in “preserving American global leadership,”
which a Times lead editorial insists is an “
imperative”? Or when General James Mattis
in his letter of resignation echoes President Bill Clinton’s secretary
of state Madeline Albright—and Obama himself—in asserting that “the US
remains the indispensable nation in the free world”? We cannot be
surprised. Such “global” imperial thinking has informed US foreign-policy
decision-making for decades—it’s taught in our schools of international
relations—and particularly the many disastrous, anti-“order” wars it has
produced.
Fourth, and characteristic of empires and imperial
thinking, there is the valorization of generals. Perhaps the most
widespread and revealing criticism of Trump’s withdrawal decisions is that
he did not heed the advice of his generals, the undistinguished, uninspired
Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis in particular. The pseudo-martyrdom and heroizing of
Mattis, especially by the Democratic Party and its media, remind us that
the party had earlier, in its Russiagate allegations, valorized US
intelligence agencies, and, having taken control of the House, evidently
intends to continue to do so. Anti-Trumpism is creating political cults of
US intelligence and military institutions. What does this tell us about
today’s Democratic Party? More profoundly, what does this tell us about an
American Republic purportedly based on civilian rule?
Finally, and potentially tragically, Trump’s announcement
of the Syrian withdrawal was the moment for a discussion of the long
imperative US alliance with Russia against international terrorism, a
Russia whose intelligence capabilities are unmatched in this regard.
(Recall, for example, Moscow’s disregarded warnings about one of the
brothers who set off bombs during the Boston Marathon.) Such an alliance
has been on offer by Putin since 9/11. President George W. Bush completely
disregarded it. Obama flirted with the offer but backed (or was pushed)
away. Trump opened the door for such a discussion, as indeed he has since
his presidential candidacy, but now again, at this most opportune moment,
there has not been a hint of it in our political-media establishment.
Instead, a national security imperative has been treated as “
treacherous.”
In this context, there is Trump’s remarkable, but
little-noted or forgotten, tweet of December 3 calling on the presidents of
Russia and China to join him in “talking about a meaningful halt to what
has become a major and uncontrollable Arms Race.” If Trump acts on this
essential overture, as we must hope he will, will it too be traduced as
“treacherous”—also for the first time in American history? If so, it will
again confirm my often-expressed thesis that powerful forces in America
would prefer trying to impeach the president to avoiding a military
catastrophe. And that those forces, not President Trump or Putin, are now
the gravest threat to American national security.
(This commentary is based on the most recent of Cohen’s
weekly discussions with John Batchelor on the new US-Russian Cold War. The
podcast is
here. Previous installments, now in their fifth year, are at
TheNation.com.)