Isolationism creeps back over America, as the president looks out for himself
I do not believe we can be the world's police, but the way Trump is withdrawing and the reason--just to keep a campaign promise--is so so wrong!
Isolationism creeps back over America, as the president looks out for himself
By Bill Schneider, opinion contributor — 11/03/19 11:00 AM EST
For 72 years, the United States has acknowledged international as well as national interests. President Bill Clinton said in 1997, “America stands alone as the world’s indispensable nation.” No more. It ended this month when President Donald Trump withdrew U.S. forces from Syria, saying, “Let someone else fight over this long bloodstained sand.”
Since World War II, whenever there has been a serious threat to world order or to humanitarian values, one rule has applied: If the United States doesn’t do anything, nothing will happen.
............Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a decorated U.S. army officer who serves on the National Security Council (and who listened to President Trump’s July 25 telephone conversation with the president of Ukraine) told House impeachment investigators that Trump’s pressure on Ukraine was not in America’s national interest. “I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen,” Vindman said, “and I was worried about the implications for the U.S. government’s support of Ukraine.”
What interest was President Trump pursuing in Ukraine and Syria? The American people know the answer. The Quinnipiac poll asked them whether they believe that “in his dealings with Ukraine, President Trump was pursuing the national interest or his own personal interest?” By nearly two to one (59 to 33 percent) they said “his own personal interest.”
In Trump’s foreign policy, Trump’s personal interest reigns supreme.
Bill Schneider is a professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University and author of ‘Standoff: How America Became Ungovernable’ (Simon & Schuster).