Leaving stings in the wounds of others: Donald Trump and American foreign policy

AMIR AHMADI ARIAN 2 February 2017

If you are from the Middle East, Donald Trump is a sad reminder of virtually all the
mainstream politicians you have lived under, often supported by the US
government.

An Iraqi boy runs through a field covered with ammunition in the city of Al Dejeel,
about 70 km north of Baghdad, May 5, 2003. Picture by DPA DEUTSCHE PRESS-
AGENTUR DPA/PA Images. All rights reserved.
The bizarre behavior of Donald Trump during the presidential campaign defined the
strategy of the Clinton campaign: they abandoned in-depth discussions of the
issues, and focused on Trumps outlandish behavior. Democrats believed that if
they highlighted the flaws of Trump, the voters would understand the threat he
poses to the world, and eventually run away from him.

Donald Trump would be a sad reminder of virtually all the mainstream politicians
you have lived under
Now he is the president, and the rhetoric has not gone away. A deep sense of fear
and frustration aroused by his words and action, coupled with typical western self-
absorbedness that equates the potential end of the west as we know it with the end
of the world, has spawned innumerable doom-and-gloom scenarios.

You are less likely to buy into this scenario if you hail from other parts of the world,
the Middle East in particular. For you, Donald Trump would be a sad reminder of
virtually all the mainstream politicians you have lived under. People like him, often
worse than him by any measure, have come and gone, and none of them has
brought about the end of the world. You may also recall that many of those people
were thoroughly supported by successive US governments, which may make you
think, no wonder a man of their ilk ultimately made it into the White House.

The disturbing familiarity of Donald Trump

Lets look at what makes him supposedly unique. Donald Trump has Kleptocratic
proclivities, especially of nepotistic nature. In the campaign, he was constantly
flanked by his children, their mothers absent from the picture, as if Trump has given
birth to his children by himself. That fits his self-image as a deity of sorts. The family
makes no bones about its plans for the future: long before the dad was inaugurated,
Ivanka Trump put the bracelet she wore at 60 minutes interview up for sale, the
sons tried to make up to one million dollars out of a fishing opportunity with him.
More importantly, his son-in-law is appointed as a senior advisor to the president,
and the family seems to continue to be involved with highly sensitive decisions.

Brazen nepotism might be shocking to Americans, but it is run of the mill in the
Middle East. Saddam Husseins younger son was appointed to the head of the entire
Iraqi armed force, and the older one controlled TV, radio, newspapers, and had the
last say in the result of sports games. Hosni Mubaraks sons led the army and the
main political party in Egypt. Saudi Arabia and other gulf countries are run by royal
families, nepotism by definition. So was Iran under the Shah.

There is an overwhelming fear on the part of the media that Trump will crackdown
on freedom of press. During the campaign he frequently threatened to sue
journalists, open up libel laws, even suggested that freedom of press hampers the
fight against terrorism. In his first press conference as president-elect Trump
essentially harassed the media, and after the inauguration Sean Spicer, the new
press secretary, threatened to retaliate if the media refused to toe the line.

The governments that engaged in all those Trump-like activities were thoroughly
and unequivocally supported by successive US administrations
It would be stating the obvious to list what the press has endured in the Middle East.
A quick visit to Reporters Without Borders website shows that, in recent history, all
the major countries of the Middle East have been sticking to the bottom of the
freedom of press rankings. Jailing, beating up, torturing, and murdering journalists
for doing their jobs routinely happen in that corner of the world.

One issue seems to have rankled democrats the most: Russian interference with the
election. The US intelligence services have concluded that the Russians influenced
the US presidential election by engaging in cyber warfare to the benefit of Donald
Trump. The US political establishment regard it as the flagrant meddling of a hostile
foreign power in the most important political event in the country.

For many others around the world, it is hardly unprecedented. The great Chilean
author, Ariel Dorfman, wrote eloquently about how this story reminds him of the
1973 coup that overthrew Salvador Allende. Many Guatemalans must be feeling the
same. So do Iranians, who live, to this day, with the catastrophic consequences of
the 1953 coup, which nipped their nascent democracy in the bud.

The examples given are only a sample of the gamut. The same atrocities,
sometimes in larger scale and brutality, have been carried out in Syria, Iran, Libya,
Yemen, to mention a few. The examples above are chosen deliberately: the
governments that engaged in all those Trump-like activities were thoroughly and
unequivocally supported by successive US administrations. As for foreign
intervention in election results, the aforementioned coups were all staged by CIA,
and it is a very small fraction of the American interference with elections in other
countries.

The falsity of American exceptionalism

Donald Trump is the logical extension of the US foreign policy, the domestic
incarnation of what American governments wanted for many other nations over
time.
Over time, the term American exceptionalism, which initially meant to underline
democracy and equality, has come to imply military power, or worse, a sort of
muscle-flexing about how America is the only nation that can do whatever it wants
around the world and get away with it. And it is not only the hawkish republicans
that relish this military might. In a speech during the campaign, Hillary Clinton
talked about America as an exceptional nation with great military power, as if
they were the same. Ironically, Trump seems to dislike the term, probably because
he wants to take credit for making it happen again.

America, however, is no exception in terms of the consequences. What you do to

others will happen to you, it is only a matter of time. Donald Trump is the logical
extension of the US foreign policy, the domestic incarnation of what American
governments wanted for many other nations over time.

Comparisons with unpleasant political systems in the world abound in the US media
after the election. Fareed Zakaria argues that the US has become a new illiberal
democracy, the term he coined in 2007 to explain the political map of the world at
the time. Paul Krugman fears that America is turning into a Trumpistan, referring to
the central Asian political systems based on cult of personality. Absent from those
analyses is often the fact that successive American governments have aided and
abetted the vast majority of those illiberal democracies and stans. When you do
something for such a long time, it unavoidably seeps in, and becomes a part of who
you are.

There is no comprehensive account of the rise of Trump without discussing how the
Iraq war,
Without taking account of foreign policy, and regarding it as central to the rise of
Trump, a large piece of the puzzle remains missing. The foreign/domestic dichotomy
is false and misleading. When Thomas Friedman of the New York times says that
Trump presidency is a moral 9/11, only 9/11 was done to us from the outside, and
we did this to ourselves, he is missing the big picture. There is no comprehensive
account of 9/11 without discussing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Gulf
war, which made the Mujahedin shift their hatred from communists to the US, which
was their initial foster father. There is no comprehensive account of the rise of
Trump without discussing how the Iraq war, justified by the biggest lie in recent
history of politics, shattered confidence in political institutions, and opened the door
to cynics and con artists. None of those events could be understood in isolation
from the US foreign policy. The line drawn between what we did to ourselves, as
opposed to something they did to us, produces little more than gross
simplification.

In one of Aesop fables, a queen bee ascends to Olympus to ask Jupiter for sting.
She wants a weapon to defend her hive against the invaders. Jupiter, a big fan of
honey, agrees, under one condition: If you use your sting, it shall remain in the
wound you make, and then you will die from the loss of it.

Americas military power is a set of stings bestowed upon it by the gods of

twentieth century, whoever they might be. America has used them recklessly,
inattentive to the consequences. She has left her stings in the wounds of Vietnam,
central America, the Middle East, depleting itself out in the process, turning itself
into a husk of what it was. That recklessness paved the way for Donald Trump: a
hollow man who arrived at the right moment to take over a hollow body.