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Russia, Iran and Trump’s Shock-and-Awe Foreign Policy
The president tries to reconcile restrainers and hawks with his strategic goals.
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After nearly six years in the White House and more than a decade at the center of American politics, Donald Trump can still shock the world. In the past week alone, he has hinted at new attacks on Iran after the midterm elections, said that the U.S. will buy diesel fuel from Russia as American officials warned Europeans about a possible cutoff of weapons, announced an “energy cease-fire” that appeared to catch Kyiv by surprise, mused publicly about resuming hostilities against the Houthis, and called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to step aside.
The president’s latest burst of diplomatic activity reflects his convictions about Iran, Russia, the importance of energy and the unimportance of Europe. He has seen Iran as a threat to the U.S. since the 1980s and believes that an Iranian nuclear weapon or Iranian domination of the Persian Gulf’s energy resources would threaten American interests. He believes that fossil fuels will remain a key element of geopolitical and economic power and wants the U.S. to play the predominant role in the Gulf.
Similarly, Mr. Trump believes that the U.S. and Russia have overlapping interests in preventing Moscow from becoming Beijing’s junior partner, countering Sunni Islamist militancy, and managing their roles as major energy producers. Mr. Trump and Vladimir Putin also share a contempt for what they agree is the civilizational suicide embraced by modern European liberals. Washington and Moscow in this view shouldn’t be divided by anything as petty as the nationalistic ambitions of Ukraine or the moans of its liberal supporters in Europe.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump knows that his political coalition is divided into restrainer and hawkish wings. The hawks want tough policies against both Russia and Iran. The restrainers want the U.S. to make up with Moscow and leave the Middle East alone.
Mr. Trump has sought to reconcile his own instincts with the wishes of his base by pursuing a divided policy. While never giving anybody everything, in general he’s given the hawks more influence over Iran policy while catering to restrainer sensibilities on Russia. As he contemplates a longer and messier war in the Middle East, Mr. Trump wants to satisfy his restrainer allies with a more aggressive attempt to build ties to Moscow. That he can present his Russia diplomacy as an effort to secure cheaper fuel as the midterms approach is an added benefit.
But however reasonable this policy mix may look to the White House, the public doesn’t like the Iran war and the high fuel prices it brings, and it doesn’t like accommodating Russia. Playing to the hawks in the Gulf and to the restrainers on Russia may distribute the pain evenly across Mr. Trump’s coalition, but judging from the polls, the coalition is shrinking. Mr. Trump’s presidency appears to be entering a new and from his point of view perhaps less satisfactory stage.
It is faith in Mr. Trump, not ideology, that ultimately holds the fractious MAGA coalition together. As the believers see it, Mr. Trump can close the border and eliminate anti-American governments across the Western Hemisphere. He can stop drug smuggling and break the cartels. He can reshore manufacturing, unleashing a golden age of blue-collar prosperity. He can reverse the tide of decadence and secularism. He can beat back the advance of interfering bureaucrats and anti-American globalists. His methods may sometimes look strange or even distasteful, but nobody can deliver what he does.
To keep the enchantment alive, Mr. Trump must keep Americans and the world fixated on the spectacle of the Trump Show. And he must keep the gap between glittering promise and inevitably disappointing results to a minimum.
Wars make the former task easier but complicate the latter. Conflicts make for compelling theater, and nobody understands this better than Mr. Trump. But wars also turn out to be hard to spin. Despite the president’s efforts, the war between Russia and Ukraine continues to escalate. Despite his claims about Iran’s weakness and helplessness, gasoline and diesel prices remain high and reports about the vulnerability of American bases in the Gulf to Iranian missiles persist. Where’s the magic, supporters are beginning to wonder.
Disenchantment starts slowly but can quickly go viral. With polls pointing to tough midterms for Republicans, lame-duck status becoming more of a concern, and interest rates and inflation hitting voters, Mr. Trump may be facing the hardest years of his long career. It could be a lonely struggle. Not only do America’s adversaries want him to fail, so do many of our allies.
Shock-and-awe foreign policy offers hope of breakthroughs that would shore up the president’s position. The world should brace for more Trump shocks. He has no incentive to calm things down.
