Trump, Peacemaker?

Politics

Trump, Peacemaker?

The once and future president can effect an epochal change in American foreign policy.

President-elect Donald Trump has a real opportunity to reshape American foreign policy, beyond what he did in his first term. He has already expanded the discourse on the subject among Republicans from what was mostly a shared monologue from George W. Bush to Mitt Romney.

Like Ronald Reagan 44 years ago, Trump was and to some extent still is caricatured as a warmonger. But despite his belief in U.S. military power and the righteousness of the anticommunist cause, “Ronnie Raygun” had countervailing antipathies toward killing and understood that nobody wins a nuclear war. Reagan believed in the “peace” part of peace through strength as much as the “strength” part.

The same can be said of Trump, who is less ideological than Reagan in ways that both bode well and poorly for the success of his foreign-policy rebuild. He has a diverse national-security team advising him, including some whose views may be in a state of flux. Smart people interpret this in different ways. Trump’s first term was decidedly a mixed bag on matters of war and peace.

When you hear talk of a “soft invasion” of Mexico, though there are greater American interests at stake there than in much of the Middle East, and Trumpian empire-building it is difficult to avoid recalling John Kerry’s pleas for an “unbelievably small” war in Syria.

It was one of the low points of Trump’s first term that to me underscores that he was actually different from the Lindsey Grahams of the world, even if he might occasionally take their advice: the Qasem Soleimani strike. Soleimani was a menace, but a war with Iran and more violence against our forces in Iraq were not in the U.S. interest. As editor of The American Conservative at the time, I led this magazine in opposition to what Trump was doing. Tucker Carlson, then at Fox News, also rallied against another endless war.

Iran retaliated. This gave Trump an opportunity for escalation that many Republicans would have taken and was encouraged by some in his orbit. Yet Trump did not take the bait. Soon other crises intervened and America turned its focus more or less inward.

The risk was, and is, there. But Trump would rather go down in history as a dealmaker than a warmaker. That is central to his conception of himself and important to his foreign-policy instincts. And he may be more equipped for negotiations with adversaries abroad than earnest ideological opponents in Congress at home.

Trump has the domestic political cover to talk to people with whom Joe Biden or Kamala Harris could not. The forces opposed to such diplomacy within the GOP and on the right more broadly have been effectively marginalized by Trump’s eight years as leader of the party. Most are defenestrated Never Trumpers exiting stage left.

If Trump has a mandate for anything after November, it is securing our own borders rather than redrawing those of other lands. That is not to say he cannot misread his moment, as so many of his predecessors have done, largely to their own detriment. But there is a reason the Trump phenomenon has persisted for nearly a decade through considerable adversity, some of it self-inflicted.

In the coming months, a newly inaugurated Trump will begin talks to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. He will face the temptation, which he has so far resisted, to become involved in Syria. He will need to deal with Iran. The war in Gaza continues. Moscow and Tehran have experienced setbacks which he will be advised to capitalize on in different ways.

During this season of peace where many feel a longing for stability, there remains a great deal of war and chaos. The tumultuous Trump seems like an unlikely political figure to bring an end to all of this, which is one of the reasons he was voted out in 2020. And yet the opening is there.

Let us pray that he chooses to take it and proves able to manage it skillfully in the American interest. 

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