Despite the fact that the Trump campaign team refuses to accept the result of the 2020 U.S. presidential election that so many networks have called in Joe Biden’s favor, it is fair to say that (unless U.S. President Donald Trump possesses substantial evidence that voter fraud took place across the U.S. during the time that mail-in ballots were being posted) he has lost the election.

As Biden prepares to become president of the most powerful country in the world over the next few months, his administration will have an impact on foreign policy no matter what. Although he will have a completely different vision to Trump, he cannot escape the latter’s legacy on foreign policy, which is far better than many of his critics would like to believe.

Trump Has a Successful Legacy in the Middle East

Biden will inherit Trump’s mostly successful Middle Eastern peace process. The current U.S. President presided over normalization deals with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain that resulted in both nations accepting Israel’s legitimacy.

The incoming president has made it clear that he would not reverse Trump’s decision to relocate the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, which did not thwart the current President’s later efforts to encourage peace in the Middle East.

The Biden team released a positive statement in support of the Abraham Accords when they were signed, and it will be interesting to see whether a Biden administration will push for Saudi Arabia to normalize its relations with Israel. That would be a huge victory for a Biden presidency, but it is important to remember that Riyadh became open to the idea of normalized relations with Israel under a Trump administration.

Iran May Still Pose Problems for Biden

The former vice president has made it abundantly clear that he opposed Trump’s decision to withdraw from Obama’s Iran Deal, yet he will be confronting an Iranian regime that is far more confrontational than the one he dealt with during his final days as vice president.

U.S. Middle East envoy Avi Berkowitz said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post last month that he is worried a Biden administration would appease Iran and that this could have negative ramifications for the U.S.’s efforts to push for normalization deals.

Despite this, a change of president does not mean Tehran will suddenly shift its strategy. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on November 4 that it does not matter who wins the 2020 U.S. election, his country has planned for ‘difficult conditions’ in the future. He also called for a return to ‘international and multilateral accords.’

Biden has hinted that he will lift sanctions against Iran and return to the 2015 deal, but that might be easier said than done if Tehran also does not play by the rules. The incoming president may have to draft an entirely new agreement, but his opponents will hold him to account if it is just as soft as Obama’s pact was.

Biden Must Be Tough on China

In Asia, the former vice president cannot ignore the growing threat that China poses. Trump was the first U.S. leader to raise alarm about Beijing’s growing influence. Although Biden is unlikely to start another trade war with China, the incoming president has referred to Chinese President Xi Jinping as ‘a thug.’ He has no detailed policies as to how he will tackle Beijing, but his rhetoric suggests that he has learned from the Trump administration’s approach toward America’s new adversary. Regardless, actions always speak louder than words.

Although Biden campaigned to end Trump’s presidency, the latter’s impact on foreign relations means it will be impossible for the incoming president not to continue with the Trump administration’s Middle East peace initiatives, and the growing threat that China poses. Biden will be very different to the current President when it comes to Europe and climate change, but for those who were hoping that a Biden presidency would result in dramatic changes in U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East and Beijing, they should think again.

L'articolo Why Biden Won’t be Able To Escape Trump’s Foreign Policy Legacy proviene da InsideOver.

It has been about a month since the US killed Iranian leader Qasem Soleimani. This was a controversial move at the time and led to speculation about the beginning of World War III. In fact, so many Americans were worried about imminent war that they crashed the selective service site that registers for the military draft. However, several days later Iran launched a counterattack that was so impotent that it was virtually meaningless. They fired rockets at a US base, but warned Iraqi forces (and hence the entire base) that it was coming beforehand. A few American troops reportedly received concussion-like symptoms but US President Donald Trump rightly declared victory in the standoff and moved on.

Policy Experts: Trump’s Hit On Soleimani Was The Right Call

Policy experts have reluctantly agreed that Trump’s decision to kill Soleimani was a success. But the same elites seem incapable of acknowledging a Trump victory and have spent a great deal of time trying to explain it away.

Henry Kissinger said that Trump might be a figure that forces people to “give up old pretenses, [but] “it doesn’t necessarily mean that he knows this, or that he is considering any great alternative. It could just be an accident.” Even in bashing Trump the elites can’t help themselves and use too many words. Put simply, Kissinger said that Trump has success but is too dumb to know why or how he is succeeding in any case.

‘Trumportunities’

Another analyst called them, “Trumportunities.” This term describes a belief that Trump can sometimes solve problems but does so incredibly poorly or by mistake. Others said that Trump has the advantage of raw military power and not necessarily any foreign policy insight whatsoever.

These repsonses all have a common theme that I noticed years ago. In 2018 the National Interest published an interesting article that discussed how Trump is forcing China to reassess its geopolitical and economic strategy. The article was fascinating because I’ve never seen a piece that spent so much time undermining its own thesis statement. The result was a hilarious article that praised Trump’s China strategy while spending most of its time attacking him.

The Partisan’s Media’s Ignorant View Of Trump

In a multitude of areas ranging from Iran to China Trump is often criticized by elites for his capriciousness and unstable foreign policy. The partisan media hyper obsess over his tweets and label him an idiot. Analysts write verbose columns using fancy words and obscure phrases that describe the dangers Trump supposedly makes worse or ignores. They can’t understand how somebody who they claim is such an idiot succeeds in areas they’ve spent years researching and politely offering delicate plans to solve.  But the is reality is that a factory worker with a high school education could plainly see in a single word what elites fail to realize.  Trump is winning.

Trump Is Winning

Trump’s forceful and even obnoxious prodding of European allies has produced real changes. All the major naval powers, for example, such as Australia, Japan, Britain, France and South Korea have stepped up freedom of navigation patrols in the South China Sea. NATO allies snicker about Trump’s egotistical press conferences on a hot mic, but they have also increased their military spending as he has repeatedly demanded they do. This is something that numerous presidents have tried to do and failed.

All of the above observations also apply to the situation with Iran. The media and partisan foreign policy elites are good at talking and worrying. On a private email chained I read that this strike would cause an uprising like Muqtada Al Sadr’s in 2003 and essentially lose Iraq for the United States. Foreign policy thinkers in the e-mail chain worried Trump would ruin efforts against ISIS, start a regional war, encourage more attacks, and generally set the region on fire.

Elitist Worries Vs. Ground Realities

But the reality was far different. Trump offered restrained countermeasures during months of Iranian provocation ranging from attacks on oil tankers, oil fields, and the American embassy. Finally Trump had enough and ordered the stunning attack on Soleimani. Despite the concerns of the elites his instincts to kill a top Iranian leader properly cowed Iran. Generals like David Petraeus even praised this action for reestablishing America’s deterrence strategy in the region. The region is fraught with danger and there may be further negative consequences due to Trump’s strike. But his gut impulse and decisions regarding Iran, like the South China Sea and NATO have produced results that often eluded past presidents.

The elites have trouble accepting the idea that somebody as boorish as Donald Trump—and seemingly unschooled in foreign affairs—could produce tangible foreign policy results that have beguiled other, more “cerebral” presidents. But when it comes to Iranian relations, NATO, or restraining Chinese aggression in the South China Sea, Trump’s instincts to take decisive action are often better than the foreign policy elites and they must try and deny it any way they can to try to stay credible.

L'articolo Are Trump’s Foreign Policy Successes Just An Accident? proviene da InsideOver.