Stephen Wertheim
@stephenwertheim
America in the world, past and present / Senior Fellow, American Statecraft Program, @carnegieendowment.org / Visiting Lecturer, Yale Law School / Historian and author of Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy / Views my own, obviously
Three longstanding elements of U.S. policy have led the United States to war and defeat in Iran:
U.S. foreign policy is beset by virtue-signaling moralism claiming to save the world and vice-signaling immoralism seeking to dominate the world — often amounting to the same thing.
If this is the logic Trump is acting on, he’ll be at war with Iran for the rest of his presidency.
Forget freedom of navigation: it’s now a battle for whose piracy will prevail. Perfect example of what happens when liberal internationalists hitch their wagon to Trump.
As Trump seeks a massive hike in military spending to $1.5 trillion per year, a majority of Americans, 55%, want to decrease military spending. Only 12% want to increase it.
"Asked who is most responsible for the war, a plurality of Americans (30%) blame the United States. About as many blame Iran (28%) and slightly fewer blame Israel (24%)." So 54% of Americans blame the United States or Israel for the war. Just 28% blame Iran.
When I criticized Trump's National Security Strategy in January for renouncing but maintaining U.S. military primacy, I worried I was being unfair. Unfortunately I worry no longer.
Just 28% of Americans now see China as an enemy as opposed to a competitor or partner.
What caused Iran to do one of the very few things that can genuinely damage the permanent interest the United States has in the Middle East, to close down the Strait of Hormuz? A U.S. attack on Iran. An attack aimed at the survival of the regime, which gave it the incentive to close the strait.
More Americans need to connect the hubris behind unwise wars with the hubris behind the larger strategy of "peace through strength"
Trump's war is unpopular in the United States, I told @aljazeera.com, but tragically that may lead Trump to escalate in a bid to force Iran to capitulate or theatrically appear to have ended the war on Trump's terms.
3. This war has historically low support from the American public. But Trump is mainly playing to the history books, as he imagines them, rather than actual living people.
2. U.S. domestic politics — its inflation of Iran's threat and intolerance of diplomatic deals — made this war possible. Trump talks of deals but breaks them more than he makes them.
I joined @news.dw.com to discuss the latest on the Iran war. I argued: 1. The maximalist ceasefire proposals from both sides suggest the war's escalation is more likely than its termination.
This Delcys of the World map can help Trump figure out which countries have Delcys and which do not
I told @nytimes.com that Trump practices the "punch down doctrine": Bully small countries he thinks he can dominate. Where he can't, try to accommodate.
I told @thetimes.com that @aoc.bsky.social's answer on Taiwan was not only reasonable but better than Biden's:
There will be U.S. foreign policy after Trump. I look forward to discussing its contours on Friday 9 am at @munsecconf.bsky.social. Spots are open for registration.
Only 35% of Americans say the United States has more global power and influence than China does. I am with the 19% who say the United States is more powerful than China — but that’s the least popular of the three options polled in the new @carnegieendowment.org / YouGov survey.
President Biden said the United States was “the indispensable nation” that “holds the world together.” But a large majority of Democrats say the United States is one of several powerful nations — not the single most powerful.
Another remarkable finding: A solid majority of Americans — 62 percent — say their lives would not get worse if China surpassed the United States in global power and influence.
This finding surprised me: 47% of Americans say China is already more powerful than the United States or will be within 5 years. Only one-quarter think China will never overtake the United States.
Q: As President Donald Trump approaches the first anniversary of his inauguration, if you were to choose a single word to characterize the defining feature of his foreign policy over the past year, what would it be? Me: Thuggish. Extortionate. Frenzied. Myopic.
Can Democrats tell a compelling story about America's role in the world?
Trump gets way too much credit for talking about peace without delivering it. (And much of what he says — "peace through strength," no nation-building wars — is nothing new.) Full podcast here: youtu.be/TvXCbfwQfKM?...
I joined Morning Joe to discuss Trump's failure to end wars and avoid new ones — the standard he set for himself in his inaugural address.
