Sunday, January 22nd., 2017
CFR Gives Trump Advice, Not Realizing That the New World Order Has Passed Away
CFR Gives Trump Advice, Not Realizing That the New World Order Has Passed Away
©
Photo: pixabay
Last
week, Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass penned an
op-ed in the Wall Street Journal urging Donald Trump not to "make any
sudden moves." Haas is right, conservative pundit Pat Buchanan noted, in
arguing against rash action. But what CFR shadow government types still
don't seem to realize is that their New World Order has died.
In an op-ed addressed directly to the new President, Haass emphasized
that ripping up the Iran deal, moving the US Embassy in Israel
to Jerusalem, or shooting down a North Korean missile during a test
would only "make things worse," with no action being better than the
wrong action.
Warning
of the dangers of the US's continuing tensions with Russia in Eastern
Europe and the conflict with China in Asia, the commentator argued that
"the imperative of the new era is that the great nuclear powers – China,
Russia, the United States – no do to each other what Britain, France,
and Germany did to each other a century ago over a dead archduke."
Ultimately, instead of pursuing any sort of imperial agenda,
"President Trump should build the wall, secure the border, impose
tariffs, cut taxes, free up the American economy, bring the factories
home, create millions of jobs, and keep us out of any new wars,"
Buchanan concluded.
Russian observers are also broadly hopeful that the new president will pursue a new kind of foreign policy, for the sake of the US and the world.
Andrei Shushentsov, program director of the Valdai International Discussion Club, recently said that it can be hoped that the US's powerful military will be used more sparingly, with a 'business plan-type' cost-benefit analysis being made before the US intervenes in a conflict or moves troops around.
Furthermore,
despite his flamboyant nature and non-traditional political style,
Shushentsov stressed that Trump's economy-centric positions on global
issues are actually very consistent, with old interviews from the 1980s
and 1990s demonstrating that they have changed little over many years.
For his part, Igor Pshenichnikov, advisor to the director of the
Russian Institute of Strategic Studies, is more pessimistic
about Trump's ability to 'change the world'. According to the analyst,
the weight of the US presidency as an institution makes it very
difficult for any incoming leader to make speedy and lasting changes,
particularly when it comes to foreign policy.
But Kissinger is also a prominent member of the CFR, demonstrating the very difficult game the Trump administration will have to play in accommodating the US's nationalist and sovereigntist interests with those of powerful globalist forces.
Commenting on Haass' advice in his column for The American Conservative, veteran political commentator Pat Buchanan noted
that "in arguing against rash action, Haass is correct. Where the CFR
and the establishment are wrong, and Donald Trump is right, however, is
in recognizing the new world we have entered."
"The
old order," dating back to the Cold War and the twilight of the
post-Cold War world, "is passing away," Buchanan stressed, its
institutions, treaties and alliances "ceasing to be relevant" and
incapable of being sustained any longer. Instead, he suggested, economic
patriotism and nationalism opposed to globalism, ideas that are
"personified by Trump, see everywhere ascendant."
In fact, the pundit argued, "the greatest danger for President Trump
is that the movement he led will be abandoned, its hopes dashed," and
that "the agenda that Trump rejected and routed will be reimposed by a
Republican Establishment and its collaborators in politics and the
press."
According to Buchanan, Trump had "read the
nation right" when he realized that the greatest threats to Western
civilization come not from Russia, as during the Cold War, but from the
Global South – from unchecked immigration and the threat of radical
Islamist terrorism.
"America's bleeding border is what concerns Americans, not the
borders of Estonia, South Korea, Kuwait, or the South China Sea," the
observer noted. And when Trump says that NATO is "obsolete," that's
because it makes no sense poking the Russian bear by moving the alliance
to Russia's borders, according to Buchanan.
Admonishing Europe's elites and the "Davos
crowd" for their inability to comprehend the importance of national
identity and economic as well as political sovereignty, Buchanan
stressed that if President Trump becomes a truly "transformational
president," he "will spurn an establishment [that is] desperately
seeking to hold onto the world that is passing away."
©
AP Photo/ Andrew Harnik
Russian observers are also broadly hopeful that the new president will pursue a new kind of foreign policy, for the sake of the US and the world.
Andrei Shushentsov, program director of the Valdai International Discussion Club, recently said that it can be hoped that the US's powerful military will be used more sparingly, with a 'business plan-type' cost-benefit analysis being made before the US intervenes in a conflict or moves troops around.
In other words, the hope is that "he will not
invade Libya just because this seems like a good idea, with open-ended
objectives and an open-ended withdrawal date. Under Trump even military
plans will likely look like a business plan. This will probably give a
certain degree of predictability to US policy."
©
REUTERS/ Carlo Allegri
The question, Pshenichnikov suggested,
is "who is stronger" among Trump's inner circle, and who will be able
to pull him in which direction on one matter or another. In foreign
policy in particularly, much will depend on Pentagon Chief James Mattis,
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and National Security Advisor Michael
Flynn, but possibly also former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who
may help Trump mediate the normalization of relations with Moscow, the
observer noted.
Kissinger, Pshenichnikov recalled, sees Russia as a "weakened,
traumatized, post-imperial" country, one that wants to be recognized as
"a great power, as an equal, and not as a supplicant in an
American-designed system." Dealing with Russia means "deal-making,
but also understanding," according to Kissinger.But Kissinger is also a prominent member of the CFR, demonstrating the very difficult game the Trump administration will have to play in accommodating the US's nationalist and sovereigntist interests with those of powerful globalist forces.