Perhaps if I had written this article six months ago and I had referred to the remarks of renowned political and economic experts and analyzers in the world, it could have to some extent seemed unbelievable but today by rise of undisputable power of Iran in the West Asia and the region, and above all undisputable dominance on the strategic waters of Persian Gulf where 30 percent of the world energy lies, as well as impotence of the West to response to such a power, one can dare to say that Western foundations and basics are gradually diminishing against the logic of resistance and this remark and belief has been acknowledged and made by independent media and intellectuals and they all have predicted the collapse.

IRAN NEWS POLITICAL DESK

On this issue, Professor Eliot Cohen, Dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and the author of book “The Big Stick: the Limits of Soft Power and the Necessity of Military Force” wrote an article which was published in American magazine of international relations Foreign Affairs. Maybe one can consider it as his major approach towards the U.S. foreign policy and the role of the country in the world after the Cold War. The professor in his article believes that after the Cold War, influence and dominance of Washington in the world, despite what its allies think, has not been an international approach and it means that the United States’ post–Cold War foreign policy, even if he does not win 2020, will last beyond him.

In the article Cohen says that this surface-level calm should not make the Americans distract from a building crisis of U.S. foreign policy, of which Trump is both a symptom and a cause. The current policy of the U.S. has impaired the trust of its allies and it plays with international institutions and Trump’s decisions regarding the order based on the liberalism that the U.S. has been trying to stabilize it in the past eight decades, deride it.

According to Cohen, Trump’s decisions and remarks would damage the reputation of the U.S. in the world and its allies. Even in the latest poll conducted by Pew Research Center, citizens of 25 countries, majority believed Vladimir Putin, Angell Merkel and Xi Jinping were more trustful and capable than Trump. This means that in the critical conditions and dilemma, the U.S. allies prefer cooperation with Russia and China than the U.S.

The list of tensions which has been created by Trump in the U.S. foreign policy has surged significantly in the past two years and unlike the past years, current tensions have been with its allies than with the enemies.

On trade, his administration blew up the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), only to replace it with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. What is more serious, Trump began a steadily mounting trade war with China while intensifying U.S. complaints about intellectual property theft, all in the context of increasingly aggressive interactions between Chinese forces and U.S. warships in the South China Sea. Such moves are risky, but they have not yet come back to bite him.

On North Korea, Trump dialed back his initial threats to unleash “fire and fury” and abruptly shifted toward placating the regime. He suspended U.S.–South Korean joint military exercises, met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and declared at a September 2018 rally that he and Kim “fell in love.” These actions do not appear to have had any real effect on the North Korean nuclear program, however.

On Iran, Trump reversed the Obama administration’s more accommodating policy, pulling out of the nuclear deal with the country in May 2018 and hitting Tehran with a barrage of financial sanctions throughout the summer and fall. And on Russia, the government has continued with a confrontational policy despite the president’s friendly rhetoric.

The United States has grown closer to India and strengthened relations with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Israel could not be happier with the Trump administration as he looked the other way as Israel denied entry to young Americans affiliated with the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. Trump closed his eyes on his early promises and kept his forces in the scene in order to curtain Iran’s influence in Syria. U.S. campaigns against the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Islamic State (or ISIS) in Iraq and Syria, and Islamist movements in Africa carry on apace, with little change from the Obama administration.

Cohen concluded, “Trump’s policy seems driven by sporadic fits of belligerence or enthusiasm, unrelated to any coherent set of objectives or methods for achieving them. Yet on many questions of substance, the Trump administration, erratic though it is, has kept U.S. foreign policy more or less intact.”

The professor also deplores and believes that If the Americans only have an eye their short term national interests and do not protect peace through permanent ties with their allies and international rules and norms, all should expect another world war, and if the U.S. aggressive economic policies continue, an economic crisis like what happened in the 1930 will happen and it could create the conditions for totalitarian ideologies to flourish.

New generation of the U.S. in its serious and basic slogan of “America First” conveys this message to Trump and the world, “Era of imperialism has come to its end and the West with all its scientific, military and school of thoughts is collapsing and if we do not hold onto our hats, with the collapse of the West we would have the fate like what the Soviet Union (USSR) had.”

By: Hamid Reza Naghashian