A tryout for Commander-in-Chief Trump

Except from his very partisan supporters, like Republican Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committe, Tom Corker (TN), Donald Trump's foreign policy speech was not a reassuring success.   Corker called it "great," and "full of substance."   But fellow Republican senator Lindsey Graham (SC) had a very different take:  "It made no sense."

Rick Tyler, a political spokesman for Republican candidates and now an MSNBC political analyst, was scathing in his criticism, calling it "incoherent, vague, contradictory, not well-informed."

Professor Tom Nichols of the U.S. Naval War College referred to the speech as "chaos . . . a word salad."  He said "It had no substance at all.   All he says is that he will make a deal, a great deal, but he doesn't even say what the deal would be about."

Jon Soltz, an Iraq war veteran and co-founder of VoteVets.org pointed out the internal contradictions in the speech.     At one moment Trump says that we lack a coherent foreign policy;   then a few moments later he say, "We must as a nation be more unpredictable."  We should be clear and coherent. . .  and, at the same time, unpredictable.  Which is it?

On how much we should intervene in the Middle East, he was equally contradictory.   He says trying to "make western democracies out of countries that had no experience or interests in becoming a western democracy” is a dangerous idea.   Then he closes by saying that "promoting Western civilization and its accomplishments will do more to inspire positive reforms around the world than military interventions."

It's as if different people contributed ideas, and someone cut and pasted it together;  but nobody read it over to see that it made sense.   Or maybe it all came out of Trump's mind -- and that's the way he thinks.   I tend to favor the latter.

Soltz summarizes:

"For someone who has done two tours in Iraq, there’s not much more worrisome than a potential Commander-in-Chief who is so disinterested in policy that he failed to vet this jumbled mess of a speech, and didn’t even realize how contradictory it was . . . . In his first foray into foreign policy and military policy, Trump delivered one clear message - he doesn’t care. . .

"To quote the American President, 'We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them.'  Today, when it comes to foreign and military policy, Donald Trump showed us that he’s not serious, at all. He’s a joke, wrapped up in a farce, inside of a sham."

I would add to that:   The speech also showed the shallowness of his understanding of history;  of the complexity of interactions with other nations, both allies and adversaries, that have their own needs and agendas; and of the difficulties of diplomacy.  Yes, he can perhaps get very very good people to advise him and educate him.   But he has to realize that he actually needs expert help and be willing to listen to them.   I'm not sure he thinks there is anything that he can't solve as if it were a real estate deal. 

Ralph