O mundo se cansou de Trump, e não espera nada dos Democratas - David Ignatius

Analysis & Opinions 

The Rest of the World is Preparing for Four More Years of Trump

• David Ignatius
 

The Washington Post, Feb. 20, 2020

Many commentators have argued that the big winner in Wednesday’s poisonous Democratic Party debate was President Trump. But as the world assesses the United States in this 2020 election season, the long-term political beneficiaries may be foreign rivals such as China’s President Xi Jinping.

The circular firing squad in Las Vegas probably raised expectations abroad that the Democrats won’t unite behind a candidate with wide popular appeal who can beat Trump. People throughout Eastern Europe and Asia who have struggled to escape from socialism must find Sen. Bernie Sanders’s enthusiasm for it — and the fact that the Vermont independent is leading the field — especially bizarre.

The Democrats’ lack of interest in the world will also be noted. Foreign policy was barely mentioned in Las Vegas. As the candidates shouted at each other, they seemed unaware that voters would be judging them in part on their fitness to be commander in chief. Rather than discuss rational global climate policies, such as a carbon tax, they talked about putting U.S. energy executives in jail.

But the world moves on. If a sensible, moderate Democrat seems unlikely to emerge from the scrum, then U.S. allies and adversaries will prepare for the likelihood of four more years of the erratic, bullying, “America First” incumbent. Countries will hedge their bets, knowing that Trump’s promises are unreliable. Even for the closest U.S. allies, friendship is not a suicide pact. They will adjust, accommodate and distance.

This concern about a United States adrift from its traditional leadership role was evident last weekend at the Munich Security Conference. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke for many at the conference when he complained: “Our closest ally, the United States of America, under the current administration, rejects the very concept of the international community.”

Europeans are realizing, too, that the United States’ turn inward goes much deeper than Trump. Steinmeier bemoaned Trump’s retreat from transatlantic ties, but he recognized, “We know that this shift began a while ago, and it will continue even after this administration.”

A former top national security official in Republican and Democratic administrations summed up the implications of the U.S. political morass for foreign allies: “They understand now that waiting it out is not a good strategy. They know that the backstop is no longer there.”

Europeans feel a nostalgia for the old order, summed up in the “Westlessness” theme of the Munich conference. But there’s opportunism, too — a desire to expand influence as America’s contracts. You could see the gleam in the eye of French President Emmanuel Macron as he discussed onstage with Wolfgang Ischinger, the conference’s chairman, the possibility that Germany might soon look to France’s nuclear deterrent, rather than depending solely on U.S. pledges.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acted as though this European disaffection doesn’t exist. “I’m happy to report that the death of the transatlantic alliance is grossly overexaggerated,” he told the conference. “The West is winning, and we’re winning together.” That bland reassurance didn’t find much traction, even among Americans in the audience.

What puzzles Europeans is that the United States seems to want to have it both ways. “America wants to retrench, but it also wants to remain a hegemon and tell people what to do,” says a former senior European intelligence official. “That isn’t going to work.”

Anxiety abroad about Trump’s reelection was probably augmented by Wednesday’s announcement that he would appoint Richard Grenell, ambassador to Germany and a ferocious political loyalist, as acting director of national intelligence.

Allies worry that Grenell’s appointment signals an expanding campaign to control the intelligence community and retaliate against Trump’s perceived enemies. If allies decide that a second-term Trump will compromise the independence and professionalism of U.S. intelligence agencies, they may begin to reconsider their liaison relationships.

Who benefits in a world where Republicans trumpet “America First” and Democrats don’t even debate foreign policy? The answer is painfully obvious to foreign officials. As the United States retreats, China steps forward. Since Xi’s accession in 2013, China has advertised its plans to dominate global technology and business.

Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper talked in Munich of making the world choose between being America’s technology partner or China’s. But he isn’t going to like the answer: Even Britain, the United States’ closest ally, has said it plans to continue its relationship with Huawei, China’s flagship technology company.

The Democrats seemed poised on the edge of a cliff Wednesday night, heading toward nomination of a candidate who could be as polarizing as Trump. Maybe the Democrats will find a way back from the brink and pick a winner. But the world is adjusting to the prospect that Trump’s version of America may be here a good while longer.  – Via The Washington Post.

For Academic Citation: Ignatius, David.“The Rest of the World is Preparing for Four More Years of Trump.”  The Washington Post, February 20, 2020. 

Oriente Medio: revisitando os 14 pontos de Woodrow Wilson - David Ignatius (WP)

Rethinking Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points
David Ignatius
The Washington Post, 9/07/2014

As U.S. policymakers ponder the future shape of the Middle East, they should perhaps recall that the United States was opposed to the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement, the famous “line in the sand” that is now said to be dissolving.
The United States’ opposition back then was based on its rejection of the secret diplomacy between Britain and France that produced the plan to divide the Ottoman Empire after World War I. The United States opposed this neo-colonial carve-up of the region and called instead for the right to national self-determination.
The tragedy of the U.S. role in the modern Middle East is that it became, without entirely intending or realizing it, the protector of the very post- imperial order it once resisted. That story could fill a book, but for now, let’s refresh our memories about the alternative U.S. vision when the Ottoman Empire collapsed.
President Woodrow Wilson enunciated his framework in his famous “Fourteen Points” statement in January 1918, nine months after the United States had entered World War I. Following the armistice in November 1918, Wilson’s idealistic formula was a contentious centerpiece of debate at the Versailles peace conference. It was an inspiration to those who felt victimized by the old order and an annoyance to France and Britain.
Britain and France prevailed at Versailles, imposing a peace settlement so selfish and shortsighted that it all but guaranteed the rise of a revanchist Germany leading to World War II, and the endless headaches of the modern Middle East. It was, as David Fromkin titled his great 1989 history, “A Peace to End All Peace.” It’s this very fabric that is now ripping apart, as civil wars in Syria and Iraq create de-facto partitions of those countries. The question facing policymakers is whether to redraw the lines or let the region devolve into smaller cantons, like the ethnically cohesive “vilayets” of Ottoman times.
My sense is that it’s too early to judge whether the post-1919 boundaries are finished. After all, Lebanon was effectively partitioned during its 15-year civil war, but Lebanese national identity proved strong enough that its sovereignty was restored in the Taif Agreement of 1989. I’d guess that the Syrian national idea will survive over time, too. I’m not as sure about Iraq, but in any event, these are questions for the peoples of the region to decide, not outsiders.
What can Wilson’s Fourteen Points teach us that’s relevant to the current debate? The first five have some bearing, and they’re worth noting carefully because they set a framework for any reexamination of the Middle East map. Let’s list them, with some notations:
(1) “Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at.” This was Wilson’s reaction to the cynical private deal-making of Sir Mark Sykes and Francois Georges-Picot, which appalled observers such as T.E. Lawrence. Lesson for today: Any new order in the region must have buy-in from the region itself, starting with regional kingpins Iran and Saudi Arabia.
(2) “Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas.” Still crucial for the United States, the world’s leading maritime power, is ensuring oil flow in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf. But as U.S. power recedes, will China embrace this open, rules-based maritime order?
(3) “The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers.” The only hopeful vision of the region is one that begins with free trade, in which labor and capital flow across Israeli and Arab boundaries. This economically integrated Middle East could be astonishingly profitable.
(4) “National armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.” The logic of a nuclear-weapons-free Middle East is becoming increasingly obvious, even to Israelis. Does Israel really benefit from a world in which Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia compete to match Israel’s undeclared deterrent?
(5) “In determining . . . questions of sovereignty, the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.” The heart of the matter. One implication: Kurdish aspirations to nationhood don’t trump Iraqi sovereignty, but they deserve equal weight.
Let us ponder, finally, the self-declared “Islamic State,” which meets none of these Wilsonian conditions. Indeed, it is a textbook example of illegitimate state-making.
The only positive aspect of the Islamic State is that the jihadists, by declaring their caliphate, have given their neighbors (and the world’s counterterrorism forces) an address. Any state that makes itself a safe haven for terrorism becomes a target. In that sense, the Islamic State was born with a suicide pill in its mouth.