Acting Without Thought

Donald Trump decided to bomb Syria. Maybe that’s a good thing, maybe it’s not. But what it makes abundantly clear is that the President has not yet begin to think through his foreign policy decisions.

Here is the leader of the free world who says — repeatedly — that the United States has no business getting involved in Syria. It’s bad policy, Trump has said. But all of a sudden there are pictures on television showing civilians suffering from a Syrian air force gas attack, and the President thinks we need to retaliate. After all, he may have figured, he’s the guy in charge and he has all these incredible weapons, so he might as well go ahead and use them. Bingo, we’re not in loved i a very deep with in Syria.

But we also are now more involved with Russian. And Iran. And indeed we are now active in the world’s most unstable region (not ignoring you, North Korea). Once again, Trump is showing his words and declarations are meaningless. A few weeks ago he reiterated his desire for better relations with Vladimir Putin. indeed, that has been a vital hinge of his foreign policy in the early days of the administration. Well, forget that. Now he’s got Putin angry. (Is this like two brothers arguing?) and we have no idea where this relationship is going.

In fact, there is no sign of what the heck Trump means by his actions or where he intends to go with them. There is no way diplomats and military officials can grasp what the President is about because no one outside of Trump’s tiny, ego-weighted mind can have any sense of that. And who believes that Trump has a plan at all for anyone to figure out? And that includes leaders of nations all over the world, allies and enemies.

That’s scary. No one knows what our President is up to. That is not a way of pursuing peace when everyone who matters is in the dark about what the most powerful nation in the world is doing. Frankly, I think it’s very scary. And I don’t know what steps out to be taken to remedy this awful global situation.