Former U.S. Ambassador to Germany and Acting Director of National Intelligence, Richard ‘Ric’ Grenell, discusses the ideological flaws within the JoeBama foreign policy as it is being rolled out and our adversaries are laughing. The interview begins with a discussion of the embarrassing U.S-China summit in Alaska, where Chinese officials dressed-down U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken.
As Grenell notes the policies of many ideologically aligned leftist nations (ie. Germany, South Korea) are in conflict with their ‘western’ values as expressed. This has been evident for decades.
The example of Germany contracting with Russia for natural gas (Nordstream II pipeline), while not fulfilling their NATO funding commitments, is just one aspect. South Korea presents a similar ideological hypocrisy regarding China/DPRK. Angela Merkel and Moon Jae-In are not coincidentally aligned with Obama’s leftist world-view.
ANALYSIS – The Obama foreign policy doctrine was fraught with ideological hypocrisy as a feature not a flaw. Claim a desire for mid-east peace, set the middle-east on fire with the Arab Spring (Obama Cairo speech). Claim a desire for middle-class workers, yet facilitate corporate offshoring. Claim a desire for Israeli security yet attack Egyptian President Fattah al-Sisi for creating Israeli security. Accept a Nobel Peace Prize, set Libya on fire and kill thousands. Accept a Nobel Peace Prize, then attack Syria. Hypocrisy, hypocrisy, hypocrisy.
Champion women’s’ causes on stage, yet embrace Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood who devalue women. Claim to support democratic elections, then undermine the majority election outcome of the British vote in Brexit. Everything, every – single – thing, about the Obama foreign policy was an exercise in hypocrisy. There were ZERO foreign policy successes, NONE. What we are seeing now is the same thing with Biden, because it is an extension of Obama’s third term. Hence, JoeBama.
Obama entered into a political agreement with Hillary Clinton to appoint her as Secretary of State. That appointment was purposefully made so that Clinton could graft for the Clinton Foundation and enrich themselves beyond imagining… that was the Clinton carrot. The agreement also contained guard rails, Clinton could graft to her hearts desire but she must maintain an ideological alignment with Obama’s team mission of diminishing the U.S. on the global scale.
Barack Obama undermined the U.S with his two year long apology tour, while Secretary Clinton enriched herself (and family), kept her mouth shut, followed orders and maintained the ideological undermining. Eventually the hypocrisy blew up in their faces and we saw outcomes like the rise of ISIS and the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi. Outcomes of an ideological doctrine sprinkled with financial graft.
[SIDEBAR – Obama stood in Cairo, Egypt, and told the Islamic extremists the U.S. had a new policy and would not interfere if they turned violent; the Arab Spring started – Islamic extremists took over. The same type of messaging was done domestically in Ferguson, Missouri, and Black Lives Matter “burn this place down” started.
• Eventually in Ferguson the head of local law enforcement, District Attorney Robert McCulloch, refused to bring a prosecution for a fraudulent narrative. Black Lives Matter was angry. • Eventually in Egypt the head of the military, General al-Sisi, drove his tanks into Tahir square and took over, restoring peace. The White House was angry. There is a commonality amid the anger games initiated by Barack Obama and his ideological tribe. – END SIDEBAR]
Fast forward to President Trump and you can see how he was able to cut through the ideology by focusing on the economics underneath governmental policy.
North Korea was stabilized by confronting China. Afghanistan was stabilized by confronting Pakistan. The mid-east, writ large, was stabilized by confronting the Muslim Brotherhood. Syria was stabilized by confronting Turkey.
Everything in the Trump Doctrine was focused on the economic root-causes of destabilization. NATO was stabilized by focusing on accountability for financing.
By stabilizing the economic incentives, the underlying extremism and/or threat was removed by peer pressure from the support network of the bad behavior. Trump avoided conflict by focusing on the right adversary, the true root of the problem.
The JoeBama Doctrine focuses on ideology. Are you my ideological ally…. Do you make my feelings better… This is the doctrine that only supports the emotional surface issues of the moment. Nothing in the JoeBama doctrine ever reflected a foreign policy success because it never focuses on the root issue. That is a problem.
The reason that is such a problem is because national adversaries know they only need to give the illusion of friendly appearances in order to avoid any negative pressure from the U.S. As a result, China can lie. As a result, Iran can lie. As a result, Pakistan can lie.
The JoeBama Doctrine never confronts the root issue. It is a weak outlook that bad actors who control nations know they can manipulate. Ultimately this makes allies more vulnerable; and that my friends is exactly why Russia was able to exploit the issues in Eastern Ukraine when Obama was President.
In western, or what we would call ‘more democratized systems of government‘, the consequence of removing multinational corporate and financial influence peddlers presents two options for the governing authority occupying political office:
♦One option is to refuse to allow the authentic voice of a nationalist citizenry to rise. Essentially to commit to a retention of the status quo; an elitist view; a globalist perspective. This requires shifting to a more openly authoritarian system of government within both the economic and social spheres. Those who control the reigns of power refuse to acquiesce to a changed landscape.
♦The second option is to allow the authentic and organic rise of nationalism. To accept the voices of the middle-class majority; to structure the economic and social landscape in a manner that allows the underlying identity to surface naturally.
“Peace is the prize” ~ President Donald Trump
The nature of the Trump foreign policy doctrine was to hold manipulative influence agents accountable for regional impact(s); and simultaneously work to stop any corrupted influence from oppressing free expression of national values held by the subservient, dis-empowered, people within the nation being influenced.
There were clear examples of this doctrine at work. When President Trump first visited the Middle-East he confronted the international audience with a message about dealing with extremist influence agents. President Trump simply said: “drive them out.” Toward that end, as Qatar was identified as a financier of extremist ideology, President Trump placed the goal of confrontation upon the Gulf Cooperation Council, not the U.S.
The U.S. role was clearly outlined as supporting the confrontation. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates needed to confront the toxic regional influence; the U.S. would support their objective. That’s EXACTLY what happened.
Another example: To confront the extremism creating the turmoil in Afghanistan, President Trump placed the burden of bringing the Taliban to the table of governance upon primary influence agent Pakistan. Here again, with U.S. support, Pakistan is the leading influence agent over the Taliban in Afghanistan; the Trump administration correctly established the responsibility and gave clear expectations for U.S. support.
If Pakistan doesn’t change their influence objective toward a more constructive alignment with a nationally representative Afghanistan government, it is Pakistan who will be held accountable. Again, the correct and effective appropriation of responsibility upon the influence agent who can initiate the solution, Pakistan.
The process of accurate regional assignment of influence comes with disconcerting sunlight. Often these influences are not discussed openly. However, for President Trump the lack of honesty was only a crutch to continue enabling poor actors. This was a consistent theme throughout all of President Trump’s foreign policy engagements.
The European Union is a collective co-dependent enabler to the corrupt influences of Iran. Therefore the assignment of responsibility to change the status is placed upon the EU. The U.S. will fully support the EU effort, but as seen in the withdrawal from the Iran Deal, the U.S. will not enable growth of toxic behavior. The U.S. stands with the people of Iran, but the U.S. will not support the enabling of Iranian oppression, terrorism and/or dangerous military expansion that will ultimately destabilize the region. Trump holds the EU accountable for influencing change. Again, we see the Trump Doctrine at work.
Perhaps the most obvious application of the Trump Doctrine was found in how the U.S. administration approached the challenging behavior of North Korea. Rather than continuing a decades-long policy of ignoring the influence of China, President Trump directly assigned primary responsibility for a reset to Beijing.
China held, and holds, all influence upon North Korea and has long-treated the DPRK as a proxy province to do the bidding of Beijing’s communist old guard. By directly confronting the influence agent, and admitting openly for the world to see (albeit with jaw-dropping tactical sanction diplomacy) President Trump positioned the U.S. to support a peace objective on the entire Korean peninsula and simultaneously forced China to openly display their closely-guarded influence.
While the Red Dragon -vs- Panda influence dynamic was/is still ongoing, the benefit of this new and strategic approach under President Trump brought the possibility of peace closer than ever in recent history.
No longer is it outlandish to think of North Korea joining with the rest of the world in achieving a better quality of life for its people.
Not only is President Trump openly sharing a willingness to engage in a new and dynamic future for North Korea, but his approach was removing the toxic influences that held down the possibility for generations. By leveraging China (through economics) to stop manipulating North Korea, President Trump opened up a door of possibilities for the North Korean people. This is what I mean when I say Trump was providing North Korea with an opportunity to create an authentic version of itself.
What ultimately comes from the opportunity President Trump constructed is still entirely unknown. However, the opportunity itself was stunning in how it created a reasonable pathway to prosperity for the North Korean people. Chairman Kim Jong-un has the opportunity to be the most trans-formative leader within Asia in generations; but it is still only an ‘opportunity’.
♦The commonality in these foreign policy engagements was the strategic placement of responsibility upon the primary influence agent; and a clear understanding upon those nation(s) of influence, that all forward efforts must ultimately provide positive results for people impacted who lack the ability to create positive influence themselves.
One of the reasons President Trump was able to take this approach is specifically because he was beholden to no outside influence himself. It is only from the position of complete independence that accurate assignments based on the underlying truth can be made; and that takes us to the ultimate confrontations – the trillion dollar confrontations.
A U.S. foreign policy that provides the opportunity for fully-realized national authenticity was a paradigm shift amid a world accustomed to corrupt globalists, bankers and financial elites who established a business model by dictating terms to national leaders they control and influence. We have our own domestic frame of reference with K-Street lobbyists in Washington DC. Much of President Trump’s global trade reset was based on confronting these multinational influence agents.
When you take the influence of corporate/financial brokers out of foreign policy, all of a sudden those global influence peddlers are worthless. Absent of their ability to provide any benefit, nations no longer purchase these brokered services.
As soon as influence brokers are dispatched, national politicians become accountable to the voices of their citizens. When representing the voices of citizens becomes the primary political driver of national policy, the authentic image of the nation is allowed to surface. That outcome is antithetical to the globalist corporations who want control over global politicians.
As the Trump Doctrine clashed with the European global elite, the withdrawal of the U.S. financial underwriting creates a natural problem. Subsidies are needed to retain multiculturalism. If a national citizenry has to pay for the indulgent decisions of the influence class, a crisis becomes only a matter of time.
Wealth distribution requires a host.
Since the end of World War II the U.S. has been a bottomless treasury for EU subsidy. The payments have been direct and indirect. The indirect have been via U.S. military bases providing security, the NATO alliance, and also by U.S. trade policy permitting one-way tariff systems. Both forms of indirect payment were being reversed as part of the modern Trump Doctrine.
Similarly, in Mexico the Trump Doctrine also extends toward changed trade policies; this time via NAFTA. The restructuring of NAFTA into the USMCA disfavored multinational corporations and financial holdings who exploited structural loopholes that were designed into the original agreement.
When President Trump confronted the NAFTA fatal flaw, and absent of the ability of corporations to influence the direction of the Trump administration, the trade deal ultimately presented the same outcome for Mexico as it did the EU – LESS DOLLARS unless they adjust the internal economics.
However, in Mexico, the larger systems of government are not as strongly structured to withstand the withdrawal of billions of U.S. dollars. The government of Mexico is not in the same position as the EU and could not double-down on more oppressive controls. Therefore the authentic voice of the Mexican rose up.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), is a nationalist but he is not a free-market capitalist. AMLO is more akin to soft-socialist approach with a view that when the central governing authority is constrained, and operates in the best interests of its citizens, equity can be achieved. However, the fabric of socialism runs naturally through the DNA strain of Mexico, and indeed much of South America. This is one of the reasons why previous Mexican governments were so corrupt. Multinational corporations always find it easier to exploit socialist minded government officials.
When bribery and graft are the natural way of business engagement, the multinationals will exploit every opportunity to maximize profit. Withdraw the benefit (loophole exploitation) to the financial systems, and the bribery and graft dries up quickly. A bottom-up nationalist like AMLO, is the ultimate beneficiary.
The authentic-sense of the Mexican people, rises in the persona of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador – who actually does personify the underlying nature of the classic Mexican class-struggle.
Thus we saw two similar yet distinctly opposite outcomes of the Trump Doctrine. Within a highly structured U.K. parliamentary government the entrenched leadership became more authoritarian and tried to rebuke the Brexit vote of the electorate. In Mexico a less structured government became more nationalist, more prideful, and embraced the underlying nature of the electorate.
It was not accidental the historic nature of the U.K. is a monarchy (top down), and the historic nature of Mexico is populist (bottom up). Revolution not withstanding, under the Trump Doctrine both countries began returning to their authentic roots.
The difference now is stark. The JoeBama policy, direct or blind-eye, is open to be purchased by the highest bidder, Multinationals, Wall Street or Globalist bankers.
