By Haviland Smith
February 4, 2020
If you look carefully and objectively at the world today, you may be able to perceive that we are approaching a crossroad. Some will even say that we are already in it. And just what is that? The people of this nation and the world are faced at this moment with a decision on what they want for the future. Do we want to continue our own fragile democracy as well as supporting other democratic movements abroad, or are we in the process of giving up on that and seeing the world sink into nationalism and populism?
Much is made of the post-World War II period and the Cold War when the two main competing ideologies were democracy and communism. Some saw it as horribly dangerous, particularly as they watched the hostile, nuclear armed competitors trying to manipulate uncommitted countries to their sides. And it probably was, but our worst fears were never realized. We and the Soviets somehow blundered through without major conflict.
What the Cold War provided to the world was relative security. There always seemed to be one or more superpowers present when things got really dangerous. Those superpowers tended to avoid their own conflicts and to suppress those of their so-called allies. In the Middle East, for example, despite the fact that the Sunni-Shia split had existed since the seventh century, it did not turn into today’s bitter armed conflicts until the end of the 20th century, as the Cold War became history.
Further, since the end of the Cold War, much of the world has seemed to approve globalism, which is the idea that freedom and human rights can be made available to all mankind. Proponents believe that the problems of humanity can best be resolved with democratic globalism.
What you can say about life under globalization is that it is likely to be less violent than life under populism which is a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups. This is largely because globalization has tended to bring with it an increased respect among nations for the needs and goals of other countries, where populism and nationalism recognize the desires of individual countries and their citizens above those of the rest of the world.
Was it working? Perhaps, but what has happened is that elements around the world, both on the political right and left, have turned toward nationalism and populism. And this is not a phenomenon limited to the third world; it includes countries that until very recently have appeared to support global democratization, countries like Poland, Hungary, Brazil and the Philippines, to name only a few. Some observers think it extends to North America and the British Isles as well. How else do you explain Brexit or America’s inclination to turn past friends and supporters into reluctant allies and critics?
President Trump has introduced us to what looks like the coming new political wave. He has identified, won over and is now supporting and supported by those 30 million Americans who really have not benefited from our interest in and support of globalization. It is very clear from the ongoing political scene that they will support him in just about anything he wants to do. In effect, Trump is a strong opponent of globalization and even stronger supporter of nationalism and populism. He has overturned many of the existing policies of past American governments and essentially told the world that the only thing that matters to him (and to America) is whether or not any given issue favors America.
You can’t really say that Trump’s positions on these issues have actually directly caused other nations to follow his policies, but his policies and positions have created an environment in which it is easier for that to happen. Trump openly supports some of the worst, least democratic world leaders. This is true of Egypt, North Korea, the Philippines, Russia, China, Egypt, Turkey, Brazil, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Poland, Libya and India, to name a few. He appears to love and respect authoritarian leaders who oppose or crush all opposition to their leadership. He has even gone so far as to praise some of the policies of Saddam Hussein and Benito Mussolini! What does that tell us about him and his hopes and goals for the future?
It is clear that millions of Americans have been short-changed under leaders pursuing globalization and that Trump represents a desirable alternative to them. The problem, quite simply, is that even if that is true, Trump’s seeming preoccupation with authoritarian world leaders, their philosophies and policies and his inclination to emulate them pose a grave threat to our perpetually vulnerable democracy.
Rural Ruminations 
Successful bilateral foreign policy has historically required a level of predictability on both sides. Without that, both sides are running blind and disaster becomes far more likely.During the second presidential primary debate, candidate Donald Trump criticized Mike Pence for supporting the concept that the U.S. bomb the Syrian military if Russia and the Assad regime continued to strike civilians. Hillary Clinton had just called for a no-fly zone in Syria. Pence and Clinton wanted America to police violations of the international rules of warfare. Trump, by contrast, wished to ignore them and is explicitly on record as not favoring the world police role for America, which he has now undertaken in Syria.
The administration says the real issue is poison gas, but is poison gas so bad that by contrast it makes killing people by other means perfectly acceptable? Why has our new president not retaliated or even spoken against the killings by other means of the hundreds of thousands of Syrians, most emphatically including children, who have already perished in their civil war?
We have now been involved in a 16-year undeclared war in the Middle East which began with our invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Americans have learned a great deal about the region during those years. Perhaps most importantly, we have learned that we are no longer admired and respected in the region. That change in attitude has come about primarily because of our military activities there and it follows that further military activity will only increase local hatred for us.
Where does the world stand when the American president is wildly unpredictable?
Our military presence there, even when we are clearly killing bad guys like the Taliban, al-Qaida and ISIS, has created a series of situations in which locals who once appreciated us have found it necessary to choose between us and our enemies. Far too often that choice has been dictated by the fact that the American forces are foreigners killing their countrymen.
We have learned that Syria is run by a minority (13 percent) Alawite (Shia) government and that the vast majority (75 percent) of Syrians are Sunni. We know that 85-90 percent of Muslims are Sunni, leaving the Shia in a tiny minority. We know there is no love lost between them and that they have a long history of conflict. What we are watching in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East are bits and pieces of that old conflict, now often in the form of civil conflict within “countries,” created a century and more ago by Western imperialist nations, that really can’t survive without relentless internal repression or massive external help.
Picture yourself as a Syrian Alawite (Shia). You are the Shia with your finger in the dike of Sunni repression. You would do anything to maintain the status quo in Syria. The largest Shia country in the region is Iran. Iran has the same concerns about its existence as the Alawites in Syria. They are under the gun from the Sunnis. The Iranians do not intend to see another Shia-run country go down the tubes, so they are supporting Syria both directly and through Hamas and Hezbollah, their surrogates in the Levant.
Additionally, Russia has historical geopolitical designs that have persuaded them to support the minority Alawites in every way possible. After all, Syria is the only country in the regions that has provided Russia with a naval base and that is and always has been a critical consideration for Russia.
What we now have here in America is an elected president who, between the campaign and his incumbency, has changed his position on just about every issue with the possible exceptions of wealth and power. It would appear that he has little understanding of, or is persuaded to overlook, the critically important realities in the Middle East.
As unpleasant as that may be for those of us who are disinterested in participating in another Middle East ground war, that is not the real issue. The real and infinitely more dangerous issue is that foreign policy over the millennia has required consistency and some level of predictability on the part of its participants. What probably saved America and the Soviet Union from nuclear annihilation during the Cold War was that each side was, in the main, predictable and thus relatively understandable to the other.
Where does the world stand when the American president is wildly unpredictable? How will he be read by countries like North Korea, China, Pakistan, Iran, Russia and others with actual and hoped for nuclear weapons? What will they do in such a new, completely changed environment?
What is said to have worked in business negotiations will not necessarily work in international relations.