With Donald Trump Following Barack Obama, the U.S. Withdrawal from the World Continues

Talks to end the civil war in Syria are being conducted in Moscow among Russia, Turkey, and Iran.  Foreign ministers of the three countries are meeting in one place of the Russian capital, while defense ministers meet in another.  Meanwhile, while it really doesn’t matter, the United Nations Security Council adopted a French-drafted resolution on the Syrian civil war, calling for UN observers to play a role in supervising the evacuation of refugees from eastern Aleppo.

Missing in action in all of these efforts is the United States.  I assume President Obama is okay with this because, if he wasn’t, he could do something to change it.  But he hasn’t, so this must be fine with him.  It certainly is a good summary of eight years of Obama administration foreign policy: backing off and doing less, while the world becomes a more dangerous place.¹

The depressing thing is that I see Donald Trump continuing this policy for the next four (or, oh my gosh, eight) years.²  Even twelve years of U.S.-no-show in world leadership is not a good thing and the world will be a more dangerous place for it.  Plus, for the next four years, we will have a president who doesn’t seem to have the knowledge or experience to understand how everything fits together. 

Foreign affairs is not just one big Let’s-Make-a-Deal.  It’s three (or more)-dimensional chess.  For the last eight years, our president didn’t want to play.  Now we have somebody who may not understand the game.  And it’s unclear if he is going to listen to people who do. 

To get through the next four years, we’ll need to be luckier than the Chicago Cubs in the bottom of the ninth inning of game seven of the World Series.
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¹ See here.
² See here again and here.