Former President Barack Obama‘s former adviser, David Axelrod, tried to jab at President Donald Trump‘s foreign policy yesterday but ended up throwing his old boss under the bus.
“Amazing that in a matter of days we’ve gone from ‘this is not our operation’ to ‘we own the skies over Iran,’” Axelrod posted on Tuesday. “With these proclamations, we also now ‘own’ what WAS an Israeli assault. We’re thoroughly in it now. What is the strategy here?”
It’s no surprise that Obama’s advisers believe you can see good foreign policy coming a mile away. Obama eroded U.S. deterrence by telegraphing one big move after another, from the preannounced “phased withdrawal” from Iraq to publicly drawing a “red line” on Syria‘s chemical weapons use (which of course, it crossed without consequence). Foreign enemies walked all over Obama during his tenure, creating the conditions for much of the chaos we see today.
What a tremendous relief it is to have a president who understands that telegraphing strategy only aids the enemy, especially at a time like this. The world’s eyes and ears are trained on Trump’s White House, searching for signs of his intentions in Iran. Will he order bunker buster strikes on Iran’s Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant? Will he order the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei? Will he succumb to pressure from “America First” hecklers online and pull back?
The truth is, we have no idea. And that’s a marvelous thing as the pressure ratchets up.
Some argue that Trump is among the most successful foreign policy presidents since former President Ronald Reagan, and his employment of strategic ambiguity is largely to thank. Trump’s unpredictable stance on the Middle East — from not explicitly endorsing a two-state solution to ordering the killing of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani — has encouraged regional states to pursue their own interests and partnerships. The ambiguous nature of the United States’s commitment to NATO under Trump has compelled European nations to substantially increase defense spending, simultaneously easing the U.S.’s financial burden in the region and bolstering the alliance’s defensive capabilities.
Trump’s strategic ambiguity on Iran, oscillating between ALL CAPS rants, Godfather-esque murmurs, and biting sarcasm, has kept Tehran scrambling to predict his next move. His cryptic soundbites hint at every possible option and make it anyone’s guess where he’ll land or how long he’ll stick to it.
In certain policy areas, unpredictability has its drawbacks. This is especially true on the economic front, where certainty enables businesses to flourish. But in foreign policy, where every treaty and alliance rests upon a foundation of brute power, keeping outsiders off balance disrupts their ability to execute their own game plans and allows punches to land.
This morning, while cracking jokes for a hard-hat crew about the White House lawn’s new flagpole (he made a joke about using the word “erection” to lift the pole, causing the workers to chuckle), Trump took a question on Iran from a reporter.
“Are you moving closer to striking Iran’s nuclear facility?” she asked.
“You don’t seriously think I’m going to answer that question, right?” he said, eliciting smirking grins from the working men behind him.
“‘Will you strike the Iranian nuclear facility, and what time, sir? Will you please inform us so we can be there and watch?’” he asked mockingly. “You don’t know that I’m going to even do it. I may do it, I may not do it. Nobody knows what I’m going to do. I can tell you this: Iran has got a lot of trouble.”
Trump is capable of pivoting naturally from lighthearted banter about flag poles to destroying nuclear facilities and back to gloating over the “beautiful American equipment” on the White House lawn.
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Is he nuts? Seriously? About to go TACO? If we don’t know, the Mullahs surely don’t know.
And that makes me very grateful that Trump is the president who is steering us through this moment.