A POST-ZERO FOREIGN POLICY

It’s hard to see how US foreign policy under Zero could get much worse – but it certainly can as it continues to spiral downward.  President Pandora, as Jack Kelly calls him today (9/04) won’t close his box of evils until he no longer infests the White House.

Nonetheless, the world is filled with opportunities, and it’s helpful to focus on how a pro-American president could maximize them.  Then we can see how candidates as they enter the 2016 fray stack up in their understanding of them and how they would implement their maximization.

At the top of the list, of course, is repairing the monumental damage Zero has done to the American economy, and concomitantly, the willingness of foreign companies and countries to do business with it.  This means repealing FATCA as step one, with many steps to follow – such as those listed in The Speech I’d Give If I Were Running for President (July 2011).

An American economy unshackled from government controls and liberated from crony capitalism would create an explosion of widespread prosperity, and enable a fully capable pro-American foreign policy.  Which starts with refunding the US military and refocusing the purpose of the military on defending America, not social experimentation.  No more, e.g., "tolerance for transgenders" politically correct drivel.

Next comes rebuilding alliances with our friends.  Zero’s policy has been to spit on them, as he has done with Israel.  A post-Zero pro-American foreign policy would be to spit on our enemies instead.  Naturally, this starts with ISIS and other assorted Islamic crazies.

On Saturday (8/30), Ted Cruz said the way to deal with ISIS is to "bomb them back to the Stone Age."  A great applause line and a great place to start.  There are B52s on the ramp at Diego Garcia that just need a green light to do the job.

Yet it’s only the start.  ISIS is a perfect example of the Chinese "danger=opportunity" equation.  By taking Islamic craziness to logical conclusions, it has caused – as we saw in last week’s HFR (8/29) – Egypt to befriend Israel and Saudi Arabia to advocate Palestinian recognition of Israel.

This is an incredibly positive development, one that any rational president would make hay of – but not Zero, as he’s on the side of the Moslem Brotherhood.  ISIS makes possible the realignment of Middle Eastern politics away from the demonization and desire for the destruction of Israel.

That is, an alliance can now be formed between the US, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the UAE to obliterate ISIS (meaning, kill them all and let Allah sort them out).  Next:  Hamas, Hezbollah, and Assad.

Then comes the revitalization of NATO made possible by the Putin Huilo.

NATO’s new members, once part of the Former Soviet Empire which Putin Huilo is trying to recapitulate, are forcing the issue.  Poland and the Baltics are demanding military aid for Ukraine.  Britain has responded and is organizing a six-state NATO Rapid Reaction Force of 10,000 soldiers to be deployed in Ukraine. Lithuanians are taking matters in their own hands and forming a paramilitary force, the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union.

Putin Huilo’s threat to wage nuclear war over Ukraine has made every European leader – except those paid off by the Kremlin like Hungary’s Viktor Orban – realize that he wants to be Stalin redux.

The problem is that, as Ted Cruz again tells it like is, "The Russian bear is encountering the Obama kitty cat."  

The other marvelous opportunity Putin’s Stalinism is making possible is to force Europe to frack, and develop every way possible to eliminate its dependency on Gazprom gas.  On Tuesday (9/02), for example, Slovakia turned on a reverse-flow pipeline delivering natural gas from the EU to Ukraine.  

It’s pretty easy to imagine how, say, a President Perry would encourage Europe’s energy independence from Russia.  It’s also easy to see how he could implement a Reagan Doctrine strategy to do to Russia what Reagan himself did to the Soviet Union – but that’s a subject for a future TTP article.

Now let’s turn to the region where there are the most opportunities of all:  Asia.

America’s main foreign policy-national security issue is not Muzzie medieval wackos or Stalinist thugs, but very smart serious folks who can be a far greater danger to us than anyone else – the Chicoms.

Further, although they are challenging us everywhere – even in space with anti-sat weapons – this is a tussle we must fight in their own Asian backyard.  Yet it’s one in which we can prevail.  To begin with, it’s one that the Chicoms must fight alone. For they have no friends – save maybe for North Korea.

The opportunities abound, especially with the new players on the scene – but they must be handled with considerable finesse.  We’re up against China here, where finesse, subtlety, and cold-hearted realism are the names of the game.  It’s no game for idealists, purists, or amateurs.

Events are already moving in our direction.  China’s win-lose no-share it’s-all-ours behavior of Marxist Kindergartners has infuriated the Japanese, Filipinos, Vietnamese, and Indians.  Lately, you can add to that list Malaysians and Indonesians.  That’s a lot of people to piss off – some 1 billion 850 million.  500 million more than Chinese.

Shinzo Abe, Japan’s leader, was in Hanoi a month ago inking a deal to provide Vietnam with six navy ships to patrol the China-claimed South China Sea. 

Right now (today 9/04), India’s leader Narrendra Modi is meeting with Abe in Tokyo inking a deal of mutual Indo-Japan development. 

Earlier in June, Philippine president Benigno Aquino inked a deal for Filipino-Japan collective self-defense with Abe in Tokyo.

All this was done without input from Zero’s Washington.

The Pentagon wants in the game.  Three weeks ago in mid-August, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dempsey paid an official, albeit "low-key" visit to Hanoi, meeting with every top Vietnamese leader discussing how a US-Vietnam military-strategic alliance might be formed.

A new major opportunity has opened up in Indonesia.  A self-made millionaire businessman with no connections to the corrupt power elite, Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, will be inaugurated president of Indonesia next month. 

This is the world’s largest Moslem country (252 million, of whom 200 million are Islamic).  He’s pro-(real)capitalism, pro-West, devout but despises Islamists – and he’s open to a strategic alliance with the US and Australia.

Asia has become a target-rich environment of opportunities for a post-Zero pro-America foreign policy. 

Thanks to Zero, we have a foreign policy that is lower than the bottom of Jimmy Carter’s barrel.  And it’s going to get lower.  It’s hard not to focus on the disasters in our face and look beyond them to how to get out of this mess, as Ronald Reagan did.  We’ll need a president with his courage, vision, optimism – and realism.

For Reagan saw and optimized opportunities that were real.  The opportunities emerging now for us are real, no need for rose-tinted glasses to see them.  We just have to make sure we get a post-Zero president who can make them happen.

Discuss this item on the forums. Click Here!