Wither the neocons?

Wither the neocons?

I am certainly no expert on foreign policy. Much of what I think is probably naïve. Yet it seems to me that the hawks are out of favor in this Trump administration. In the first Trump administration several of those close to him were known as neocons: Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, Jim Mattis and John Bolton were prominent in the administration as were those in the hierarchies of the State Department and the Pentagon. Neocons are supposed to believe in market capitalism. But at their core they are interventionalists and want to spread whatever it is they believe in throughout the world and will use military force to do it. Hence, Viet Nam, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Not so much with the second Trump Administration. There is probably a term for the anti-neocon (and no its not “weenie”). Trump this time is a non-interventionist – except for taking over Greenland, seizing the Panama Canal and making Canada the 51^st state. But who is being picky? Trump is seeking to extricate the country from the morasses in Gaza and in the Ukraine. So where are the neocons wanting to keep feeding the war machine? Even Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham have been uncharacteristically quiet. Instead we have JD Vance, Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard who certainly is no neocon and said she was fighting against the “Biden-Clinton-neocon-neolib foreign policy.”

In Gaza Trump has proposed ending the Hamas – Israeli War by expelling all the Palestinians, dispersing them throughout the Arab world and taking control of Gaza. He wants to turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”. In Ukraine he is extorting an agreement from Zelenskyy to have Ukraine’s minerals pay for US support (something I broached in an earlier blog). Trump wants $500 billion while Zelenskyy says that the US has given them as a grant “only” $100 billion. The actual figure is close to $200 billion. They will agree soon on a figure. But what will that gain Ukraine? Will Trump say that if you sell us your minerals we will protect you from the big bad wolf Putin? Not likely since Trump insists that Ukraine is NATO’s problem. In fact Putin is offering Trump access to Ukraine’s minerals in the territory seized by Russia. I guess that offer is only if Russia is allowed to keep that territory.

Trump is letting Marco Rubio be the point man in the negotiations over Ukraine. Joining Rubio are national security advisor Michael Waltz and Mideast envoy Steven Witkoff. The Russians are there but not the Ukrainians. Of course Trump has called Zelenskyy a two bit comedian and has chided him for taking the wrong side in our presidential election. But still it is Zelenskyy’s country that the US and Russia are haggling over it so shouldn’t they be at the table? NATO is also excluded. This is reminiscent of Yalta where Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin decided the fate of Germany and Eastern Europe. The Ukrainians hope for a better fate this time rather than being returned to the Russians under whose yoke they have suffered throughout history. Stalin’s Holodomor is Ukraine’s Holocaust. I don’t know the outcome of the negotiations but somehow the O’Jays “Backstabber” keeps playing in my head. BTW, the lead singer of the O’Jays, Eddie Lavert was a cousin of mine.

Zelenskyy has got to be a bit trepidatious. The US voted with Russia, China and Iran on a rather mild resolution saying that Russia invaded Ukraine with “devastating and long-lasting consequences” and called for an early cessation of hostilities. Sounds right to me. So why did the US vote against it if not to throw Zelenskyy a finger and coddle Putin? Of course, Trump had said that Ukraine was responsible for starting the war. Trump’s nominee for Deputy Defense secretary in his congressional hearings hemmed and hawed and refused to say whether Russia started the war. When asked, the nominee Stephen Feinberg, said diplomatically “I’m not privy to the details of the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, what the sensitivities are, what the president’s trying to accomplish — so I’d be afraid to speak out of turn and undermine that. I do have confidence that the president is very skillful at this, and he’ll find the right way to help the United States.” The pushback came from the democrats on the committee and not the republicans (who are obviously scared of Trump). Hey, republicans, want to revisit your attack on Ketanji Brown Jackson on what’s a woman?

BTW the democrats all of a sudden care about the welfare of the military. They are pretending to be all in a tizzy over possible cuts in defense. Noted defense hawks (not!) Tim Kaine and Jack Reed all of a sudden argue that cuts would undermine national security and cripple the military. What! The democrats said what? Is this the first time this century that democrats actually made clucking noises on protecting national security and funding the military? Again, the power of Trump continues to amaze.