Introduction of the Trump doctrine | News, sports, jobs

Rich Lowry

President Donald Trump gave an important speech in Riad, which may come as close as we will probably describe a “Trump doctrine”.

It was a direct counterpoint to George W. Bush's second inaugural speech.

The simple way to express it is that the money for Bush, money for Donald Trump was.

However, this is not entirely correct. We were talking about values ​​that they were just not typical values ​​- responsible government, human dignity – but simply prosperity and peace. If Bush wanted to spread freedom, Trump wants to spread shiny skyscrapers.

He welcomed the climb of the golf of a Middle East, “defined by trade, not the chaos where it exports technology, not terrorism, and where people of different nations, religions and creed build cities together.”

In particular, there is no freedom in this affirmative imprisonment – everything is economic activity.

We were very critical of Iran, but his criticism was that she built nothing. Instead, his sights “collapsed in rubble and dust”.

Trump's speech was not isolated or American traditions were strange. The speech ran in the slipstream of the Hamilton tradition, as was famous by Walter Russell Mead, whereby the focus of the trade in foreign matters is on the role of trade. And as always there was a Jacksonian element when Trump spoke of Smiting America's enemies.

However, there was no Wilsonianism. In a passage that had attracted attention, Trump rapped neocons and liberal non -profit organizations to develop the Middle East, but to know or respect the culture of the region.

This charges have earnings. We had no idea what we started in Iraq and Afghanistan, while George W. Bush's vision for the spread of democracy systematically does not systematically take into account the influence of culture and the centrality of order on freedom and other social goods.

Nevertheless, both Afghanistan and Iraq were originally designed as a self -defense war after a terrorist attack shook America to its core. It is also not persuasive to keep the Gulf States as a counter -example of development – everyone can run an emirate that lives on oil and under the US safety umbrellas.

Trump's vision is actually as universal as Bush; Bush believed that every country could become a democracy and Trump believes that every country can thrive.

Iran can “be a wonderful, safe, large country, but you can't have a nuclear weapon”. The Lebanon can also take on “a future of economic development and peace”.

He will turn to everyone and bring it to this enchanting circle of trade and commercial. “As I have shown repeatedly,” he said, “I am ready to end past conflicts and forge new partnerships.”

For Trump, it is not the results that are important – prosperity and peace – how a specific government reaches it. That doesn't matter to us. “I think it's God's task to sit in the court,” he said. Trump's task is to promote “stability, prosperity and peace”.

Overall, the real policy of a deal maker or an apprenticeship that we do not really have a doctrine was, unless we try to make everyone rich and to get along with as many people as possible.

The address was certainly excited. But values ​​are important. Liberal societies are reliable as our friends as a general matter and reliably achieve prosperity.

When Bush's vision is an unrealistic view of what motivates humanity – all longing for freedom, no longing for power or revenge -, Trump is drastically simplified in his own way. As history has shown, people will fight and die for faith and ideologies if they have nothing to do with prosperity or actively destroy them.

It should also be said that voices for democratic ideals are an enormous part of the attraction in America all over the world, and if we get into a competition with China, who is richer and can do more business, we will throw away a great advantage.

However, this is probably an insight for another president. Trump has his apprenticeship.

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