And this is what fake news is all about.
/ Dagny Snow Angeling In Savannah!
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Because Trump has no ideological girdle or, like Obama, a deal to accomplish or Ben Rhodes to lie for him, Trump is free to support human rights and is doing so as he should.
Obama remained silent because he thought he could buy peace. Wrong again!
Now, what can Trump accomplish to help Iranians rid themselves of their oppressive regime?
If Iranians overthrow the Ayatollah's where does that leave Russia, Hezbollh, and radical Yemen Islamists ?
I am back to reading Elliott Abram's book and am finishing the chapter about why Islamists win and then fail and can be defeated.
Monarchs rule with an iron fist but eventually become vulnerable because they overlook the needs of the people which build and when these needs continue to go unfulfilled it sets the stage for revolt. While this is happening, Islamists are winning favor with their attention to providing various services. This makes them a reasonable alternative but when they win and begin governing their incompetency, their inability to govern becomes exposed and they fall on their own sword of broken promises and heightened but unfulfilled expectations.
The popularity of Islamists is fading in the Middle East making them increasingly vulnerable in a political setting that is free. Also, technology and the social media has impacted Islamist abilities to control events and information. That said, Tunisia is one example of where the government resigned, though it did not have to, and allowed moderate Islamists and secularists to rule and it has worked.
In Egypt you had a different result. Islamists were not allowed to remain part of the political process but were thrown out. Will this create problems for Sisi down the road?
In the ending section of his third chapter entitled: "Islamists In or Out," Elliott discusses the pros and cons of allowing Islamists to participate in any newly formed government . Allowing Islamists to participate carries risks but excluding them also carries other risks. There are many variables and no set answer. Each circumstance needs to be evaluated on its own but if Islamists are allowed to participate one principle seems evident. Islamists should first be required to agree to a set form of conditions.
In the case of the Iranians, they have a long history of freedom and and their culture is one of being highly educated so if they rid themselves of the Ayatollah's I, personally, do not see Islamists continuing and/or being invited to lead .Stay tuned. (See 1, 1a and 1b below.)
But then. (See 1c below.)
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Talk about collusion.
In essence, the Clinton’s created the Russian “angle” out of thin air; and the FBI and DOJ used that creation as the legal underpinning for the counterintelligence operation.
The cointel op was always just a ruse for wiretapping, surveillance and monitoring of Donald Trump campaign officials.
The FBI (Strzok) and DOJ (Ohr) dressed up the Steele Dossier to apply for a FISA warrant (Asst from DOJ/FBI intermediary Lisa Page). The surveillance was happening with or without the FISA approval; but the FISA warrant would make the surveillance legal.
Right click on the below:
And, this from a fellow tennis player who I truly like and enjoy playing with but he has drunken the Obama Kool Aid, (See 2)
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Trump threatens to use the power of the dollar again.
Perhaps he can squeeze the Palestinians to accept Israel's right to exist but changing their minds and becoming rationale is another matter. Hatred is difficult to overcome. (See 3 below.)
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OJT and not about OJ. (See 4 below.)
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Finally, I was asked to comment about the Trump-Bannon dust up. Bannon seems overly full of himself, vengeful and volatile and I bleieve Trump responded to him and the book adequately.
Dick
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1) Busting Illusions About Iran
Trump puts America on the side of the people, not the Ayatollahs.
By The Editorial Board
Anti-government protests continue across Iran after six days, and the ruling mullahs and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are threatening a crackdown that could get ugly. The world should support this fight for freedom, which is exposing the illusions about Iran that dominated the Obama Administration.
Start with the claim that signing a nuclear deal with the Tehran regime would moderate its behavior. Ben Rhodes, President Obama’s chief foreign-policy salesman, said in June 2015 that “a world in which there is a deal with Iran is much more likely to produce an evolution in Iranian behavior, than a world in which there is no deal.”
Mr. Obama said the pact “could strengthen the hands of more moderate leaders in Iran.” And Vice President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Colin Kahl said in 2015 that the Iranians “are not going to spend the vast majority of the money on guns, most of it will go to butter.” Toward that end, the nuclear pact lifted international sanctions and unfroze $100 billion in Iranian assets.
Yet instead of using the money to improve the lives of Iranians, Tehran has used its windfall to back clients making trouble throughout the region. The mullahs have spent billions propping up Syria’s Bashar Assad with troops, weapons and energy shipments. Iran funds Shiite militias in Iraq, Hezbollah terrorists in Syria and Lebanon, and Houthi fighters in Yemen.
The protesters in the streets of Tehran, Qom, Shiraz and other cities are explicitly rejecting this adventurism, shouting slogans like “Leave Syria, think of us!” They want a better economy and more opportunities for their children, not campaigns to build a Shiite empire across the Middle East.
Another busted illusion is that there is a difference in policy between Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the supposedly moderate President Hasan Rouhani. Mr. Rouhani talks about listening to the protesters, but that will last only until the Ayatollah gives other orders. The Rouhani government has responded to the nuclear deal by arresting democracy advocates and taking American hostages like Xiyue Wang, a Princeton PhD student, and father and son Baquer and Siamak Namazi. The protesters are making no distinction between Mr. Rouhani and the mullahs.
The demonstrations have also exposed the illusion peddled by Mr. Rhodes that President Trump’s more muscular policy toward Iran has united the regime with the Iranian public in opposition to the U.S. The ire of the protesters is aimed at their own rulers for corruption and wasting what they were told would be the fruits of the nuclear deal.
Mr. Trump, the supposed foreign-policy bumpkin, understands this better than Mr. Obama and the arms-control sophisticates. Mr. Obama sought to win over the Tehran regime by avoiding confrontation and letting Iran have its way in Syria and elsewhere. His goal above all else was the nuclear deal.
Mr. Trump, by contrast, has distinguished between the regime and the Iranian people, much as Ronald Reagan did with the Soviet Union. In speeches over the past year, the President has called out the regime for stirring up foreign trouble and subjugating its people.
“The entire world understands that the good people of Iran want change, and, other than the vast military power of the United States, that Iran’s people are what their leaders fear the most,” Mr. Trump told the United Nations in September. “This is what causes the regime to restrict internet access, tear down satellite dishes, shoot unarmed student protestors, and imprison political reformers.”
Mr. Trump’s tweets since the protests began may not be Obama-smooth but they have put America on the side of the people, rather than the regime. This rhetorical support matters to those in the street, and Europeans and Democrats in Congress should join the chorus. The U.S. can also provide technology to help Iranians get around the regime’s internet firewall and censorship. And it can raise the cost of Iran’s interventions around the Middle East.
Iranians will have to earn their own freedom, but Americans can help by admitting that this isn’t a fight between moderates and “hardliners” or Tehran vs. Trump. It’s a fight between people who want liberty and their oppressors.
1a)The New York Post
The US can’t be silent on Iran
The foreign-policy establishment and former Obama administration staffers seem to agree about two things concerning the protests in Iran. One is that the Trump administration should follow the example of his predecessor, who was largely silent the last time the Iranian people took to the streets to challenge their Islamist oppressors. The other is that on no account should any discussion about the current situation in Iran be linked to efforts to throw out or change the nuclear deal President Obama concluded with the same people who are ordering thugs to gun down protesters.
They’re wrong on both counts.
By speaking out on events in Iran, President Trump is passing a test Obama failed. Obama’s reluctance to discuss dissent in Iran sent protesters a message that they were on their own and that the regime had a pass to do its worst. The establishment is chiding Trump and telling us American advocacy will only hurt the protesters. But, as was the case with the former Soviet Union, the support of the free world for those fighting tyranny not only encourages dissenters but also reminds the tyrants they are the ones who are isolated.
It’s also a mistake to act as if what’s going on in Iran right now must be kept separate from the nuclear deal.
The deal’s apologists are correct when they say the agreement was solely focused on nuclear issues and ignored Iran’s quest for regional hegemony, terrorism, missiles and human rights. But it was still a swindle, since the sunset clauses Obama conceded mean that within another decade, the weak restrictions on their nuclear program will expire and Tehran will be able to resume work on a bomb and still be in compliance with its obligations.
Trump is right that it must be changed.
Ordinary Iranians were promised the nuclear deal would end their country’s isolation and, therefore, improve their lot. If it hasn’t, it’s not because the West has reneged on its pledges, but because the only real beneficiaries of the deal have been regime entities like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. That’s why rather than refraining from bringing the pact into current discussions, the West must make it clear to Tehran that if it isn’t prepared to give up those sunset clauses, more sanctions will follow. President Trump can, if he likes, blow up the deal this month, but the smarter play would be to begin a real effort to renegotiate it with the threat of crippling sanctions on Iran’s European trade partners to back it up.
Obama discarded all of the West’s considerable leverage in his blind pursuit of a deal on any terms. Trump can’t undo that fiasco on his own, but the protests present the world with a golden opportunity to get a lot of that leverage back. Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is trying to delude Iranians into thinking the protests are a plot hatched by Trump, Israel and the Saudis. But if he lets his country sink back into further economic misery, the price of suppressing the growing voices of dissent will rise to a point where even he knows it can’t be paid.
That makes this the ideal moment to make it clear to Iran that if it wants to trade with the rest of the world and prosper, it must concede that, at the very least, the sunset clauses in the nuclear deal must be voided.
Trump shouldn’t be deterred by the bad advice of a bankrupt foreign-policy establishment. Instead of remaining silent or pretending that Obama’s decision to seek a deal with Iran didn’t contribute to the problems inside that country, this is the moment to act.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS.org and a contributing writer for National Review. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.
1b) Iran’s Theocracy Is on the Brink
Every decade the Islamist regime has been in power, an uprising has cost it an element of its legitimacy.
By Mark Dubowitz and Ray Takeyh
Iran has a peculiar habit of surprising Americans. It has done so again with the protests engulfing its major cities. The demonstrations began over economic grievances and quickly transformed into a rejection of theocracy.
The slogans must have unsettled the mullahs: “Death to Khamenei!” “Death to Rouhani!” “We will die to get our Iran back!” Imperialism has not revived the regime’s legitimacy, as the protesting Persians pointedly reject expending their meager resources on Arab wars: “Death to Hezbollah!” “No to Gaza, not Lebanon! Our life only for Iran!”
However the events on the streets unfold, their most immediate casualty will be the presidency of Hassan Rouhani and its false claim of pragmatic governance. In the aftermath of the Green Revolution of 2009, which rocked the foundations of the Islamic Republic, a sinister argument gradually pervaded Western salons and chancelleries. The convulsions of that summer, the claim went, were over no more than electoral irregularity. With the election of the so-called moderate Mr. Rouhani in 2013, the system rebalanced itself. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his allies supposedly learned some hard lessons on the need to yield to popular mandates. Iranians want gradual change, we have been told, and believe that the system’s own constitutional provisions and plebiscites can be used to nudge it toward moderation.
Then, last week, Iranians took to the streets.
Every decade of the Islamist regime’s rule has seen one of its political factions lose its legitimacy through national uprisings. In the 1980s, the Islamic Republic waged a determined civil war against liberals and secularists who sought to redeem the revolution’s pledge of a democratic order. The student riots of 1999 ended the reformist interlude and Mohammad Khatami’s presidency, which had promised that the expansion of civil society and elections would harmonize faith and freedom. The reformists lingered as discredited enablers of a repressive regime, but no one believed in their promises of change from within. The hard-liners offered their own national compact, one that privileged economic justice over political emancipation. But the tumultuous presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad produced only corruption and bellicosity.
Then came Mr. Rouhani and his centrist disciples with their pledge to revive the economy, primarily through foreign investment. Mr. Rouhani needed a nuclear agreement to lift debilitating sanctions and stimulate commerce. The Obama administration was happy to deliver, and Iran received tens of billions of dollars in financial dividends, including $1.7 billion in paper currency.
Instead of channeling that wealth into productive uses, Ayatollah Khamenei, the clerical establishment and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps consumed much of it on foreign adventurism and corruption. Mr. Rouhani made a crucial mistake: overpromising and underdelivering on both economic and political reforms. His modest experiment in centrist rule has come crashing down, taking with it his injunction that all must trust the system. The regime is at an impasse. It has no more political actors—no establishment saviors—to offer its restless constituents.
As with the Soviet Union in its last days, the Islamic Republic can no longer appeal to its ideals; it relies only on its security services for survival. That is deadly for a theocracy, by definition an ideological construct. Ideological authoritarian states need a vision of the future by which their enforcers can condone their own violence. The theocracy’s vast patronage system will not cure this crisis of legitimacy. In many ways, Mr. Rouhani was the ruling clergy’s last gasp, a beguiling mullah who could enchant Westerners while offering Iranians some hope. That hope has vanished.
In the coming weeks, many in the commentariat will advise the Trump administration to remain silent and stay on the sidelines, as the Obama administration did in 2009. They will recommend that it is best to let the Iranian drama play itself out. If American officials weigh in, the argument goes, the regime would brand its detractors as agents of a foreign power.
Such stale prescriptions miss the point that Iranians are looking toward America to support their struggle. Democratic dissidents always do so. In that regard, Iranians are no different from non-Muslim dissidents from the former Soviet Union to communist China, who have struggled against tyranny and ardently welcomed American and European support.
Barack Obama has been rightly castigated for his silence during the Green Revolution. President Trump is right not to follow his predecessor’s discredited path. The White House should continue issuing condemnations daily, including through Persian-language media outlets, and follow up with sanctions targeting corruption and human-rights abuses. Congress should rediscover its once-bipartisan determination to hold the regime accountable for its crimes and push America’s European allies to overcome their mercantile greed and support Iranians striving to be free from theocracy.
The Islamic Republic is a relic of a century that yielded multiple ideological regimes claiming to have mastered the forces of history. By now most of them are history. Mr. Trump entered office with an understanding of the Islamic Republic’s profound threat to American security. The most consequential legacy of his presidency may be a Middle East free of its most powerful unsavory regime.
Mr. Dubowitz is chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
UC4I.org, EHL Editor
Americans are fearful of yet another attack on our homeland by radical Islamists. We remember those who have fallen during the horrific willful murders by our enemies, Islamist terrorists, who have changed our world and are attempting to alter it much further by penetrating our democracy and creating a caliphate ruled by Sharia law.
Our website, Democracy Under Attack https://democracyunderattack.org, creates an awareness of the dangers we face. Israel and the United States, Jews and Christians alike have seen the inhumanity of 7th century depravity carried out by the radical Islamists against our American journalists Daniel Pearle, James Foley, and Steven Sotloff. No “infidels” will be spared.
Political correctness and failure to identify the Islamic element in this equation, both by world governments including our own leadership, as well as the mainstream media, make awareness of this issue an urgent necessity. ISIS has already introduced an “Islamic State” in Syria/Iraq that threatens Europe, Israel, the United States, and other democracies. College students are especially targeted. Iran moves forward with its nuclear armament. Radical Islamic cells are being introduced throughout the U.S. and Hamas has declared war on Israel. Democracy worldwide is under threat of extinction by the international Radical Islamic movement.
“It is a Muslim's destiny to perform jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny.” – Quote from the Muslim Brotherhood Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for North America.
We urge you to view the featured articles listed below. These articles reference links to videos and other materials that we have made available to you on the Democracy Under Attack website. Please share these important resources with your network.
Also review our main website: Unity Coalition for Israel https://uc4i.org
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2)Dick, this is all fake news as Trump would say. He is still a liar and not trustworthy. I hope, that the Russian probe sheds some light on his murky dealings with this country. How can Republicans put their party's interest before that of our country, when a declared enemy, like Russia, interfered with our election? There should be interest on both sides to find out. No, the opposite is the case. Beating up on Hillary, which Republicans did for 30 years, has always been very effective in muddying the water. By the way, Trump inherited a pretty good economy from Obama, even after the financial crisis, and the defeat of Isis was also started under Obama. Stop putting him down. i know, your dislike for him which is similar to mine of Trump's. Obama was a decent man and respected the office he occupied. Amen. J.
My lame response:
Obama meddled in Israel's election and then he lied about it. America does this all the time.
1% GDP is not a good economy.
Hillary was rejected twice by the nation and has lied her way through all those 30 years.Most politicians seek their interests first and we limpy allow this. All presidents lie and squeeze the truth. Trump is reversing some of Obama's disastrous policies but we still have a future entanglement with Iran and N Korea, which Trump had nothing to do with, ahead.
Be objective and stay inside and be safe. Me
My friend's rebuttal:
I then read Dagny a book written by the relative of a dear friend about Bullying.You must stay objective. I talk about our election, not in Israel! This is again a red herring, that Clinton lied all these years. She has been a piñata for Republicans for all these years, with objectivity totally gone. Obama was a good president, and Republicans did not help him ( the party of NO, you remember! This president is a big time LIAR, dividing this country, and attacking his own FBI, justice department, the press, which is trying to do their job. How could we end up with a guy like that? I guess we deserve it. It is sad, that I speak about the president this way, never did this before. I will stay indoors, but we are dog sitting and I have to take him out from time to time, cheers, J.
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3)
Palestinians must accept the reality of Israel as a Jewish state to achieve peace
ByDr. Mitchell Bard
Nations around the world have condemned the U.S. for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, saying the recent move by President Trump is an obstacle to an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement. But the real obstacle to peace is the stubborn refusal by Palestinian leaders to accept the reality of Israel as a permanent Jewish state in the historic homeland of the Jewish people.
This refusal to accept reality can be labeled Palestinian Derangement Syndrome. As long as Palestinian leaders continue to embrace it, they will not agree to a fair and realistic peace deal acceptable to any Israeli government. And as a result, ordinary Palestinians will suffer.
Every time the U.S. makes demands of the Palestinians – to end terrorism, to stop paying terrorists in Israeli jails, to end efforts to circumvent negotiations by seeking U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state – the delusional Palestinian leaders threaten to stop talking to U.S. officials.
Sure enough, the Palestinians did it again when they announced that President Mahmoud Abbas would not hold a scheduled meeting with Vice President Mike Pence after President Trump announced U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Most Palestinians are good people who would like to have normal lives – go to work, educate their children, live in peace. They would no doubt be happy if Israel disappeared tomorrow, but they’ve reconciled themselves to living with Israelis.
So if it were up to them, the majority of Palestinians would probably agree to a compromise peace plan with Israel. But unfortunately, the Palestinian Authority is a dictatorship run by Abbas without public support and with little regard for his people.
A recent poll in the West Bank and Gaza – conducted by an independent Palestinian think tank – found that 67 percent of Palestinians want Abbas to resign.
It’s true that the Palestinian people suffer deprivations because of Israel’s policies and actions – but these problems are self-inflicted, because some Palestinians engage in terror that provokes Israeli countermeasures necessary to protect the safety its people. In the same way, the United States and many other nations have beefed up security after terrorist attacks.
Meanwhile, Abbas has prevented elections for a decade and denies his people most civil and political rights. Palestinians lack freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, women’s rights and gay rights. Arabs in Israel have far more rights and freedoms that Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza.
Sadly, no one cares. The international community, the U.N., human rights groups, and pro-Palestinian advocates are silent when it comes to Palestinian abuses inflicted on their own people. They only care about Palestinians if some alleged abuse can be blamed on Israel.
President Obama was sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. Yet Abbas ignored Obama administration entreaties not to go to the U.N. with Palestinian grievances. And Abbas refused to negotiate with Israel based on Obama administration initiatives.
Palestinians also continue to make demands upon Israel as if they are the dominant power in the relationship. They delude themselves when they act as though Israel has any reason to accept such unrealistic demands.
In reality, Palestinians have no choice but to make concessions or live under current conditions. Israelis do not want to maintain the status quo, but they can do so if given no choice by the Palestinians.
The belief that the international community will force Israel to surrender to Palestinian demands is the latest manifestation of Palestinian Derangement Syndrome.
For decades, Palestinians have harbored the delusion that the Arab states cared about their cause and would drive the Jews into the sea on their behalf. But in truth, Arab leaders were interested in divvying up lands Palestinians claimed and for many years wanted to destroy Israel.
Fortunately, Arab armies were unable to defeat Israel in battle, though they tried repeatedly by attacking the Jewish State in war after war. And today Arab states are moving closer to Israel, as they recognize their mutual enemy is Iran and conclude that the Palestinian issue is irrelevant to their national interests.
As a result, following President Trump’s announcement accepting the reality that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital, Arab leaders made perfunctory statements condemning the decision but did nothing. Muslims around the world did not answer Abbas’s call for three days of rage. In fact, few Palestinians paid attention.
The Palestinians turned to terror many years ago in the delusional belief that they could bomb the Jews out of their homeland. But hijackings, suicide bombings, intifadas and ongoing attacks have not and will not succeed in improving the plight of the Palestinians. The violence has only made things worse for them.
The entire Israeli public shifted rightward after the Israeli evacuation of Gaza – giving Palestinians control – because the Palestinians destroyed the land-for-peace formula by bombarding Israel with rockets. Most Israelis now demand concrete security guarantees before they withdraw from another inch of disputed land. Any nation in the world would demand such guarantees.
Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of Palestinian Derangement Syndrome is that Palestinians have convinced themselves that they do not have to compromise with Israel, because time is on their side.
The fertility rate of Jews is now higher than that of Palestinians; nevertheless, some Palestinians believe they will eventually outnumber Israeli Jews and somehow swallow up Israel.
Alternatively, some Palestinians hope that one or more countries in the region will obtain nuclear weapons and destroy Israel. The Iranians are the most likely to get a bomb, but if the nightmare of a successful nuclear attack on Israel ever became a reality, there’s no question that many Palestinians as well as Israeli Jews would die.
The best hope for a cure for Palestinian Derangement Syndrome is a change in Palestinian leadership. Abbas represents the last of the old guard, which psychologically cannot give up the dream of liberating all of “occupied Palestine” – meaning all of Israel, not just that lands Israel captured after it was attacked by Arab armies in the Six Day War in 1967.
If the Palestinians want to achieve independence, they will have to elect leaders committed to ending their suffering and to ending Palestinian Derangement Syndrome. This will require:
· Providing basic civil rights to the Palestinians under their authority.
· Entering face-to-face negotiations with Israel with realistic expectations.
· Demonstrating that they are willing to live in peace beside the Jewish State.
· Recognizing that the 1949 armistice line that set the newly independent State of Israel’s border after it defeated invading Arab armies will not be the border going forward.
· Accepting that Israel will never give up its ancient capital of Jerusalem.
· Understanding that Israel will not accept the Palestinian dream of a “right of return” for more than a fraction of the Palestinian refugees who fled Israel in the 1940s and their descendants born elsewhere in the last 70 years.
· Accepting that Israel will never withdraw from major settlement blocs in the West Bank.
· Giving up the idea that Israel can be pressured to accept their demands by outside parties through boycotts, U.N. resolutions or any other threats.
Ending Palestinian Derangement Syndrome will be not be easy. The delusions of the syndrome are older than most Palestinians alive today, taught to them since childhood. But at some point, Palestinians will have to accept reality if they truly wish to reach a mutually beneficial peace agreement with Israel.
Dr. Mitchell Bard is executive director of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise and author/editor of 24 books including ”The Arab Lobby” and the novel “After Anatevka: Tevye in Palestine.”
Trump mulls cutting off aid to Palestinians, says they're 'no longer willing to talk peace'.
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4) President Trump’s Education as Commander in Chief
By Newt Gingrich
USA – Would you believe that during his first year as Commander in Chief, President Donald Trump hosted 43 world leaders at the White House. In total, he engaged or met with 149 world leaders in 2017. In 183 calls, the President spoke with leaders from 51 countries.
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4) President Trump’s Education as Commander in Chief
By Newt Gingrich
USA – Would you believe that during his first year as Commander in Chief, President Donald Trump hosted 43 world leaders at the White House. In total, he engaged or met with 149 world leaders in 2017. In 183 calls, the President spoke with leaders from 51 countries.
Not exactly the lack of connectivity his critics expected a year ago.
When President Trump won the election, his critics expressed great concern about his apparent lack of preparation and experience in foreign policy and national security.
Even Republicans in the foreign policy and national security establishment were deeply opposed to the Trump Presidency because they believed he lacked sufficient knowledge to lead.
As I pointed out in my #1 New York Times bestseller Understanding Trump, it is easy to underestimate the speed at which Trump learns. He constantly listens (I tell folks he always listens, but he doesn't always obey). He is endlessly curious about virtually everything. He built a worldwide corporate system, which includes hotels, office buildings, golf courses, books, wine, and a successful reality show. That took constant curiosity as he stretched again and again beyond the real estate skills his father taught him back in Queens.
One of the keys to the Trump learning system is his intuition about personnel. He has hired a lot of people in his life, and he has a pretty good instinct for defining what he needs. For his national security team, he brought in Marine four-star General Jim Mattis to be Secretary of Defense, Army three-star Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster to be National Security Advisor, and Marine four-star General John Kelly to be Secretary of Homeland Security. Kelly proved so effective; the President brought him in to be White House Chief of Staff. It would be hard to suggest that President Trump has lacked competent professional military advice.
That may also explain why after years of the Obama team's failure to defeat ISIS, the new Trump team calmly and professionally destroyed its territorial base in less than a year. In fact, the Trump team was so efficient and competent; the victory has been virtually unnoticed in the anti-Trump elite media.
According to the Daily Caller, “ISIS retains historically low numbers of fighters, controls little territory and has lost much of its command and control facilities in Iraq and Syria. The vast majority of the military progress against the group occurred in 2017.”
Part of his success has been due to President Trump’s ability and willingness to listen to leaders who host him when he travels. During the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, not only did the King of Saudi Arabia meet President Trump at the airport, but he was at his side any time President Trump was in public during his stay. The amount of time in which they had to compare notes and discuss Iran, terrorism, and Israel was significant and historic.
At the State Department, President Trump wanted a major leader as Secretary of State, and as the CEO of ExxonMobil, Rex Tillerson seemed the central casting vision of a global leader. He had routinely made billion-dollar deals, and he was comfortable and experienced in dealing with world leaders. In the first six months of the new administration, Tillerson played an important role in calming fears until people around the world got to know President Trump.
When the President made his controversial decision to move the Israeli Embassy to Jerusalem, he had been talking with every major American ally in the region for weeks. No one was surprised, and their approving reactions have been muted by the elite media.
President Trump's growth as a foreign policy and national security leader is something which deserves major acknowledgment in every year-end review of 2017. Donald Trump is not the president his critics feared. He is adroitly learning the trade of presidential leadership at a rapid pace.
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