There was great excitement and sense of anticipation with the November 5th re-election of Donald Trump. Trump has been self-identified and generally acknowledged as the country’s first America First President – after George Washington.
Deranged entrenched GOP House – ineffective/lazy/not yet dominated by America First Members, cannot be international police/ no urgency to cut $36 trillion debt, not willing to make tough decisions/ America first – not isolationist.
To date, the country is still waiting for Trump to unveil his America First policies especially as they relate to foreign policy and judicial issues.
Trump promised to end the Ukraine war within his first 24 hours was admittedly more optimistic with a more complicated agenda than he understood. In any case, we are now almost three months into the Trump presidency with no peace in Ukraine as Trump continues to militarily support the Ukraine government. So what’s the story?
The war in Ukraine began in 2014 with the US complicit in the overthrow of democratically elected Ukraine President Yanukovych as US Sen. McCain and Murphy stood on the Maidan stage in 2013 encouraging Ukraine to support its EU membership.
At the same time, the President has suggested he would “very willingly” order a military strike on Iran to remove their nuclear facilities. While Trump has repeatedly said that Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons, the question remains whether he has made the same demand of Israel. Israel is one of few nations on the planet which has refused to sign the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran ratified the NPT in 1970.
While in critical denial, Israel is reported to have a nuclear arsenal of several hundred even as Israel prefers to identify Iran as a more dangerous threat although Israel has an extensive history of warring with its neighbors.
The latest from the White House is that there is no peace settlement, that Trump is pulling back from negotiations and no further attempt to achieve a ceasefire. The question remains why Trump has allowed the war to continue, even after the recent Oval Office confrontation with Ukraine president Zelensky. At that point, the President had every opportunity to oust Zelensky, to declare an end to the war in a straightforward manner but that has not happened.
In retrospect, there appears to be no Trump strategy to end the war; to simply declare the conflict over, with no American weapons or funding. Curiously, Trump has taken no action to permanently end the war and remove Zelensky.
A major factor may be that many of Trump’s cabinet appointments are not sufficiently strong representatives of America First policies and/or they have failed to deliver. As if setting himself up to fail, the President’s foreign policy team is less than impressive as it appears to be dominated by neocons, mostly second-rate choices with Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence.
In addition, Sen. Marco Rubio as Secretary of State offers little real diplomatic experience and has not yet shown the necessary mojo beyond what Biden’s SOS appointee Antony Blinken offered. Other neocon Cabinet appointees include Sebatian Gorka as Counterterrorism Director, former Rep. Mike Waltz as Trump’s National Security Advisor who most likely invited Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg to attend the now infamous Signal chat as well as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth who continues to struggle with being over his head as well as Mike Huckabee as US Ambassador to Israel.
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As the self anointed peace President who has made no secret of his desire for the Nobel Peace Prize, the Trump administration continues to contradict itself with the continued bombing of Yemen since mid March. The bombing campaign continues with no explanation how Yemen represents such a massive national security threat to the US.
During the Signal chat where the Yemen bombing was first discussed, Vice President JD Vance let his opposition be known as it was revealed in Goldberg’s follow up summary of the Chat. Vance cited that US shipping through the Red Sea is minimal at 3% posited that may not warrant a bombing campaign now at a cost of $1 billion.
Vance continued
“forty percent of European trade transits the Suez. There is a real risk that the public does not understand why this is necessary. The strongest reason as the President said is ‘to send a message.”
Long time supporters of the Palestinians in Gaza, the Houthi Red Sea attacks have focused on Israeli shipping in response to Netanyahu’s war crime annihilating an entire race of people.
Nevertheless, after more than a month of bombing which included civilian areas,
“The message is clear to Iran … Your support of the Houthis needs to end immediately. We will o[that] we will not be nice about it,” Hegseth said.
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Renee Parsons has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist with Friends of the Earth and a staff member in the US House of Representative in Washington, DC. Before its demise, she was also a member of the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and President of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter.
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