Editorial: Trump: The whole world is watching, anxiously

It isn’t just many Americans who are astonished and fearful about the election of Donald J. Trump as their next president. A sense of foreboding has also gripped America’s longtime allies.

Their concern is understandable. In his statements about foreign policy during the campaign, Trump often displayed an ignorance of the facts, an unjustified self-confidence — he famously said that “I know more about ISIS than the generals do” — and a failure to appreciate the value of the alliances the United States has forged over more than half a century. He has threatened a trade war with China, insulted Mexicans and their government, called global warming a “hoax.”

At one point he dismissed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as “obsolete.” He also suggested that the U.S. might not come to the rescue of NATO allies threatened by a newly assertive Russia if they were behind in their financial obligations to the alliance.

In what was billed as a major foreign-policy address in April, Trump — who has no experience in international affairs or, for that matter, in government at all — said that his guiding principle would be “America First” — appropriating a slogan used by isolationists who opposed the entry of the United States into World War II.

Trump also demonstrated that his personal failings — a thin skin and a susceptibility to flattery — affected the way he addressed foreign-policy issues. Would he have been as likely to assert that Vladimir Putin is “not going into Ukraine,” as he did until a television interview corrected him, if he hadn’t been praised by the Russian president? Will the candidate who accused the government of Mexico of sending rapists into the U.S. be able to refrain from insulting foreign leaders after he takes office?

Some hopeful observers have suggested that Trump can be educated out of some of his more absurd assertions about foreign policy, particularly if he appoints seasoned experts to advise him. We hope so, but some of the positions Trump staked out in the campaign will be easier to reverse or finesse than others.

Trump, for instance, may find it hard to redeem his promise to renegotiate the international agreement that placed limits on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions, a deal he denounced as a “disaster.” For one thing, the major provisions of the agreement have already been put into effect. Second, the deal was the result of negotiations involving Iran and six nations including the U.S., not simply an arrangement between the U.S. and Iran.

As for the war against Islamic State, Trump was scathing when he repeatedly blamed its emergence on President Obama and Clinton, but characteristically vague about how he would defeat it. At one point he claimed to have a plan of his own to defeat the group, but on another occasion he suggested that he would give “my top generals” 30 days to come up with one.

Ironically, this lack of clarity gives the Trump administration flexibility to pursue a variety of options in the continued effort against Islamic State and similar groups. The most likely course — because it makes sense — is to continue Obama’s policy of using air strikes and the deployment of limited numbers of advisors and special forces in the campaign against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. The alternatives are to abandon the fight or move down the path toward a large-scale commitment of U.S. ground troops.

Two arenas may pose the greatest challenges for Trump in reconciling his campaign rhetoric and the responsibilities of the presidency: Russia and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Clinton may have exaggerated when she said a President Trump would be a “puppet” of Putin. But it’s a fact that the president-elect has described the Russian in terms that would do a press agent proud. He also has said that “Russia is killing ISIS” in Syria — an observation that contradicts the official U.S. position that Russian airstrikes have largely targeted moderate opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Beginning with its intervention in Ukraine in 2014 and its annexation of Crimea and continuing with its involvement in the Syrian civil war, Russia under Putin has been increasingly assertive. Will the Trump administration maintain economic sanctions against Russia to punish it for its aggression in Ukraine? Will it bolster NATO’s presence in Baltic member nations fearful of Russian subversion? Or will solidarity with NATO allies be subjugated to Trump’s oft-stated desire for better relations with Russia?

As for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it’s customary for presidential candidates of both parties to cast themselves as friends of Israel, but Trump has taken that tradition to extremes. Although early in the campaign he said he wanted to be neutral between Israelis and Palestinians, he has tilted since then toward Israel, claiming outrageously that President Obama has “not been a friend to Israel” because the administration has differed with the hard-line government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

It’s possible that even on these issues Trump the president will be more realistic and responsible than Trump the candidate; he couldn’t be less so.

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