Foreign Policy?

According to the administration Iran is planning some sort of trouble and we have dispatched a carrier.

In a somewhat sad commentary of our current faith in our government, there is a "show me" attitude since the WMD fiasco in Iraq.

Its also likely that our simpleton in the White House who bought in to all the FOX news criticisms over the years about how the prior administrations simply had to flex some muscle to get the world to comply with us.

It doesn't work, at least not in any meaningful sense.

Our foreign policy is pretty much a mess, with our allies concerned about our reliability and trustworthiness and our enemies manipulating our dontard.

One of the successes he touts is that he has inspired our allies to spend more money on their defense, and they have, but so have we.

If the benefit was supposed to be that we would spend less, it isn't happening.

Everyone spending more turns into an arms race.

Isis was being pushed out of territory when he took over and that continued.  They aren't destroyed and may be more dangerous than ever.  Certainly the middle east isn't friendlier and we managed to let Russia and Iran exert more and more influence.

North Korea played us and he let them.

Sanctions, tariffs and sending in a carrier are not much in the way of foreign policy.  Its all he seems to have though.

Iran Deal

The US is most likely going to withdraw from the Iran deal although there are a number of scenarios about what might happen.

There is no evidence that Iran has violated the agreement, it is simply a pretty typical reaction of the dontard to anything done by his predecessor.

Of course the deal has critics, it had them before it was ever signed, but of course it is a multi-national deal that has specific restrictions on Iran's nuclear program.

The deal didn't address some of the things that critics bring up and the gist of the criticism seems to be that we should re-impose sanctions until Iran does everything we would like them to do.

Negotiations between sovereign states is a tricky thing and requires give and take.

Not unlike business deals.

If a deal gives one side everything it wants, its not a negotiation, its an ultimatum.

The other point here is pretty simple.  Why would you enter into a deal with a country that fails to honor it even when you honor your end?

Iran is currently not a friend of the US but it has been in the past and possibly could be again in the future.

We would like them to change certain behavior related to terrorism and its recognition of Israel's right to exist.

This deal however was designed to impact Iran's nuclear program, not those other issues.

What will be interesting is who then honors the re-imposed US sanctions and whether we retaliate against those who don't?

We will have made Iran a more sympathetic country at the very least, not sure that's what we want.

Iran Accord

It is likely that our dotard is likely to repudiate the nuclear deal with Iran.

He like to repeat the right wing media analysis of the deal and that it wasn't in America's best interests.

All evidence supports that Iran is effectively living up to the deal but they think the deal should have done more than it does, such as requiring Iran to stop supporting terrorists.

Now that would be fine except the agreement was negotiated with one goal in mind and wasn't just a bilateral deal with us.

It also may not actually matter much except for a public relations thing.

Certainly if all the other countries and Iran continue to honor it our non-participation is sort of optional.

Since the financial assets that had been blocked have already been released, you can't put that toothpaste back in the tube.

Unilateral American sanctions may have some impact, but the rest of the members who stay in the agreement won't honor them.

Worst case is that Iran uses this action to resume its nuclear development program and that would result in resumed UN Sanctions but because we took the first step it may be easier for the Iranians to get sympathetic support as the victim.

Not what anyone would want but you know the only thing that matters to our dotard is politics and public relations.

A safer world, not so much.

Rocket Man and the Dotard

Well this is pretty much sums up where we are in dealing with the North Korea nuclear program.  Name calling.

It also shows that American literacy isn't what it should be since this led to a surge on Google of people looking up what dotard means.

I admit its not used much, we don't use dotage either, pretty much replaced by senile although the meanings are subtly different.

Definition of dotage for English Language Learners. : the period of old age : the time when a person is old and often less able to remember or do things.

Definition of senile. 1 : of, relating to, exhibiting, or characteristic of old age senile weakness; especially : exhibiting a loss of cognitive abilities (as memory) associated with old age

Its clearly insulting while rocket man isn't necessarily although it is the way Trump uses it.

At least to his way of thinking.

Now no one wants North Korea to have nuclear weapons or at least not publicly.  The real question is as the technology proliferates, can we actually stop someone?

We are imposing additional sanctions which will certainly impact some North Koreans, but not sure if its going to have any impact on Rocket Man.

The latest round is going after those who violate the sanctions by doing business with North Korea and this will likely drive up the cost but will it actually stop it?

I have my doubts.

I guess the point of the sanctions is to get the Rocket Man to stop or to negotiate a stop.

Which brings us to the Iran issue, which is a place where sanctions actually worked, except the Dotard thinks it was a bad deal.

Of course all the countries that were involved don't agree and while I'm sure it didn't give us every thing we could possible want, I gather it was a difficult negotiation.

You think a deal maker would understand that.