*Do you watch one news channel predominately or read one certain newspaper/ Do yourself a favor and broaden your horizons.
TOPICS: ARAB WORLD, DONALD TRUMP, EGYPT, FAKE NEWS, FOREIGN POLICY, IRAN, MIDDLE EAST, PARTNER VIDEO, PERSIAN GULF, QATAR, RUSSIAN HACKING, SAUDI ARABIA, SHEIKH TAMIM BIN HAMAD AL THANI, TRUMP ADMINISTRATION, TRUMP FOREIGN POLICY, TRUMP TWEETS, TRUMP TWITTER, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, POLITICS NEWS, NEWS
TOPICS: ARAB WORLD, DONALD TRUMP, EGYPT, FAKE NEWS, FOREIGN POLICY, IRAN, MIDDLE EAST, PARTNER VIDEO
One reason it’s important to have a president who is capable of reading foreign policy briefing books and listening to experts is not just because those things increase their understanding of world affairs. It’s also vital because they can offer a sense of caution and context to inform a president’s words and actions on the world stage. For the most part our presidents have taken this aspect of the job very seriously.
There are exceptions. Recall that on Aug. 6, 2001, George W. Bush told his national security briefer, “All right, you’ve covered your ass now” after he was told that that Osama bin Laden was “determined to strike inside the United States.” And then he went fishing. We know how that worked out.
From what we hear, President Donald Trump is even less interested. Just before he took office he told Fox News’ Chris Wallace, “I’m, like, a smart person. I don’t have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years.” We know he gets at least some briefings these days because he was able to spill the beans about top-secret Israeli intelligence to the Russian ambassador.
Reuters has reported that Trump has a very short attention span and requires all briefing memos to be a single page and accompanied by visual aids. His advisers have found that if they put his name in as many paragraphs as possible they can entice him to read the whole thing.
Trump’s foreign trip made it obvious that he is way in over his head. There were lots of great visuals on the Saudi leg of the trip with everyone sword dancing and clutching glowing orbs. Conservative media outlets swooned, portraying the trip as a major breakthrough as Trump singlehandedly ended all bad blood among former rivals and brought the region together in peace and harmony. (Well, except for Iran, which all parties have agreed to hate.)
He didn’t give any press conferences but he did give some speeches, which were notable for what they didn’t say rather than what they did. In Saudi Arabia he didn’t mention human rights and at NATO headquarters he purposefully refused to endorse Article 5, the mutual defense pact at the heart of the alliance.
In the Middle East, he sounded like a used car salesman trying to move surplus vehicles off the back lot with statements such as this one to the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani:
Original article > http://tinyurl.com/y9xupztgWe are friends, we’ve been friends for a long time now, haven’t we? Our relationship is extremely good, we have some very serious discussions right now going on, and one of the things that we will discuss is the purchase of lots of beautiful military equipment, because nobody makes it like the United States. And for us, that means jobs, and it also means franklygreat security back here, which we want.
