John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY F. MICHAEL MALOOF IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Trump’s Neocons Have Always Hated Arms Control Agreements, INF Is No Different
“Pompeo trying to put the upcoming death of INF on Russia when it's transparent this has been on the neocon agenda for a long time”
It is true that the Neocons have always disliked arms agreements.
After all, and people tend to forget or overlook this fact, one of the basic tenets of the Neocons has been that the United States should use its military muscle to get what it wants in the world.
That openly brutal concept violated traditional, official American attitudes about its military, which the country has long pretended is about defense, hence the name Department of Defense.
Of course, given all the wars and interventions since WWII, that official view has always been pretty much empty words. There is absolutely nothing defensive about any of what America’s military has done for about seven decades.
And when it wasn’t done with the military, it was done with the CIA. Eisenhower - an avuncular, much-beloved figure - gave the CIA, which had just been created shortly before his term, pretty much free rein under the Dulles brothers, that Cold War team of Secretary of State and CIA Director. “Ike” was able to be the friendly face of America while they conducted the dirty work of empire without burdening him with too many details. That’s how the CIA grew into the arrogant and formidable organization Kennedy confronted after 1960.
But still, the pretence has been maintained. Now, the Neocons have been effectively saying for some years, forget the pretence. And Washington’s power establishment has listened closely since dropping the pretence appears to serve an urgent need to re-enforce its position and will upon the globe.
Washington’s power establishment recognizes that America’s relative place in the world has been slipping for decades as postwar competitors arose and succeeded, and that, if it didn’t do something about it, it would lose the immensely privileged position it has occupied since WWII.
After all, it’s mighty nice having well-rewarded and prestigious jobs in Washington, complete with a sense of people tripping over themselves to get your attention or seek some favor. These are jobs that basically involve telling other people what to do – from openly directing small states you regard as plantation properties serving American corporations to throwing your weight around in international organizations, making sure that the ninety-five percent of humanity who are not Americans do not get the idea that they somehow are entitled to influence, as through the UN.
"But like any Trump tactic to get attention, an initial bombastic approach such as the shocking announcement of treaty withdrawal is designed to control events and seek leverage in getting the changes he seeks."
That is an accurate assessment by the author.
When results don't quickly fall out of his initial explosion, he is left perplexed about what to do because he is not knowledgeable and not even particularly intelligent, nor is he patient or methodical. He has a very limited repertoire, we might say.
The Neocon gang fills the void, always ready to suggest what’s next. They are ideologues with clear, if rather malevolent, ideas of what they want, and they are unified with a fairly well-ordered supporting establishment.
That pattern of Trump's psychology likely at least in part explain how the Neocons have gained so much influence in his administration in so short a time.
Other more individualistic advisors and appointees during meetings would tend to put an unwelcome burden back onto a perplexed Trump to make a decision from their various advice and observations. We see hints at this when he tweets, as he has a number of times, that this or that former advisor or cabinet member is stupid, the bright and able Rex Tillerson being only the most recent recipient of such an accolade.
Of course, there are also the political financial arrangements with Sheldon Adelson and other very wealthy individuals, arrangements with which he hopes to support his 2020 run for re-election. Adelson and some others to whom Trump looks are quite focused on Israel.
And, not to be dismissed, is some influence from his (much doted upon, for reasons unknown since her talents remain rather elusive) daughter and her husband, whose family is well-connected in Israel.
Much of what the United States has been through in the so-called “War on Terror”- more accurately called the Neocon Wars - represents little more than a kind of intense Israelization of American foreign policy. After all, Israel has spent seventy years enforcing its presence and belligerently expanding it at the expense of neighbors. It is what they know how to do.
