[Peace-discuss] Trump vs. the Democrats: Two reactionary factions fight over foreign policy

[David Johnson]

Trump vs. the Democrats: Two reactionary factions fight over foreign policy

16 July 2018 

Monday's scheduled meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian
President Vladimir Putin has been preceded by a massive barrage of
propaganda from the Democrats, their allied media outlets and the US
intelligence agencies demanding that Trump intensify military pressure on
Russia.

This campaign has centered around an indictment released Friday by US Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein of 12 Russian military/intelligence officers
for allegedly hacking the servers of the Democratic National Committee and
the email account of Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta, and
subsequently turning the emails over to WikiLeaks for publication.

The release of the indictment, which makes sweeping assertions but cites no
evidence, is a cynical and transparent attempt by the US intelligence
agencies, working with the Democrats, to reorient the foreign policy of the
Trump administration towards geopolitical conflict with Russia.

This campaign has reached a hysterical frenzy, in which major TV stations
and newspapers are warning that Donald Trump is about to sell out US
national interests to Vladimir Putin.

The New York Times headlined its lead story Sunday, "Just Sitting Down With
Trump, Putin Comes Out Ahead," declaring "All [Putin] really needs to make
his meeting with Mr. Trump a success is for it to take place without any
major friction."

Such claims are as preposterous as the underlying narrative about Russian
"meddling" in the 2016 election. Trump, a representative of the rapacious
and parasitic American financial oligarchy, has no intention of "selling
out" US imperialist interests.

Rather, the bitter differences that have emerged in the run-up to the summit
revolve around disagreements between Trump and the Democrats over how best
to secure the interests of the American ruling class throughout the world.

Trump favors an approach aimed at leveraging the United States' preeminent
position in the global economy and geopolitical order to forge bilateral
trade agreements to improve the US trade balance. In so doing, he has placed
EU countries, and in particular Germany, on his list of targets. In an
interview with CBS ahead of the summit, he declared that the United States'
greatest economic "foe" is the EU, alongside other "foes" like Russia and
China.

This was an extension of Trump's statements during last week's NATO summit,
when he chided Germany for purchasing natural gas from Russia instead of the
United States.

The Democrats, speaking for dominant elements of the US state intelligence
bureaucracy, see the pursuit of US military and geostrategic aims in Eurasia
as more vital than Trump's focus on trade. This accounts for their obsessive
fixation with Russia, the encirclement and isolation of which is a key
element of the effort to secure US global hegemony through military means.

The Democrats' focus on Russia also serves other, equally vital purposes.
The perpetual escalation of military tensions with Moscow is aimed at
unifying the European Union, in alliance with the United States, against a
common enemy.

It has, moreover, provided a rationale for the Democrats' loss in the 2016
election and the crackdown on political opposition through Internet
censorship, based on the claim that Russia is fueling political dissent to
"sow divisions" in American society. By associating WikiLeaks with the
supposed Russian conspiracy, the Democrats justify the ongoing campaign
against the organization's founder, Julian Assange.

In relation to foreign policy, bound up with the demand for more aggressive
action against Russia is the concern that Trump is insufficiently committed
to the seven-year-old campaign for regime-change in Syria.

In an op-ed last week, "Is Trump handing Putin a victory in Syria?"
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius declared, "The catastrophic war in
Syria is nearing what could be a diplomatic endgame, as the United States,
Russia and Israel shape a deal that would preserve power for Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad in exchange for Russian pledges to restrain
Iranian influence."

Sections of the foreign policy establishment are speaking in particularly
blunt terms of the failure of US efforts to confront Russia in Syria and
Ukraine. The events of recent years have shown that "The United States
cannot coerce Russia into doing its will," wrote Michael Kimmage in Foreign
Affairs. "In Ukraine and Syria, Washington has attempted to isolate Russia,
hoping that Putin will meet US demands so he can come in from the cold. So
far, coercion and isolation have both failed."

However, the factions of the state intelligence apparatus for which the
Democrats speak see these setbacks to the United States' foreign policy as
an argument for doubling down. In another article in Foreign Affairs, "Don't
Get Out of Syria," Jennifer Cafarella, of the Institute for the Study of
War, argues that the United States must redouble its efforts if it is to
maintain a toehold in the country.

Cafarella warns, "The south [of Syria] will likely fall to forces allied
with the regime unless the United States acts immediately." She advises the
US to "invest now in building leverage for future decisive action by
strengthening the military and governance capabilities of its partners on
the ground, regaining the trust of Syria's rebelling population, rebuilding
rebel forces, and denying Assad the international legitimacy he so
desperately craves."

Rather than opposing Trump's reactionary attacks on fundamental democratic
rights, his criminal immigration policies and his massive expansion of
military spending, the Democrats have focused all their efforts on demanding
that the US pursue a more aggressive foreign policy against Russia. Indeed,
the Russian indictments are seen as an opportunity to shift attention away
from the mass outrage over the horrific treatment of immigrant workers by
the Trump administration.

Given the fact that neither greater US involvement in the Middle East nor
war with nuclear-armed Russia has any substantial support in the US
population, the Democrats' policies serve only to legitimize Trump.

The struggle playing out over the summit in Helsinki is between two
ferociously right-wing factions of the American oligarchy and
military/intelligence bureaucracy. There is no "anti-war," much less
progressive faction in this filthy and reactionary mud fight.

Andre Damon

 

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