hello and welcome to cross talk where all things considered i'm peter lavelle chromes foreign policy could be described as double speak the president doesn't have a defined policy approach even goals are difficult to discern is this what the art of the deal means is trumps foreign policy making america great again and the world safer. talking to us foreign policy i'm joined by my guest michael in washington he is a professor of strategy at the johns hopkins university also in washington we have and then you for achi he is the director of grassroots political consulting and in

new york we cross to george there muley he is a fellow at the global policy institute in london and author of the book bombs for peace or a gentleman cross talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate it michael let me go to you first in washington you are after all a professor of strategy so given what we have seen of this administration well so they'd say there is this president to have a foreign policies strategy go ahead mr strategists. strategy can be the thing itself or it can be a representation of the formulas and nostrums that float among the the privilege the ruling elites and thus i think you see trump speaking to the people who most enthusiastically support him write his base so-called and he is speaking for them as in their voice and in that sense much of the rhetoric and delivery of his foreign policy. is

really shaped to fit his constituency and part of that is sloughing off this elaborate theater and highly choreographed ballet that marked elitist foreign policy since one thousand nine hundred five and so a lot of that's for show and it's very effective now when it comes to the substance of his foreign policy it also reflects his constituents and they are they like the idea of america first and of course he uses that phrase and so i'd call his world view foreign policy a kind of america for version of world leadership which may sound contradictory but i don't think it is why what it means essentially is detached i think it is it's attaching the op had finish your thought go ahead finish up. no finish your

thought no the point is there's a whole level of spin and representation that is not necessarily mord to the actual relationships he's pursuing so a lot of this is very self-conscious grandstanding for the domestic audience and he's toning down the leadership and and saying we will be a world leader if it's really helps the u.s. ok all right i guess that's why it's so confusing under president george because if we if we just take what michael said there i mean if trump is you know representing his base then he's portraying everything he said he would do for the base ok looks like good nation building in syria. tearing up probably that one of the most important nonproliferation agreements with iran ok i'll say it i didn't like obama's foreign policy but i thought the iran deal was a good deal and it was shown to be

a good deal why is he doing that is again grandstanding just because obama did it is that a strategy go ahead george. well i think the his antagonism towards obama trying to differentiate himself from obama plays a part in it but i think that trump really has no strong views on anything i mean he's been on pretty much on every side of every issue throughout his long life i mean he's been for abortion against abortion for immigration against immigration for gun control against gun control so what he ran on in two thousand and sixteen wasn't really his final view on anything but he found that that kind of america first. and a kind of quasi isolationist policy worked for him and it swept into power it probably rather surprised them that it was as successful as it was once he got into office he quine of abandon all of that and occasionally he still comes out with his

rhetoric about the or we've wasted seventeen trillion dollars in the middle east we could have spent all this money on building roads and bridges it were you know but he's still pursuing the same policy in the middle east he still comes out with the stuff that he was doing in two thousand and six the end of a well wouldn't it be great if we got along with russia yeah but he hasn't done anything about it and you know he's had every opportunity since winning the election of seizing this issue and saying hey i ran on this platform and this is the this is what's going to happen you know that we are going to abandon these ridiculous projects in the middle east we are going to try to improve relations with russia this is what i won the election but he hasn't done it and he has quite happily just gone along with the the washington swamp that he had so eloquently denounced in two thousand and sixteen yet again you know in this in the same foreign policy swamp denounced him as candidate ok and what it will and i think

it's pretty clear that you know because his appointees are slow in coming because congress will appoint. vote on them you still have these old deep state actors still there and then he on top of it. surrounded him with people like john bolton and pompei you know i mean they have nothing to do with the vision that he presented during the campaign you know i'll agree with you in georgia he's flip flopped all through his life go ahead daniel in washington few ways to simplify things his main foreign policy is wherever he is a personal financial interest and branding opportunity and that's really first and foremost where his heart and soul is being and as george articulated this is a lifelong democrat who turned himself into a tea party evangelical conservative for that thirty six percent base to win the election which was a thirty year record low turnout and he did a brilliant job at it the irony the grand irony is now that he holds office

he has given capitulated everything there is no white house policy toward the intelligence community the pentagon or state whatsoever they're autonomous to create their own and the one thing he stayed true on throughout that whole thing is he's like a donald w. obama he is a hawkish neo con we were going to get that whether you had hillary clinton were donald trump and if you really look as to what he spoke at on the campaign trail and throughout his life that's his ideology so that reflects very well as to why we are where we are in syria why a bolton is hired you know in case they go she don't go well in north korea the iran deal and i'm not a president obama apologist either but that is the one other kavya peter that you pointed out the iran deal t p p paris climate accord in on the go she ation for him

is he pledged on the campaign trail that he wasn't obama he has distain for him on behalf of his person. loyalty with the clintons ironically over many years and that guy him going the opposite way of obama on a lot of those key issues you know michel one of the issues that during the campaign and after he became president is there his critics would say that he would be injurious to american allies let's think in terms of the middle east and and nato ok but you know that he's surrounded by people. supporting policies that in fact do do that when we look at the a ran deal and we had mccrone in washington merkel is going to show up i mean they're advocating that they keep the treaty alive and you know in this this is really interest to the alliance i mean i would like to see nato completely dissolved and have a completely new security arrangement in europe i think that's what donald trump

actually was thinking about during the campaign so i mean what the outside world must be look at i know they are looking at him in bewilderment because where is he going to go next i mean the idea tack on syria recently that was against international law the whole world looks at it that way not the foreign policy blob in washington they probably never heard of international law go ahead michael. i think that. the u.s. presidency for some time maybe thirty forty years has been captured by. the sort of set relationships that it has been have and in many ways the dependent countries of nato even the great powers like france germany and britain are centrally pulling the strings and i think part of trump's approach was to put them in a situation where they felt less secure about the relationship and the us would be more and more willing to to come to mr trump and that seems

to have worked yes just as his blustering yeah and it seems to have created the movement in north korea. neither germany certainly not britain and france either are willing to step up and take over the defense of their realm and they are not merely dependent on the u.s. but they've grown yes. needy and so the u.s. doesn't want to be in a position where it has to jump every time nato gets a twitch and so what he's doing is redefining the strength of the u.s. in the alliance without overcommitting and also this kind of representation speaks well with his base and they are excited because the u.s. is acting like the great power but my middle of the me ask you let me ask you you

know would this this paradigm here does it actually make america more solid in the alliance and does it make the alliance more solid because it what we have here is a moral hazard ok they're not the europeans are you know they say they're going to spend money and all that but they're just going to look to washington for their defense and you have a president is actually quite skeptical about all of these things i mean that's kind of. a very dangerous thing to be in ok because you i mean the european nato allies are like drug addicts they keep going to washington to get their next fix i'll give you the last twenty now give me the last twenty seconds on this part go ahead and michael go ahead. the u.s. is in a stronger position and the word injurious that you brought up is only relevant i think if there actually is a threat to nato and with the angle on the horn with mr putin all the time i don't really see the great crisis especially now that the u.s.

has backed off a little from ukraine that was the great danger and well my army problem there i'm sure many here i see more of let me jump in here we're going to go to a break we're going to talk a lot about ukraine in may mark my words there after a short break we'll continue our discussion on foreign policy stay with our team. in july twenty seventh on and also to a freelance journalist working with the. militant shelling in syria. on his sacrifice which he has established a holiday such as memorial day will recognize war reporters who often risk their

lives with the sake of the truth comes through that. you can submit to your published works in a video long britain for go to a war don't come into now. never know what's around the corner never in the world seen the. excitement is that not knowing that's where the adrenaline rush comes from. and the. violence is a part. of schizophrenia. where you can do all these things and behave badly.

for all. of them or so for the last. one this man infirmed. war. i would rather we have really put up all the. meaning in these images but if you don't involve the constantly evolving. welcome back to crossfire we're all things are considered i'm peter we're discussing trumps foreign policy. let me go back to georgia new york in interesting thing how with mccrone visit and

when we and how about to resume her. domestic crisis is at home we i'm thinking of the salisbury alleged chemical weapons attack then we had the attack on syria and it really intrigues interesting to me how they talk about syria now we had mccrone he said france and the u. u.s. and allies to quote build syria of tomorrow. oh by the way the united states is making it legal for other companies countries and companies to actually help syria rebuild it can't be in the part of syria where that a master government has control so george it's about exactly one hundred years ago we had sykes pekoe rejoin the middle east it seems like imperial habits die really hard and on top of that don't you think france the united states and its allies of . the syrian people and nuff go ahead george.

yeah there that's exactly right it was hilarious listening to macro on discussing syria and this role that the end of the france was going to play in syria that there's even realize that a few days earlier the syrians were celebrating a day of independence independence when france evacuated syria that's that's that's what the syrians are celebrating the departure of the french the idea that they can now going to be welcoming their former colonial masters with open arms is a lot of bull but i do think that the american french british policy in syria is actually rather dangerous because while this is a they have no real prospect of winning because they don't have any likely candidates who can form any sort of a government in syria what they can do is to prevent any kind of a settlement in syria and i think that's really what they're going to try and do

which is to prevent any kind of consolidation of syrian government control because all the various candidates i mean the americans proposal for the s.d.f. we're which is a largely kurdish that's. not no go because the turks don't want them and the syrians are not going to accept kurdish rule and so they're that. so what they're going to try and do is i think keep the the the war going blodgett by feeding again the various jihadi is and therefore just like your prevent what they see as russian consolidation in syria and i think that's the danger and i do think that ukraine is also dangerous think there's a you two there is there are still very powerful forces within the washington notably the john bolton's. the bears who want to stir up ukraine

and relaunch some kind of a war that it well and they've got a dandy if there's a secret western mainstream media doesn't take any interest in these things but i'm a lot closer to this situation and things are getting to a boiling point in ukraine that's why may is going to be a very hot hot month oh right before fee for the world cup in moscow i'm sure there is no connection there ok daniel i mean you know we're looking at syria we could talk a little bit maybe about ukraine some more later but you know you have this flip flopping going back and forth and i'm going to agree with michael i think that trump is really expressing the views of his base that they don't like these foreign entanglements these interventions and the terrible waste of money when he wants to get an investment bill passed in the united states which desperately needs an improvement in infrastructure here so i mean he seems to want to have both ways

when he can't have both go ahead daniel. yes tweets and rhetoric aside from policy is always something to decipher with this president but i disagree with both of you a little bit on a few points one on nato there's not this grand am where france and germany and everyone are in love with us over nato and are going to reach their commitments and fact our commitment of two percent is bogus because we don't even count iraq or afghanistan intervention in our nato estimates and if we really included things properly there would be a little more of a balance but none of that has worked out and also backing off of ukraine i guess i'm agreeing with you peter and disagreeing with michael a bit we did not back off of ukraine whatsoever and i have spoken on this program many times on the proxy war with ukraine and with syria and sanctions that are meant as part of a geo political bipolar scheme of ours with china and south korea to counter russia

on natural resources in the arctic and we're trying to bankrupt russia from being able to develop up there and in fact over the last two weeks i mean i get new news on that all the time where we're demanding that the waterway be open for international development and traffic as well as what we're doing in syria to continue to back allow the turks to do what they're doing in the north working with europe and now encouraging the gulf to come in and develop and basically take over northern syria trump spoke with mccrone and basically talked about how it was allers an orange territory. spanning in the mediterranean and that's why i mentioned sykes biko because that was the partition and this is what they want to do is another point is you know this is michael you know one of the things that's happened in the last week or so can i jump one you want to finish your point go ahead go ahead go ahead daniel finish your p.s. i was going to say one one final point none and. venture is not trump space trump

space that tea party thirty six percent are all neo cons and hawks as well of the baby boomer generation so well that rhetoric sometimes works because that might be what trump is thinking for the minute or not they are that john bolton's and might bump am i that oh no other venue knows what you have always and you know it's very there it was there was a really interesting post-mortem of the two thousand and sixteen election and there is evidence very strong evidence that a number of counties were flipped because of the anti-war sentiment that they were democrats but they were they they actually supported trump's noninterventionist views so i would differ with on michael i have a much bigger question to ask you over the last week or so we've heard these murmurings that. france and the united states. and great britain want to start going around the security council of the united nations so they can pursue their

syria policy i find this really very troublesome and dangerous here because we have to remember what the security council was a stablish for in the first place it was to make sure that we'd never be another third war third world war and now they were these major powers and we're talking in like nineteenth century terms again these great powers they don't want to use international institutions they have poor international law or they're just above it that is very dangerous because it's dysfunctional is the u.n. is it the you want united nations security council actually works the way it's supposed to where you don't have a coalition of great powers that brush aside the concerns of others here i find it truly disturbing and if the same powers one hundred exactly one hundred years later they carved up the middle east and they want to do it again go ahead michael. the u.s. is in a difficult position i think of. trying to restrain developments that could

really up and world i don't know stability peace whatever you want to call a non ideal situation that still better than the worst and this kind of pushing locally is what israel and saudi arabia are doing viz of iran you see that in qatar and then also what you mentioned the meddling britain and france which have been doing it in syria oh for two hundred fifty years and of course when i talked about the u.s. aggressive in this in ukraine i was referring to secretary of state clinton and i think the u.s. needs to pull back in the off a with the positive effect of seeing to meet the needs of the base reigning in the neo cons who are not yet completely in control and not pursuing policies that will inevitably lead to war while at the same time looking strong so this i think brings us to the nub of current the

current vector of mr trump which is to make a deal with korea which is outside of the realms that we've been talking about and that would give of his administration the sufficient authority then to more effectively rein in israel britain france saudi arabia's that are causing all sorts of pesky problems and might create a basis for coming to some kind of agreement with mr putin in the future and that vehicle for that the framework for that has not been established but that doesn't mean it cannot be established so it's a it's a very fine line i think the president is trying to to follow well there's so many opportunities that are being squandered left and right that's what makes it such as . dangerous and tragic time you know you know george you know let's look at the reputational issue here i've said it many times in this program here trump wants to

tear up the randy a well he wants to make a deal with the koreans i mean i mean that you know that's kind of odd you know i mean because because the next minute administration comes in and they're going to win negatives well i mean the united states puts itself in such an awkward hypocritical position by doing that particularly again i don't like giving credit to barack obama i really don't but this was a good deal ok and i'd like to correct the president of the united states all that money that they got it was their mind he it was their assets it wasn't a gift everybody made it was also an arms deal they didn't completely go through in the one nine hundred seventy s. and four hundred million dollars and they had to pay interest on it so no there was no gift to iran go ahead george reputation issue. the course. if absolutely correct and that's all point i mean that it's very hard to see how any kind of agreement is possible in north korea because the north korean leaders would

be absolutely insane to give up their nuclear capability in return for want in return for an empty american promise that we won't attack you why would anyone want to believe that we're you know one strong goes the next president whether it's pens or nikki haley will immediately go back on have agreement and will indeed attack north korea so. it will be an absolutely insane policy to go for i just going back to what you were saying bit about this. going to the united nations general assembly i mean it's so hilarious because the only power that has actually be acted in accordance with international law of syria has been russia russia is in syria in the curriculums with international dangers at the rejoice let me jump in here legitimate government may jump in here you gentlemen we've run out of time i hope i never will ever say president nikki haley that's all the time we have

gentlemen many thanks to my guests in washington and in new york and thanks to our viewers for watching us here argue see you next time and remember crosstalk.

we. take you. international recognition with the help of israel at least in the world of zoos and dismiss it like you know. this isn't my cup of tea is going out.

with. the only palestinian gets the most help from its jerusalem counterparts i don't think some of those who are under the vision did not look at it this way. and know what. i'm going to. do more. but there's also. talk about this. morning you know campbell to listen to that would have made us think you'll try to . do something other than target.

no collusion the says the u.s. house intelligence committee as it delivers its final report into alleged russian meddling in the twenty sixth presidential election. three deaths are reported almost thousand more injured in clashes on friday the latest ingalls is a great march of return as palestinians protest what they call israeli occupied. also the key witness in the russian doping scandal fails to confirm a number of these allegations during court testimony and the careers of many. following his claims.