OPINION:
It is half-time in the Trump presidency. When he was sworn in the Democrats and “Never Trump” Republicans decided that he will be impeached. They are merely looking for a charge. Many think President Trump is a morally detestable person, but merely being a jerk is not an impeachable offense — if it were we’d probably have lost about a third of our previous presidents. Let’s step back from the heat of the moment and look at how Mr. Trump has actually done in the foreign policy and national security realms so far.
Mr. Trump’s critics warned from the start that he would blunder us into another war. That hasn’t happened thus far. We remain committed in Afghanistan and Iraq, but the level of engagement to date remains acceptable and ISIS has been eliminated as a conventional threat. More of our service people die in accidents every year than in combat in both countries combined. The Trump administration has also wisely kept us out of taking sides in the civil war in Syria which may yet become Mr. Putin’s Vietnam. However, when the Assad regime crossed the line on the use of chemical weapons, Mr. Trump’s response was firm but responsibly measured.
Mr. Trump pulled us out of the unwise Iranian nuclear deal. Iran is in bad shape domestically, and the administration should be able to get a better deal than President Obama cut.
Regarding NATO, Mr. Trump has shown the tough love that his predecessors should have. The administration has taken a hard line on deadbeats and ruffled feathers along the way. Good on him. If all of our NATO allies reach their 2 percent of gross national product goal, he will have served the alliance well.
Mr. Trump has been tough on China in trade and has not backed off in the issue of the South China Sea. The ball is in China’s court as to whether it will negotiate or be confrontational. The president seems open to negotiations on either issue.
To date, Mr. Trump’s opening to North Korea seems promising. Past presidents have tried and failed to make headway with the hermit nation and whether the current gambit to pursue denuclearization works out remains to be seen. Meeting Kim Jong-un was a bold stroke, and the Trump administration seems content to pursue a long-term policy of gradual de-escalation with that hermit nation. The administration has found — as have all predecessors — that negotiations with the regime in Pyongyang can be tedious and frustrating. Welcome to the NFL.
The same holds true with the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Mr. Trump has acknowledged what his predecessors have tried to ignore. The Israelis view Jerusalem as their capital, and our embassy should be in the capital of the host nation. The Trump administration is giving negotiations the old college try, but the Israeli-Palestinian issue is almost exactly my age and will likely continue long after I’m gone.
That brings us to Russia. The disastrous Helsinki press conference was Mr. Trump’s Bay of Pigs. He will likely survive it if he doesn’t dwell on it. Every president since Harry Truman has had at least one foreign policy debacle. John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan survived the Bay of Pigs and the Iran-Contra affair, respectively. Dwight Eisenhower moved on from the loss of Cuba to Communism on his watch as did Bill Clinton in his disaster in Somalia. Nevertheless, the Iranian hostage crisis put the final stake in the heart of the Carter presidency and Tet destroyed Lyndon Johnson. Hopefully, Mr. Trump will learn from the Helsinki experience.
Mr. Trump would be well advised to put Russia on the back burner for a while. With the exception of a large nuclear stockpile, Russia remains a second-rate player on the international stage and is not worth the amount of time and effort that Mr. Trump has devoted to it. Mr. Putin is looking for a meaningful role for Russia on the world stage. Whether he succeeds or fails, Syria is a side show.
The Trump administration gets little credit for its provision of lethal weaponry to the Ukrainians or its efforts to wean Western Europe off of Russian natural gas. Apart from nuclear weapons and our commitment to NATO, the United States and Russia have no vital national interests at stake, and that is the major reason we have never fought a war with each other.
Despite the fact that no one has cancelled his Twitter account, Mr. Trump has defied The New York Times and The Washington Post by failing start World War III.
• Gary Anderson lectures at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of international Affairs
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