By David K. Shipler
Donald
Trump, the hot-air balloon who floats and weaves untethered to facts, is poised
to create foreign policies (there will be many simultaneously) based on his
fantasies and myths, which he will sell convincingly to a plurality of adoring Americans
and spineless Republicans in Congress. He is even less curious about the world than
George W. Bush. Into this knowledge vacuum will flow the imaginary demons and
fairies conjured up by officials in modern America’s most extreme right-wing
government, which he is now assembling.
It will be a
dangerous time. But let’s not pretend that fantasy-based foreign policy is
unprecedented. It induced the United States to overthrow legitimate,
nonthreatening governments and enter at least two losing wars: Vietnam and
Iraq, with more to come, undoubtedly. Paranoia is one of America’s most
prominent afflictions.
The New York Times columnist James Reston
used to call the State Department the Fudge Factory, an apt name to any
reporter who tried to cover it. Attempting to pin down a hard fact of policy
was like nailing a custard pie to the wall. Only occasionally would you come
across a candid foreign service officer, usually in a US embassy abroad, who
would share insights openly into the country that you both were working to
understand. I treasured those folks and still count one of them from the
embassy in Moscow, Ken Yalowitz, as a close and trusted friend, who went on to
become an ambassador himself, to Belarus and Georgia.
One key mission of both the State Department
and intelligence agencies is to act as fact-gathering machines. They are
populated with experienced people who speak the local languages, know local
history, and are charged with reporting back to Washington. It’s hard to think
that Trump will ever listen to them. Indeed, all signs point to ideological
pressure for subordinates to avoid thinking differently from his latest tweets,
lest they lose their positions.
