David Frum: Unfit to Command

[babylonsister]

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/unfit-to-command/558074/

Unfit to Command
With the president in an agitated state, preoccupied with his legal troubles, this is no time for war.
David Frum Apr 15, 2018 Politics

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So many people have so much difficulty joining their awareness of the president’s instability to their commentary on U.S. military actions. They mentally update the famous line of Donald Rumsfeld’s: “You don’t go to war with the commander-in-chief you want. You go to war with the commander-in-chief you have.” Yet if any other aspect of U.S. military power were in the same damaged condition as the supreme executive authority, responsible people would pause at going to war at all. If the aircraft were inoperable, the warships unseaworthy, or the troops disaffected—wise decision-makers would refrain from deploying them. All those instruments are in good condition, fortunately. But the person in charge is not. His severe personal legal jeopardy dominates his thoughts and deranges his behavior. That’s a strategic fact at least as real and important as the need to uphold the taboo against chemical weapons.

Even if he’s offering to take you to church, you don’t get into a car with a drunken driver. That same caution should operate with Trump, even if you might otherwise approve any particular decision that emerges from his administration.

This president is not in command of himself. He’s obsessed with his own problems. He seethes with rage and resentment for all the world to view—and those emotions are visibly distorting his decision-making. The consolation we’re offered for this broken presidency is that the president is not in fact truly in charge of it. Decisions about war and peace are not really being made by Trump, but by more judicious and responsible people behind the scenes. Even if that were true, it’s not exactly cheering: The safety of the United States and the peace of the world is being protected by subverting the American constitutional scheme. But worse, it’s not exactly true. The second-year Trump foreign-policy team is being restaffed in ways that make it even less judicious and responsible than the year-one team. And it is Trump who is responsible for that restaffing.

The Syria operation was mostly a stunt: It sends a message of disapproval without altering the administration’s inward acceptance of Assad’s victory in the Syrian Civil War. Trump even tweeted notice of the missile strike 60 hours in advance, extending the Russians and Syrians time to ready themselves. The risk that this strike could escalate into something more serious seems vanishingly small.

But other and larger military decisions loom ahead: Iran, Korea, Afghanistan, and conceivably even confrontations with China. The person nominally in charge is in no psychic state for his office. His condition is deteriorating—and with that personal deterioration, there also deteriorates America’s security and standing in the world.

[BSdetect]

1. This was obvious before he even announced his run.