Carl J. Schramm

At this year’s World Economic Forum America’s friends and enemies heard about what some are calling a new world order. In Davos, President Trump advanced his own version of Realpolitik. America has its particular interests and he doesn’t mind being fully transparent about them and the actions they portend.   He plainly said that NATO is not forever. His Board of Peace is described as a possible prototype that will displace the UN. Trump has no regard for Biden’s devotion to the “rules based world order” when it really means the US has to pay for everyone else to honor the rules.   This is the reason that while the good and great were chatting it up in Davos the US finalized its withdrawal from the World Health Organization.

No one can say the Iraq War was under-discussed. On the eve of the 2003 invasion, President George W. Bush and his advisors explained and defended Operation Iraqi Freedom to, among others, British prime minister Tony Blair, Saudi ambassador prince Bandar bin Sultan, the United Nations Security Council and skeptical members of Congress, the media and the American public. Bush even faced opposition from his own secretary of state, Colin Powell, who cautioned the president against invading Iraq with what would come to be known as the “Pottery Barn Rule”: if you break it, you own it. An experienced military leader, General Powell understood the complexities of war and the importance of having an exit strategy.