ICYMI: Gingrich: “The President Just Made A Titanic Foreign Policy Shift. The Media Missed It.”

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[FONT=&quot]The White House
Office of the Press Secretary




For Immediate Release

May 25, 2017​

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[h=1]ICYMI: Gingrich: “The President Just Made A Titanic Foreign Policy Shift. The Media Missed It.”[/h]


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NEWT GINGRICH: “THE PRESIDENT JUST MADE A TITANIC FOREIGN POLICY SHIFT. THE MEDIA MISSED IT.”

“While the media focused on the ephemeral questions … they largely missed the real drama of the moment: a titanic shift in U.S. foreign policy occurring right before their eyes.”


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The President Just Made A Titanic Foreign Policy Shift. The Media Missed It.
By Newt Gingrich
Washington Post
May 24, 2017



…
While the media focused on the ephemeral questions — whether the president would use campaign rhetoric in a diplomatic setting, or how the trip would affect the Obama legacy — they largely missed the real drama of the moment: a titanic shift in U.S. foreign policy occurring right before their eyes.




Trump stood before an unprecedented gathering of leaders to do something far more significant than utter a single phrase or undermine his predecessor’s record. He was there to rally the Muslim world, in his words, “to meet history’s great test” — defeating the forces of terrorism and extremism. He did so in a way that no American president ever had before. While extending a hand of friendship to Muslim nations, he also issued them a clear challenge: to take the lead in solving the crisis that has engulfed their region and spread across the planet. “Drive out the terrorists and extremists,” he urged them, or consign your peoples to futures of misery and squalor.




To find a comparably dramatic moment in the history of U.S. foreign policy, we have to look all the way back to 1982. That June, 35 years ago next month, President Ronald Reagan stood in the Royal Gallery at the Palace of Westminster in London and called on the West to rally in defense of freedom and against communist aggression.




…
Never before has an American president tried so clearly to unite the civilized world, including the nations of the Middle East and Africa, against the forces of terrorism. Never before has an American president issued so direct a challenge to those nations to do more in the fight. And never before has an American president so plainly put the ultimate responsibility for eradicating terrorism on the nations of the region. In doing so, Trump’s speech implicitly repudiated the approaches of his two immediate predecessors and promised instead what he characterized as a “principled realism,” based on a clear-eyed view of America’s interests, security and limits.




That this decisive shift in U.S. foreign policy occurred on a foreign trip within the first four months of the administration is all the more impressive. Reagan didn’t take his first international trip until well into his second year. And unlike President Barack Obama’s early speech to the Muslim world in 2009, Trump backed up his words with action.
Read the full op-ed here.



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[Willie99]

but, what do the polls say about this trip? they're probably all over that "substance"

 

[ScottL]

I appreciate Trump's words but it's like requesting the dirt to clean the house.

The Muslim summit in Saudi Arabia historic as it was in its economic success and wishful platitudes about "fighting extremism," still whitewashed the truth.

In the presence of President Trump, the Saudi king said that Islam is a “religion of peace” while his tribal kingdom, which is the custodian of Mecca and Medina is built on Wahhabi Islamist hatred.

Jordan’s king repeated the lie that the Arab-Israeli conflict is the “core conflict” rather than a sideshow to the Sunni-Shia slaughter, and the Islamist persecution of women and minorities.

Muslim extremism is not limited to fringe groups like ISIS or Hezbollah. Racist hatred against Jews and Westerners is spread by the same Muslim regimes who sanctimoniously pledge to fight extremism.

“Moderate” Jordan which has a formal “peace” with Israel, recently aired a Jordanian anti-Semitic TV series which used the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” myth to demonize Jews as “treacherous corrupters and executioners. ”Jordan also recently praised a Jordanian terrorist who attacked Jews in Jerusalem and condemned Israel for defending herself.

Hatred against Jews and Christians is regularly disseminated from the Muslim world’s regime-controlled mosques, schools and media.

Fighting Islamist extremism starts with confronting and exposing the Middle Eastern regime wolves, dictators who hide behind sheep’s clothing and speak with forked tongues.

 

[Willie99]

Scottstein, Trump told them they're part of the problem and they have to do more

Not sure what more he can do on his first trip

 

[ScottL]

Willie I'm not disagreeing with you or criticising Trump on his words. I'm just stating the reality. I didn't even touch on the horrible human rights abuses these regimes commit on their own subjects. The point is the nexus of terrorism is dictatorship. Now if these kingdoms decide to reign in the terror they've wrought so much the better.

 

[ScottL]

Krauthammer Echoes 99's Sentiments

• Why Middle East Peace Starts in Saudi Arabia - Charles Krauthammer
  President Trump's trip to Saudi Arabia, the first of his presidency, is an unmistakable declaration of a radical reorientation of U.S. policy in the region. Message: The appeasement of Iran is over. The idea that the nuclear deal would make Iran more moderate has proved spectacularly wrong, as demonstrated by its defiant ballistic missile launches, its indispensable support for the genocidal Assad regime in Syria, its backing of the Houthi insurgency in Yemen, its worldwide support for terrorism, its relentless anti-Americanism and commitment to the annihilation of Israel.
  These aggressions were supposed to abate. They didn't. On the contrary, the cash payments and the lifting of economic sanctions - Tehran's reward for the nuclear deal - have only given its geopolitical thrusts more power and reach.
  The reversal has now begun. The first act was Trump's Riyadh address to about 50 Muslim states (the overwhelming majority of them Sunni) signaling a wide Islamic alliance committed to resisting Iran and willing to cast its lot with the American side.
  Ironically, the Iranian threat that grew under Obama offers a unique opportunity for U.S.-Arab and even Israeli-Arab cooperation. Over time, such cooperation could gradually acclimate Arab peoples to a nonbelligerent stance toward Israel. (Washington Post)