November 8th, 2016. A date where most of the Muslim community across the globe were mortified at the results of the U.S presidential election - a Trump victory. From Trump's anti-Muslim ban to his right leaning views, here is why Trump may not have dealt as much damage to the Muslim world as we expected.
In 2017 Trump announced the implementation of Executive Order 13769, titled "Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States". The so called "Muslim Ban" had been gathering momentum since Trump declared in 2015, that if he were to win the presidential election he would call for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States". In hindsight many have ridiculed such a campaign as impossible to implement and nothing more than a bargaining chip used to rally in votes and capitalise on the ever increasing islamophobia amongst the conservative populous during the mid 2010s.
Despite Trump apparently espousing some of the most negative perceptions of Muslims any president has had, his actions can be seen to have benefited the Muslim world in some (not all) ways. Trump had repeatedly supported the idea that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were "a mess" and that "we should have never been in Iraq". Trump remarks in a 2016 campaign speech that after Saddam Hussein was ousted, Iraq today has become "Harvard for terrorists". In a 2015 CNN interview Trump answered to the question "The world would be better off with Saddam Hussein in power?" by affirming "100%!". When asked "What about the human rights abuses?" Trump responded with "Do you not think they're happening now? peoples heads are getting chopped off".
While these remarks reflect an overexaggerated outlook on the aftermath of the two wars, it also demonstrates Trump's hesitation at projecting U.S influence abroad. Trump has been recorded to have initially supported these wars, stating "It looks like a tremendous success from a military standpoint” a day after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, however one must understand that political pressure as well as public backlash following 9/11 may explain why Trump carried out his signature meaningless sentence rambling to placate reporters (as evidenced with his favourite word "tremendous").
The fact of the matter is, Trump had set in stone the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, sped up the war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria which he inherited from Obama. He withdrew a significant amount of troops from Europe, made allies with North Korea, became the first U.S president to step foot into the North and had strengthened ties with the middle east, in particular Saudi Arabia (Largely due to business dealings). So while many had been blinded by Trump's overt Islamophobic comments such as "I'll close the Mosques", in hindsight one can look past these fiery sentiments by analysing the outcome of Trump's presidency in the globe, not through intentions, but through his impact. After all, his actions, whether intentional or not, contributed to a relatively restrained but at times confusing U.S foreign policy.
In one instance he's comparing the size of Nukes with Kim Jong Un, the next he's professing that he's "in love" with him. One instance he's discussing his desire against interventions in the middle east, the next he's carrying out a drone strike on Iran in 2020 killing Iranian military commander Qassim Suleimani.
It must be borne in mind, Trump, for all that he could dismiss cabinet members that disagreed with him, he could not easily dismiss geopolitical events in the same regard. In the end, he had inherited the twin wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from Obama. Which may explain why his foreign policy contradicted itself on many occasions.
An article by Foreign Policy Research Institute concluded:
"It would be a mistake, however, to see the Trump doctrine as a negation of the Obama doctrine. Trump is, in many respects, a man of his time, and there is striking continuity between Obama and Trump."
President Obama, "a man with a gun behind his smile", a man who had come from a Muslim background, outlined his respect for the religion stating many a times "Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance". Yet contrasting with Obama's illegal drone strikes and ventures into the middle east, approximately 26,171 bombs in 2016 alone, according to Council on Foreign Relations, portrays the true legacy of Obama. The Bureau for Investigative Journalism estimated that Obama had overseen ten times more airstrikes than President George W. Bush in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
On the contrary, recent reports by the Bureau for investigative Journalism have in fact recorded an escalated frequency of Drone strikes under the Trump administration. Additionally, Trump's withdrawal from Afghanistan has been widely criticised as a political back stab to whomever would inherit the administration after him, thus explaining his decision to carry out the withdrawal at the end of his term. These arguments, despite contradicting Trump's repeated opinions on wars in the middle east are also surely substantial.
Now, if you had been foaming from the mouth regarding the above remarks in favour of the troublesome president Trump, I have for you another silver lining to this hypothesis - Trump's support for Israel. As had been a tradition right from the 1920s, Trump had advocated for Israel's capital moving to Jerusalem - a move which contravened UN law which stated Jerusalem be a neutral territory for all factions. The support for such a move had abetted Israel's expansion into the occupied Palestinian territory, chipping away at the possibility for the long lasting struggle for Palestinian independence.
While Trump may have been vocal against the wars in the middle east to take a dig at Obama, it is still impressive considering Bush, the architect of these wars, was a Republican like himself. Taking all of this all into account, what do you think about the former President Trump:
Thoughts on Trump's Foreign Goals
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