Friedman basically calls a pox on both houses, citing Obama's Ben Rhodes bragging about "stage managing" public opinion on the Iran deal as well as Trump's less-than-edifying pronouncements on the topic. Of Trump, Friedman says:
He shows no sign of having asked the most important question: What are the real foreign policy challenges the next president will face? I don’t think he has a clue, because if he did, he wouldn’t want the job. This is one of the worst times to be conducting U.S. foreign policy.Friedman calls the jihadis "networked nihilists."
What does the new president do when the necessary is impossible but the impossible is necessary? Yes, we’ve proved in Iraq and Afghanistan that we don’t know how to do nation-building in other people’s countries. But just leaving Libya, Syria and parts of Iraq and Yemen ungoverned, and spewing out refugees, has led to a flood of migrants hitting Europe and stressing the cohesion of the European Union.
The choices are hellish. I would not want the responsibility for making them. But nobody has a monopoly on genius here, and neither Obama’s victory lap around this smoldering ruin (Syria) nor Trump’s bombastic and simplistic solutions are pretty to watch.
These suicidal jihadist-nihilists are not trying to win; they just want to make us lose. That’s a tough foe. They can’t destroy us — now — but they will ratchet up the pain if they get the ammo. Curbing them while maintaining an open society, with personal privacy on your cellphone and on the Internet, will be a challenge.Openness and privacy normally suffer in the face of external threat. If the jihadis and refugees aren't enough, Russia and China are reviving the Cold War as both seek to reestablish regional hegemony.
