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Comment by m0zg | Hacker News Reader

Trump has already ended that policy.

If he did...

he forgot to tell a lot of my buddies about it. Because they're still stuck in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Although the Trump administration has voiced a desire to extract themselves from the existing military engagements in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, they have not yet done so. (As a side note, the previous administration also expressed a similar desire). Thus it is perhaps premature to claim that the current administration has 'ended' the policy.

However, this misses the point that the goal of the proposed institute is to:

> ... promote an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing.

Unfortunately, the current negotiation tactics being pursued against, say, Iran, do not fall under this new style of diplomacy. I'm sure other examples may come to mind.

It's weird to take tools off the table, like sanctions. It would reduce diplomacy to begging "pretty please".

I'll be interested in seeing what the proposed alternative will be.

"Pretty please" is actually a good default approach for a state X wanting something from another state Y; it shows respect and builds mutual trust. There is no guarantee that request will be fulfilled, but it can start a dialog "we want something in return" that can result in mutual accommodation. When the state X throws out past agreements, starts making higher demands, it is playing very risky game.

That's a generous interpretation. A more realistic one is that Soros's and Koch brothers Chinese holdings are beginning to suffer a little.

In words (sometimes) but not deeds.

That's really a continuation of the policies of the prior two presidents (maybe more, I just don't remember one way or the other).

Yes but when the next President comes in we will want to have had Trump's anti-war policies to have been cemented in place.

Which policies are you referring to?

Would love to see evidence to support what you are saying. Trump did pull out of Syria, at Russia's request, but has increased threats towards Iran and Venuzuela, not to mention unbridled support for SA war in Yemen (including attmepting to bypass Congress to sell them more weapons -- which is contrary to what you are asserting).

Trump has not started any foreign intervention, unlike the past two administrations. Threats of foreign intervention are great and we should keep doing that. Imagine if GW Bush had just made threats. Man, I wish he threatened every country in the world, if that kept him from -- you know -- actually invading Iraq.

Moreover, he _defeated ISIS_, and _stopped nuclear testing in North Korea_. If any of the previous administrations achieved just one of these things, you'd never hear the end of it, and they'd receive a Nobel Peace Prize every year. With Trump, if you go to CNN right now, you can't even find anything about his _stepping over the DMZ into NK_ yesterday. He's the first US president to do so. It's a historic event, no matter how much they hate Trump. Go ahead and check.

>he _defeated ISIS_

He didn't, the Syrian Arab Army and Russia did (and the Syrian Defense Forces, to an extent).

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