Events overturn best intentions

“The general shows how, despite his best efforts to help the president, the supposed master of the ‘art of the deal’ was treated like a chump by a roster of the world’s top authoritarians. Flattery and pomp from leaders like [Chinese President] Xi, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin seem to have been all that was required to get in Trump’s good graces,” Nicolas Niarchos wrote in a review of H.R. McMaster’s book “At War With Ourselves” in The New York Times.

We did not need the memoir of the retired Marine general and former national security adviser to learn that Putin, Erdogan and other “strongmen” charmed the former president (and candidate for the presidency), as he himself had made no secret of this, and had acted accordingly. It is useful, however, a few weeks before the election, to see it confirmed by someone who had been so close to Trump. But how decisive is the character of a president in such high-stakes relations?

Joe Biden entered office determined to follow a completely different course to Trump, placing the defense of democracy at the center of his foreign policy. He launched the Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal during the first Summit for Democracy, which he hosted in December 2021. Naturally, Putin was not invited to this, nor to the next two summits. But neither was Erdogan, whose country is a NATO ally.

Everything suggested that in his need to overturn his predecessor’s policies, and to strengthen democratic countries and democrats fighting against autocratic regimes, Biden would reward his ideological allies and isolate his rivals. It would not be the first time that Turkey would pay for its choices in foreign policy, and for the excesses of its leadership.

But the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel, Israel’s bloody campaign in Gaza and the danger of a broader war in the Middle East, drawing in Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iran have caused such turmoil that the noble cause of shoring up democracy is no longer a priority.

The policy of “bleeding dry” Putin’s regime in Ukraine has given Russia time to find new markets for its energy, as well as new suppliers of arms, while forging broader alliances with “anti-Western” countries. The United States and NATO could not deal with the fact that Turkey was playing a “double game,” gaining from its close ties with Russia and its cooperation with Ukraine. Also, America’s need to support Israel, even as its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was investing in the continuation and spread of hostilities, exposed Biden to criticism that he cares for human rights (and, therefore, for democracy) only when this applies to supporting friends and undermining enemies.

The president’s failing physical powers most likely also contributed to the democracy campaign’s petering out.

The result is that Turkey (an ally which acts unilaterally) is too complicated a problem for the United States to deal with. And so, Erdogan moves with the same freedom that he enjoyed under Trump – oppressing dissidents at home, exerting aggressive policies abroad. In short, however important it is who is elected president, it is unforeseen circumstances which determine developments.