Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

By Cliff Kincaid

May 21, 2025

President Trump’s new “Post-Neo-Con” foreign policy is taking shape, and it has everybody confused.

The libertarian Senator Rand Paul has done some excellent work regarding the need to imprison Anthony Fauci, but his views on foreign policy are bizarre, especially in the case of Trump. He opposes Trump’s tariffs, which are smart measures short of war designed to punish our adversaries, but the Senator calls Trump the “pro-peace president” as he bombs the Houthi rebels in Yemen and fails to get Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine.

In the article by Jack Hunter praising Rand Paul, which was distributed by the Senator himself, he ignores how Trump, without congressional authorization, bombed the Houthis into oblivion for opposing Trump’s new friends, the Saudis, and interfering with shipping in the Red Sea.

You may remember, since it was only a couple weeks ago, that Trump announced the U.S. would halt airstrikes on Yemen’s Houthi rebels, claiming they have surrendered.

Vice President J.D. Vance had pointed out that plans to bomb the Houthis would constitute “bailing Europe out again” because their shipping was more at risk from strikes from the Houthis than we were.

Trump went ahead anyway and bombed the Houthis, doing what the Europeans should have done in the first place. Most European nations refused to join a U.S.-led coalition to stop the Houthis.

The critical fact, however, is that the U.S. Congress has the power to declare war but none was declared in this case. Not even a “war powers resolution” in favor of the bombing was passed.

Article I of the U.S. Constitution and the War Powers Resolution of 1973 requires congressional action. None was given.

Yet Trump is supposed to be the “pro-peace” president and has abandoned the “neo-con” foreign policy.

The air campaign in Yemen began on March 15 without congressional authorization and Trump ended it on May 6.

All of this is fascinating because while Trump will exercise what he perceives to be his presidential powers to bomb other nations, he will not stand up to the U.S. Supreme Court when it infringes on that power. He has constantly deferred to the Court when it stops his lawful deportations of foreign terrorists.

Even more bizarre, W. James Antle, III, of The American Conservative published an article on how Trump has supposedly made a “clean break” with the foreign policy interventionists. He wrote that Trump “has recently announced a halt to the bombing of the Houthis in Yemen, the end of sanctions on Syria, the removal of a national security advisor seen as less than fully on board with his talks with Iran, and is otherwise trying to prevent another regional war in the Middle East.”

Ignored in this article is the fact that Trump started the campaign of bombing the Houthis.

The “end of sanctions on Syria” ignores the fact that the country is now run by a former al-Qaeda terrorist, Muhammad al-Jawlani, who donned a suit and tie and met with President Trump in Saudi Arabia and is personally backed by the well-known murderer, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Trump’s new friend, former al-Nusrah Front leader Muhammad al-Jawlani, was a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” under Executive Order (E.O.) 13224. That is an executive order issued by President George W. Bush on September 23, 2001, in response to the attacks on September 11, 2001 and designed to identity terrorist threats to America.

Trump modified but never rescinded it.

In the case of Hamas, Trump’s representatives have been negotiating with these terrorists, to obtain release of American hostages held by that terrorist group.

Those who think Trump has somehow discarded the “neo-con” foreign policy point to his words, as cited by Antle: “The gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called ‘nation builders,’ neo-cons, or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop Baghdad, so many other cities,” Trump said.

Trump added, “Peace, prosperity, and progress ultimately came not from a radical rejection of your heritage, but rather from embracing your national traditions and embracing that same heritage that you love so dearly. You achieved a modern miracle the Arabian way.”

The “Arabian way” is the way of 9/11, carried out by the Saudis and inspired by the Saudi version of Islamic religious ideology and extremism.

As noted by Jack Hunter in his article praising Rand Paul, Trump “blasted the neo-cons” but did it “in front of a Saudi audience.” That seems mighty strange to me.

A “regional war” is already underway in the Middle East, involving Israel and Hamas, and Trump is in the middle of it, even advocating taking over Gaza as a U.S. property. And he is selling tens of billions of dollars of weapons to the Saudis, not to mention giving the green light to America high-tech firms to supply advanced microchips for AI to the Gulf Arab states.

His negotiations with Iran seem strangely like those conducted by Barack Hussein Obama.

Regarding another “regional war,” Trump is already in the middle of Russia versus Ukraine, as Vladimir Putin ignores Trump’s pleas to stop the war. Trump will have no alternative but to impose more sanctions on Russia and sell Ukraine more weapons.

If getting deeply involved in at least two regional wars is evidence of an “America First foreign policy,” then the term has completely lost its meaning. And letting oil-rich Iran have a nuclear program, when it has no need for nuclear power, may lead to yet another war.

My fear is that Trump, the businessman and deal maker, does not understand international communism or global Islam. You can’t negotiate with terrorists and you can’t deal with Communists and Muslims who want to kill you.

Meanwhile, with Trump’s approval, the Congress is poised to pass a massive spending bill that will drive America further into debt and ultimate bankruptcy.

E-Mail Cliff Kincaid: kincaid@comcast.net