OPINION:
Barack Obama spent eight years in the Oval Office hot seat convinced of his rectitude in all things big and small (“Trump seeks middle ground in foreign-policy balancing act,” Web, April 18). Please forgive me if I do not join in the praise, especially on the foreign policy front. When Donald Trump became president we knew there would have to be a major cleanup on that aisle.
President Trump favors a more traditional foreign policy whereby America, unembarrassed by the values it shares with its allies and proud of its legacy as a protector of those standards, provides leadership in the existential struggles which disturb our times. The eight-year Obama interregnum, a time when American intervention abroad was viewed as a proximate cause of global turmoil, is cast as implicitly wrong, as is the belief that the arc of history is bending in our direction, a nonsensical comfort blanket used by Mr. Obama in lieu of effective strategy.
Mr. Trump realizes, as the former president did not, that good intentions, those rewarded by Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize pickers, play no role in the world of realpolitik.
PAUL BLOUSTEIN
Cincinnati
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