Frank Gaffney: A Post-Ideological President in an Ideological World

Guest post by Frank J. Gaffney

In a conversation with a valued colleague this week, we discussed the fact that U.S. policy is increasingly characterized by embracing and doing peace, trade or other deals with nations and leaders seeking our destruction. She explained this mystifying – and very dangerous –  reality by observing the Deal-Maker-in-Chief, President Donald Trump, is for, want of a better term, post-ideological.

Hence, Mr. Trump has no problem declaring, for example, the end of wars, the lifting of sanctions, the downward adjustment of tariffs, the access to sophisticated weapons and other sensitive technology, the admission of students or other concessions with the likes of Communist China, the chief funder of global jihad, a leader of al Qaeda and ISIS or an elected Marxist-jihadist mayor of New York. These sorts of deals are especially forthcoming if the beneficiary of such largesse and legitimization commits to invest large sums in America.

The trouble comes when, in the process, a post-ideological leader ignores the reality that his interlocutors are intensely dedicated to one or another ideology that demands our national obliteration. Whether the triumph they seek is global rule pursuant to Chinese Communism, sharia-supremacism, or globalist elitism, the object is the same: the removal of the one, real impediment to such ambitions – the United States of America.

There are two particularly ominous repercussions of willful blindness towards such enemies:

First, they are, without exception, emboldened by perceived weakness and, therefore, affirmed in the belief that ultimate victory is theirs, and encouraged to redouble efforts to achieve it.

Second, our own people are induced to believe that manifest threats are no such thing. The inevitable response is not to worry further about them – let alone insist that they be decisively defeated.

It is absolutely predictable that a reckoning is coming. For example:

• The Chinese Communists are becoming more belligerent by the day, especially towards our allies like Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan. They have even renewed a threat to cut off access to processed rare earth minerals by U.S. companies deemed to be working with the Pentagon. Meanwhile, the U.S. administration’s inaction on the implementation of President Trump’s “America First Investment Policy” or even simply the termination of a 2013 Memorandum of Understanding that gives CCP companies privileged access to our capital markets is allowing Wall Street to continue its financing of our mortal enemy’s military buildup and hold on power.
• Qatar’s gift of a new Air Force One and massive U.S. investments have translated into what amounts to a green light for its: support for the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran, Hamas, the Taliban and virtually every other jihadist threat worldwide; subversive influence operations in this country; and ability to manipulate American foreign policy at will.
• Turkey has been approved to provide security for Hamas in Gaza and, thereby, afforded proximity to Israel for elements of its military – a mortal peril for the Jewish State and for our Middle East interests threatened by Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s virulent sharia-supemacism and Turkish nationalism.
• Ahmed al-Sharaa – a Syrian jihadist who was, until very recently, an al Qaeda and ISIS leader with a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head – has been transformed into a partner- for-peace with sanctions removed and international legitimization via a White House visit and feting at the United Nations. Meantime, Islamists with whom he has long been associated and continues to collaborate relentlessly attack and murder Christians, Druze, Alawites, Yazidis and other minorities in Syria.
• Hamas and its sponsors/enablers have parlayed a “ceasefire” in Gaza into not only the prevention of total annihilation at Israel’s hands but a new, at least temporary, lease- on-life. Those jihadists are literally getting away with murder.
• Under cover of the “end of the 12-day war” and a purported willingness to resume negotiations on its nuclear weapons program, the Iranian regime is busily reconstituting its military capabilities and reestablishing its full, totalitarian control over the people of Iran. Allowed to sell oil to China and other allies, the mullahs will inevitably use whatever money thus garnered to rebuild the forces of their proxies in Lebanon, Yemen and Gaza, as well.
• A White House meeting with New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani ,followed by a presidential commitment to help him succeed, holds out the prospect not only of revolutionary activity going unchecked in New York City, but that Marxist and/or jihadist candidates like him will slipstream to electoral success in other cities across America.

In short, the United States is at a crossroads. It will either recognize that ideologues are benefitting from our leaders’ post-ideological miasma and take urgent corrective action. Or we will find ourselves inexorably submitting to one or another of their totalitarian ideologies in a post-America world.

Frank J. Gaffney acted as an Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Reagan. He is currently President of the Institute for the American Future and host of “Securing America” on Real America’s Voice.

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