Il Sussidiario: You are a conservative and a Republican but an unenthusiastic Trump supporter, having quit the Republican Party when he was nominated in 2016, worried that he was a neo-fascist (you labelled him Trumpolini). Despite that, you endorsed him in 2020. Why did you change your mind?
Daniel Pipes: He governed, with important exceptions, as a mainstream conservative in the areas of justice, education, taxes, deregulation, the environment, the administrative state, and foreign policy. His questionable personality did not cause any crises.
IS: Trump apparently lost the election by a narrow margin to a weak Democratic candidate. Why?
DP: At this moment, Donald Trump has not conceded, so the election is not over yet. Assuming he did lose, it was by tiny margins in a few states that he won in 2016, perhaps because the Democrats paid much more attention to those states than the last time. The remarkable thing about this election is its similarity to four years earlier at all levels – president, Senate, House, governorships, state assemblies. It seems that very few people changed their minds.
#TimStorey on the static state legislature elections in 2020:
"It's jaw dropping to me how little change there is. It's almost like trench warfare. There was all this smoke & fire & stuff aimed at each other, and at the end of the day, only inches moved."https://t.co/Ng3upKTGDX
— Daniel Pipes دانيال بايبس (@DanielPipes) November 6, 2020
IS: How much of a factor was the COVID-19 crisis?
DP: It hurt Trump both because the economy went down and because he spoke foolishly about it. The things he did right (such as leave the governors in charge) received almost no attention.
IS: The racial riots and BLM movement?
DP: Those probably helped him. Few Americans are eager to "defund the police" or see racism as the defining quality of the United States.
IS: Is the United States edging toward a confrontation of the radical Right and the radical Left?
DP: I fear it is. Each side is moving away from the center and hardening in its positions. As a moderate conservative, I especially feel this from the Right, as I get attacked in ways that never happened before.
IS: Joe Biden appears to have been elected as the anti-Trump candidate but without a vision. Who is he and what forces stand behind him?
DP: Biden is an enigma because his mental capacity is diminishing daily. The great questions ahead, should his election be confirmed, concern his ability to govern and how long he will last as president. Assuming he is capable and does last, he is a moderate liberal under severe pressure from the hard Left. I expect he will often acquiesce to it.
 Joe Biden (L) is likely to acquiesce to the Left, represented by Bernie Sanders. |
IS: Please assess where Trump's personalized foreign policy succeeded and where it failed.
DP: His greatest successes were in pressuring Iran and raising awareness about the threat from China. Appeasing dictators like Kim Jong-un and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan were his worst mistakes.
 Trump with Kim Jong-un and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. |
IS: Where was the foreign policy rift with the Establishment greatest?
DP: The tough approach to allies like Germany, insisting on treating them as equals, not as dependents.
IS: Is his policy not the inevitable adaptation by Americans to a post-American world?
DP: Yes, that is roughly what I meant about equals, not dependents.
IS: Please respond to this statement: Trump's foreign policy may appear erratic and unorthodox, but in the end, it is simple, schematic, and predictable.
DP: Agreed: it's unpredictable because it results from one undisciplined mind and it's predictable because that mind is quite consistent.
IS: Are we now entering a less predictable phase?
DP: Yes, if Biden is president, due to severe tensions between liberals and leftists in the Democratic party.
IS: Trump is depicted as an isolationist, but unilateralism and economic security drove his foreign policy. Do you agree?
DP: Yes: unilateralism and economic security are what U.S. isolationism now looks like.
IS: Can Biden avoid unilateralism and economic warfare?
DP: Yes, he can revert to the classic post-World War II approach, where the United States takes on extra burdens because it is the leader.
IS: Biden's foreign policy is shrouded in mystery other than nostalgic references to a world gone by, like that post-World War II multilateral status quo. In Europe, many assume he will re-establish the old cooperation with the European Union and NATO. Are they right?
DP: Yes, I expect so, in part because a Biden administration will want to differentiate itself from Trump.
 Trump does not much enjoy meeting with Angela Merkel and other allied leaders. |
IS: Will Biden revert to Obama's foreign policy in the Middle East of appeasing Islamists?
DP: You assume that Trump stopped appeasing Islamists, something I question. Other than the tough policy vis-à-vis Iran, U.S. policy has been generally favorable to Islamists in Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Afghanistan. As for Biden, yes, he will continue and increase this soft approach to Islamism.
IS: How will this affect policy toward Israel?
DP: Islamists are not the key to U.S. policy toward Israel; Palestinians are. Biden has been clear that he will go back to the policy of giving the Palestinian Authority a veto over U.S. actions with regard to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
IS: Trump rejected the Iran deal and did all he could to weaken Tehran economically. Will Biden go far enough to bring the Iranians back to the negotiating table?
DP: I doubt it. Khamene'i never liked the JCPOA and will make demands that Biden probably will not accept.
IS: Trump was soft on Erdoğan's Turkey; will Biden get tough on it?
DP: Yes, he has indicated he will be tougher. In part, this is part of the drive to reverse everything Trump did; in part, it's a realistic look at Turkey under Erdoğan.
