By James Poulos, July 16, 2016

Nothing in the world seems to be neat and clean anymore.

And now, Turkey's haphazard (and apparently failed) coup — led by parts of the largest standing army in NATO outside the U.S.'s own

— has justified the growing skepticism around today's international order that has defined Donald Trump's White House run.

The Turkish ordeal dramatizes these problems in stunning fashion.

Amid all the uncertainty and hollowness of Trump's myriad proclamations, so unnerving in such an uncertain and hollow time, great clarity has suffused his sharply divergent view of the world and America's role in it. Trump believes that the U.S. has lost its power and force because the structure it helped create to order the globe has lost its efficacy and control.

The Turkish ordeal dramatizes these problems in stunning fashion.

This is not "just another" terror attack, or "just another" round of unrest and repression in the Middle East. This is a NATO country, increasingly divided and anti-Western, careening between two dark futures with no end in sight and no peaceful escape from a showdown.

Here in a single paroxysm is fodder for every one of Trump's indictments against the U.S.-led international "order":

the passivity, weakness, and irrelevance of the Obama administration and the North Atlantic alliance at their worst;

the implacable strength of Muslim extremists in the absence of effective local strongmen;

the absurdity of depending on weak regional partners while rejecting grand bargains with those who can best project power;

and perhaps above all, the profound lack of wisdom of trying to "lead" a hostile and alien world engaged in a bloody and uncontrollable race to the bottom.

snip

http://theweek.com/articles/636472/turke...litics-disorder

Quote: Cincinnatus wrote in post #2

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Almost laughable. This guy turns the mess in Turkey into an attack on Trump?

Zitat

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Amid all the uncertainty and hollowness of Trump's myriad proclamations, so unnerving in such an uncertain and hollow time, great clarity has suffused his sharply divergent view of the world and America's role in it. Trump believes that the U.S. has lost its power and force because the structure it helped create to order the globe has lost its efficacy and control.

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Excuse me, Mr Poulos, do you realize Trump is presently a candidate for President and someone named Barack Obama is currently in office, has been for just shy of 8 years, and thus is responsible for the state of America's foreign relations?

This is going to be one weird election season.

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And the second half of his presentation [which I did not post] went even farther away from reality.