[Vice President Pence's] four-day trip to Europe succeeded only in deepening divisions with traditional allies over questions such as Iran and Venezuela and offered little hope in how to deal with threats ranging from nuclear arms to climate change, diplomats and officials said.
So these are the policies mentioned in that broad attack. The must be the most important for being mentioned. So we have the issues of American policy on Iran, Venezuela, nuclear weapons, and climate change.
On Iran, America has pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal and stopped treating Iran as a potential regional partner.
On Venezuela, America has recognized Guiado as the legitimate president over Maduro who won the last election with fraud.
On nuclear weapons, America announced our intent to abandon the partially functional INF treaty (verification measures expired long ago) because Russia has been violating it.
On climate change, America continues to do better than Europe on curbing greenhouse gas emissions, but has pulled out of the Paris climate accord.
What of these?
On Iran, the deal has not stopped Iranian aggression around the Middle East. The deal has not stopped Iran from working on long-range ballistic missiles. And at best the deal stalls Iran's nuclear weapons status for a short time while actually improving Iran's nuclear technology safe from attack in the meantime. If Iran's aggression and missile work are any indication, the time the deal is in place would have no effect on Iran's nutballery. They are dangerous and need to be stopped.
Europe has a problem with that. They prefer a fake paper deal.
On Venezuela, the sticking point appears to be our call to recognize Guiado while the Spanish say he should only be recognized as the interim leader. Since Guiado only claims to be an interim leader until new elections, what is the point in making out as if that is a significant difference?
Europe is really going to make this a deal breaker for relations with America?
On nuclear weapons, America doesn't want to remain in a partially defunct treaty that only America obeys after attempts since the Obama administration to get Russia to comply with the treaty have failed.
Europe would rather have a fake treaty that they can pretend is protecting them from Putin's nuclear threats.
On climate change, the main issue on foreign policy is the withdrawal from the Paris climate deal. That deal was deemed worthless by climate activists right up until Trump pulled out of the deal.
Europe would again prefer to pretend that they did something on paper rather than actually deal with an issue.
That's 0 out of 4 on justifiable reasons to dislike America on American actions in a "rules-based" order.
And if you want to see the utter bankruptcy of that European notion, look who is hailed as a champion of a rules-based system:
It fell to China to aid Merkel in her defense of the post-World War Two order, as the country's top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, spoke in flawless English for over 20 minutes about the virtues of open trade and global cooperation.
Are you freaking kidding me? China flouts the rules-based order by ignoring international law to claim virtually all of the South China Sea. China does not in fact support free trade, with trade terms tilted toward China, not to mention their rampant theft of Western technology. Indeed, while China "respects" the Paris climate deal by remaining in it, China is allowed by that deal to continue polluting all it wants!
But Yang spoke in flawless English! Let the swooning begin! The words were magnificent! It could only have been better in French, I suppose. But then again, the French would never admit anyone not from Paris could speak the holy tongue flawlessly.
Oh, and perhaps the Europeans can explain how in 2011 it was a defense of the rules-based order for Europe and America to twist a UN authorization to establish no-fly zones over Libyan cities to protect them from virtually non-existent Libyan air power into an aerial campaign in support of rebels who overthrew the lawful (if odious) Libyan ruler Khadaffi? But no, that was Obama leading from behind and the Europeans were honored to take the lead (indeed, so eager were the French to strike the first blow that they jumped the gun to take honors).
In the end, the sophisticated and nuanced Europeans have based their view on the notion that Orange Man Bad.
As the French foreign minister who doesn't understand why America would want to get our of Syria (I addressed that already) explained:
"U.S. pressure has a tendency to make us do the opposite. U.S. pressure is counterproductive. It's best that they don't try and pressure us," a senior French diplomat said.
Wow. They don't decide based on interests and facts. They react against whatever Trump wants. How nuanced. How sophisticated of them.
I swear to God it's like dealing with a kindergarten class where every child speaks a different language.
