According to many respectable political analysts, the American influence on the global scene will diminish to multipolarity, but recent events tell us that the United States remains the world leader and will do so at least for the foreseeable future.
This is a reality we, Arabs, have to deal with, whether we like it or not, regardless of whether or not we like the man in the White House. It’s not about being pro-American, it’s about calling a spade a spade and not holding breath for the unlikely to happen.
I say this because the United States proves to the world that it still has a powerful model despite the sharp criticisms about President Trump’s administration attack on American values according to some researchers and experts. We have to pay much attention to what is happening inside the US, especially after Bob Woodward’s recent book “Fear” received unprecedented international attention, even before it was released. Cited by many media outlets, the book is expected to reach tens of millions of people around the world.
Regardless of the content of this book, which will be issued in a matter of days, it gives us yet another aspect of power in the American model. It tells the story of a strong leader who is still in charge, who talks back to his opponents and critics. The book reports alleged statements by White House insiders, the members from the president’s inner circle calling him a liar and an idiot. Bob Woodward’s new book claims Trump aides snatched away papers from the president’s office to protect national security and that Trump wanted Syria’s Assad assassinated but Defense secretary James Mattis told an aide that “[the US is] not going to do any of that.” According to the book, Trump ordered his Defense secretary to assassinate Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad and “kill the [expletive] lot of them” in the leader’s regime, in the wake of a chemical attack against civilians, Mattis is said to have told the president during a phone call he would “get right on it.”
On top of that, an anonymous New York Times opinion column slammed the U.S. president’s leadership style and claimed there is “a quiet resistance” to him within his own administration.
Woodward is a respectable journalist who publishes well-researched material which makes it difficult for the Trump team to discredit him. But here lies the power of America’s model of conflict management that guarantees the interests of each party to the dispute.
Millions of people around the world are resentful of President Trump’s policies, but we have to admit that many of them still look up to this model of interactions between people in power, the media, supporters and opponents, to the interest of the nation. No ideological loyalties and no external affiliations. Everyone seeks America’s interest, and everyone struggles to protect this model.
American institutions in charge of the interactions between the President and his critics are doing a great job, as these interactions have created a state of balance between the damage caused to the United States by the Trump foreign policies and the positive image of how the situation being handled by US institutions. Many have heard of the telephone conversation between President Trump and Woodward, when Trump told Woodward he understood the book is going to be “negative” to which Woodward replied “I believe in our country, and because you’re our President, I wish you good luck.”
The future of Trump will not be determined by the book but will be determined by the next midterm elections for Congress, which may be affected by the heated debate around the president. Based on the results of these elections, Republicans may decide their position on any expected actions on President Trump, although that’s unlikely especially since a Democrats’ win by a majority in both houses of Congress is still unlikely.
