Donald Trump, Joe Biden and the Costanza Doctrine

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Recently, former – and perhaps future – President Donald Trump told a crowd at a political rally that Israel was succeeding in its war because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was doing the opposite of what President Joe Biden had told him to do. Trump said of Biden, “He’s the single greatest expert on foreign policy in history. You know what that means? If you did the exact opposite of what he suggested every single time, you’d go down as the greatest foreign policy president in history.”

I agree wholeheartedly with that statement.

In fact, I made that exact same point (first) over a decade ago, in reference to former President Barack Obama’s foreign policies of appeasement. I named the resulting doctrine the “Costanza Doctrine.” Sadly, I had to resurrect it again for President Biden.

The Costanza Doctrine is named after a main character from the hit show Seinfeld. That character, George Costanza, is a consistent loser in the show. But, in one episode, he is persuaded by Jerry Seinfeld to do the “opposite” of what he normally wants to do. Jerry memorably makes the case that “(i)f every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.” George then adopts this Costanza Doctrine, and he thereafter becomes an instant success.

Watching the unfolding wreckage of Obama’s foreign policy under his fiction-writer-turned-foreign-policy-guru, I humbly counseled Obama to adopt the Costanza Doctrine to set things right. Unfortunately, Obama blundered on, secure in the praise from his base for his policies of appeasement. And after an interregnum under Donald Trump, Biden came back into office and continued his decades-long failures in foreign policy by following in the appeasing footsteps of the president he had served under.

In fact, the Biden administration has in some ways exceeded the Obama-Biden administration in its promotion of the policies of appeasement.

The Biden administration has allowed Iran, the long-time, leading state sponsor of terrorism, which is at war with the U.S. (and Israel), to earn $200 billion in oil revenues, swelling its coffers from being bankrupt under the Trump administration – the Iranians had just $4 billion after “maximum pressure” – to supercharge its sponsorship of violence and terrorism.

The Biden administration has also paid a $6 billion ransom for some U.S. nationals. Because of all this money, Iran was able to fund one of its terror proxies, Hamas, and its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed 1200 civilians, including over 40 Americans.

Because of this money, Iran has been able to construct and supply advanced drones to the Russian invading forces in their conflict with Ukraine. Because of this money, Iran has released another terror proxy, the Houthis of Yemen, to attack the international trade going through the Red Sea/Suez Canal; most especially, the oil trade, which endangers the world economy.

Because of this money, Iran has plotted to kill Americans on U.S. soil, including former President Trump and other members of his administration. (It has also plotted cyber attacks of terrorism against other Americans, including my boss, ZOA President Mort Klein.) Because of this money, Iran is racing to complete a nuclear arsenal to better threaten the U.S. and the civilized world.

The Biden administration does not appease Iran just with money. It may have leaked Israeli war plans against the Islamic Republic as well. And it has made no secret that behind the scenes, it is working to prevent Israel from striking Iranian targets like its oil or nuclear facilities.

The Biden administration has also appeased the Houthis themselves by removing that group from the Foreign Terrorist Organization list (which punishes them with sanctions), and pressuring Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., and other U.S. allies to stop their offensives against the Houthis and acting in defense of the official Yemeni government, which the U.S. should be allied with.

The Biden administration has appeased Hamas, the terror group with buckets of American blood on its hands. The administration floods Gaza with humanitarian aid, which is inevitably stolen by Hamas and sold on the black market for their profit. It constantly pushes for a ceasefire to protect Hamas from Israeli retribution. It has slowed down the flow of U.S. armaments to Israel, which are necessary to support Israel’s war effort. It continues to call for a Palestinian Arab state, which would be nothing more than a reward to Hamas for its massacre of civilians in Israel. And the administration told Israel not to enter into the city of Rafah, where Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was found and eliminated.

Further, the Biden administration has also appeased the “moderate” Palestinian Authority with monetary aid, the promise of a future say in the governance of Gaza, and eventually, a Palestinian Arab state. This despite the fact that PA terrorists also participated in the October 7, 2023 massacre, and the PA has been funding the families of the Hamas terrorists who were involved in the attack as well.

The Biden administration has appeased Turkey’s Islamist terror-supporting dictator Erdogan, the only leader of a NATO nation that threatens to attack another NATO nation (Greece) and also menaces other U.S. allies (Cyprus, Israel, the Kurds), and has allowed its own citizens to attack, threaten and imprison U.S. citizens.

It would be nice if Barack Obama and Joe Biden stopped trying to appease the foreign enemies of the U.S (and our allies). It just doesn’t work. The enemy nations believe appeasers are weak and are incentivized towards more bad behavior. This, however, would require that these two presidents understand that the U.S. is not a bad nation, and that our enemies are not simply “misunderstood” states that have a legitimate gripe against the U.S. (For example, contrary to the conventional wisdom, the Iranian regime is not angry at the U.S. for supposed prior actions in 1953 in Iran.) This would also entail going against the indoctrination from the left-wing universities these Democrats attended.

A quick way to get around this problem of appeasement – which inevitably leads to world chaos, and eventually to additional violence and political chaos on the home front – is to simply adopt the Costanza Doctrine. If the Democrats’ instincts are wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.

Adam Turner is a national-security professional with two decades of experience who works for the Zionist Organization of America.