(Dobbs) Not tethered.... "to the realities back here on planet Earth.”The U.N. is badly flawed, but there is nothing about Trump’s Board of Peace that signals something better.
President Trump’s “Board of Peace” is supposed to meet a week from today in Washington. It will be the first get-together since it was launched at last month’s “World Economic Forum” in Davos, Switzerland. Anything with a name like “Board of Peace”— even if founded by a man-o-war like Donald Trump— sounds like a good idea. Until you dig into it. And you don’t have to dig deep. Among the problems: • Most of the countries that have accepted a seat are closer to being autocracies than democracies. • Russia and China haven’t yet said yes to joining, but they haven’t yet said no. • Nations whose values we have long shared have not joined. • For a permanent seat, countries must commit $1-billion. Which makes it pay to play. • In its charter, Trump is “the Chairman.” Permanently. Even after he’s not president anymore. • The president has said the board “might” replace the United Nations. Now let’s dig down, beginning with a list from The Washington Post of countries that want to be on the Board of Peace. Nothing against many of them, but really? Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Egypt, Hungary, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam are all dictatorships, or to be generous, they lean toward authoritarian rule. Some are monarchies, but they are absolute monarchies. Some hold elections, but democratic outcomes are more fiction than fact. These are the charter members Trump called “the greatest board ever assembled.” Again, really? As for Russia and China, China’s foreign minister confirmed that his nation was invited to join, but said it is more committed to “multilateralism,” which was taken as an implicit endorsement of the United Nations where China holds a permanent Security Council seat, than to “unilateralism.” Sounds noble enough, but reading between the lines, the Board of Peace would be controlled by the U.S.A. and that’s not in China’s interest. And Russia? Putin has all but said that if the Trump administration will unfreeze a billion dollars of Russian assets held in the U.S., he will consider joining and using that money to buy his way in and take a permanent seat. In other words, if he doesn’t have to spend a dime, he’s in. When you think about it, even inviting Putin is stunning. He is waging the world’s most brutal war, but gets invited to join the Board of Peace. How can anyone square that? Well, Trump can: “I have some controversial people on it,” he told CNN, “but these are people that get the job done.” Right. Putin does get the job done, like invading a neighboring nation he continues to lay to waste. As notable as the names of nations that have joined are the names of those that were invited but haven’t. Longtime allies like Australia, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom. And oh yes, Canada. After its heroic prime minister Mark Carney declared at Davos to a standing ovation, “Great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited,” Donald Trump wrote on his website, “Dear Prime Minister Carney, Please let this Letter serve to represent that the Board of Peace is withdrawing its invitation to you regarding Canada’s joining, what will be, the most prestigious Board of Leaders ever assembled, at any time.” With that disinvitation, Trump proved two things. First, what a petty man he is, placing his personal ego above his nation’s interests. And second, what an autocratic leader he will be for this Board of Peace. Can you imagine the United Nations disinviting a country from membership? The U.N. scolds, it condemns, it even punishes by assembling wartime coalitions, but it has never booted anyone out. When Trump told Carney that this will be “the most prestigious Board of Leaders ever assembled, at any time,” was he thinking about Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko and Hungary’s Prime Minister Victor Orban, who run the closest things Europe has to authoritarian states? Was he thinking about Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu, who has been indicted and has an arrest warrant outstanding from the International Criminal Court for using starvation as method of warfare and for crimes against humanity? And if Putin does join, was Trump thinking about the Russian president’s indictment and arrest warrant by the ICC for war crimes, including the forced deportation of children? Oh, what a prestigious board this will be. We have come to expect that almost anything Donald Trump sets up will be pay to play. If the butcher Putin gets his funds unfrozen, and I wouldn’t put it past Trump to make that happen, then he’ll have a permanent seat, akin to one on the Security Council, which holds the real reins of power at the United Nations. And who else can afford to pay? The oil-rich monarchies of the Gulf. Since Trump seems to envision this board as a parallel organization to the U.N., and maybe in his Machiavellian mind, a replacement, are these the nations we’d want passing judgment on the behavior of other nations and pulling the world’s strings? As former Middle East negotiator Aaron David Miller said, “The whole thing is tethered to a galaxy far, far away, not to the realities back here on planet Earth.” Share One of Trump’s realities is his position at the top of the global pyramid. Washington Post columnist Max Boot wrote a summary of how this board is set up: “According to the charter, ‘the Chairman’ will have the power to invite states to join the board, to veto resolutions, to dissolve the board, ‘to adopt resolutions or other directives,’ and even to approve its official seal. The designated chairman is not whoever happens to be president of the United States but Trump personally, and the charter does not call for him to step down if and when he leaves the presidency. Barring a health crisis, Trump can run the Board of Peace as long as he likes, and he is empowered to choose his own successor. This is a model closer to the Trump Organization than to the collective leadership of the United Nations or NATO.” Since Trump has made it clear that he would like to dismantle the existing world order and has already started, his tease that his Board of Peace “might” replace the United Nations must be taken seriously. In his invitations to world leaders, he said this new body would “embark on a bold new approach to resolving Global Conflict.” There is no question, the U.N. is badly flawed, but there is nothing about Trump’s Board of Peace, nothing, that signals something better. |