Rubio’s War
Little Marco has come a long way.
NYT international reporters Edward Wong and Michael Crowley, who “travel with the U.S. secretary of state,” offer an analysis of “Trump and Rubio’s Vision of War: The Art of Destroy and Deal.”
Throughout his long political career, Mr. Rubio has advocated toppling governments hostile to the United States. He was once considered so ideologically out of step with Mr. Trump that many officials and politicians doubted he would last a year in the administration. But today, Mr. Rubio is at the helm of Mr. Trump’s aggressive campaigns to reshape the governments of Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and beyond.
The U.S. president, who promised to end American wars, is now embracing the policies backed by Mr. Rubio and the secretary’s ideological compatriots, dismaying supporters who thought Mr. Trump had ushered in a new era of military restraint.
But Mr. Rubio is not trying to convert Mr. Trump to George W. Bush-era neoconservatism, which sought to remold other nations’ political systems, sometimes with military force, American officials and analysts say. Instead, he seems to be pursuing a new approach built on power free of principle. It is a merger of neoconservatism with Mr. Trump’s transactionalism, and it amounts to using U.S. military and economic power to turn authoritarian countries into client states.
It is regime compliance rather than regime change, a doctrine of destroy and deal.
Traditional neoconservatives saw promoting democracy and doing nation-building in the world as a moral good, even if it was done at gunpoint. And they viewed those as a means of transforming adversaries wholesale and extending American influence by spreading ideas. The Trump administration’s approach, so far, leaves internal politics to the rival nations as long as they show obeisance.
“For Rubio and other members of this younger group, foreign policy isn’t as much about regime change as much as it is about power,” said Emma Ashford, a scholar at the Stimson Center, a research group in Washington. “It is about sustaining American military primacy, making other states fear and respect us.”
[…]
The influence of neoconservatives reached its zenith under that president and his post 9/11 wars. But their ideas still hold sway in Washington, and some of their views are now at the fore of Mr. Trump’s foreign policy, championed by Mr. Rubio.
One is bolstering the American military partnership with Israel and striking at Israel’s adversaries — Iran in particular. The United States first attacked Iran last June, during the 12-day war started by Israel.
Mr. Rubio, who is also Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, helped plan that assault and most if not all of the administration’s other major military operations. Mr. Trump has ordered attacks in eight countries in the last year.
Meanwhile, Amie Parnes and Julia Mueller of The Hill report “Vance, Rubio jammed into high-stakes horse race for Trump’s favor.”
When President Trump gave his first press conference since the start of the Iran war, he brushed past Vice President Vance, instead lavishing praise on Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“Marco Rubio is doing a great job. I think he’s going to go down as the greatest secretary of State in history,” Trump told reporters Monday. “He’s been successful no matter where he’s been.”
When asked whether he and Vance, known for imposing foreign wars and entanglements, disagreed on any points related to the conflict, Trump only offered: “He’s philosophically a little different from me.”
Over the course of the rest of the roughly 30-minute press conference, he never mentioned Vance again directly by name.
The moment reflected the clearest sign yet of the internal horse race that is playing out in Trump’s orbit over who will succeed him.
Vance and Rubio, by just about every estimate, are the two leading contenders.
[…]
Some political observers say Trump relishes the political intrigue around the Vance-Rubio question.
“It’s very Trump to constantly do a pulse check on how folks feel about Marco versus Vance. That is very much in the president’s DNA, to get a sense of where donors are and politicos and even folks in the media,” GOP strategist Brian Seitchik said.
“The president is always evaluating and comparing, and he’s well aware also that, by nature, those types of questions generate competition, which anyone who’s watched ‘The Apprentice’ knows he values,” said Seitchik, who worked on Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns.
[…]
Trump’s decisions on Iran could shape a GOP primary in 2028, and there are risks related to the war for any GOP candidate who might run for president then.
Rubio came under criticism last week after remarks he made appeared to suggest the U.S. joined attacks on Iran in part because Israel was going to do so regardless of Trump’s decision, and that it needed to strike first before Iran counterattacked. That angered MAGA proponents wary of the U.S. being dragged into a war by Israel.
It’s possible it will benefit Vance in 2028 if he’s seen as a brake on those who want to push a more aggressive foreign policy in the Middle East, though there would also be clear dangers to anyone in Trump World who is seen as not backing the president’s decision.
“The things he’s doing now, these are not popular, win-the-midterms moves,” the fundraiser said of the Iran war.
In an ideal world, the decision to start a major war should not be aimed at winning the midterms.
The degree to which Rubio’s hawkishness influences President Trump’s decisions is impossible to know from the outside. Clearly, the Trump 47 foreign policy is much more aligned with Rubio’s vision than was the Trump 45 foreign policy, which was much more in keeping with the postwar elite consensus. It’s certainly possible that Rubio being his chief foreign affairs advisor is a major reason for that.
Regardless, using the military to blow up purported drug cartel boats, arrest the head of government of Venezuela, decimate the Iranian security apparatus, and threaten the government of Cuba is a far cry from the “Peace President” Trump campaigned as.
I’ve mentioned here a recent New Yorker profile of Rubio that quoted an old associate as saying Rubio has never had a mentor or a principle he hasn’t betrayed.
The United States first attacked Iran by aiding the overthrow of their elected government in 1953, replacing it with the dictatorship of the Shah, which the Iranians overthrew in 1978. Since then we’ve exchanged attacks. Besides blowing up a school, we shot down an airliner. It takes two to tango and the JCPOA was an effort to break the cycle.
Indeed.
And I’m left wondering what horrors Rubio has in mind for Cuba. But I suspect he’ll be distracted for awhile.