Rod Thomson



The top State Department official under Barack Obama who negotiated the Iran deal has praised President Trump on two foreign policy points — both of which should be easy for Democrats who are not obsessed with removing or damaging the President over supporting what is demonstrably good for America.



But of course they aren’t interested in that. If Democrats ravaged by Trump Derangement Syndrome immediately leap to blaming the Coronavirus on President Trump, then all lunacy is possible.



The first point of praise was the proposed Afghanistan peace deal to end the 18-year war the U.S. has been bogged down in. The peace plan included a negotiated ceasefire.



“This is a good, useful, first step,” said former Ambassador Wendy Sherman, who served as undersecretary of state for political affairs in the State Department. This simple, true sentence is so rare among Democrats today it’s actually newsworthy, which is why the local newspaper led with it under the headline: “In Sarasota, Obama official praises Trump’s Afghanistan deal”



Sherman, who was the lead negotiator for the Obama administration on the terrible Iran nuclear deal that President Trump wisely pulled out of, was speaking last week at the Ringling College Library Association Town Hall lecture series in Sarasota, Florida.



“If we get this agreement to move forward with Afghanistan, this is a very good thing,” Sherman said. There now. Was that so hard? Of course it is a good thing.



Sherman, who naturally laced her speech with withering criticisms of Trump’s foreign policy — she is an Obama Democrat after all — qualified her comments on the Afghanistan peace talks, saying that any final agreement must include protections for women and girls — who are second-rate human beings under the Taliban’s Islamic theocratic rule.



The irony is that the Trump administration is probably more likely to press this point than the Obama administration would have been because of Obama’s sympathies toward Muslim nations. Looking at the contrasting actions of the two administrations, Trump policies have benefitted women, children and minorities more than Obama’s.



On the second point of praise, Sherman said that the “controversial” missile strike ordered by the President to kill Iranian terrorist leader General Qasem Soleimani while in Iraq would probably act as a deterrent to Iranian aggression in the region. She called the move risky in moving the U.S. and Iran to the brink of war, but considering how it has played out, the attack was probably a good action.



It’s highly improbable that the killing actually moved the two countries to the brink of war as Iran’s leaders have everything to lose in a direct war with the U.S. military — and they know it well. No traditional army has been able to stand against the U.S. military for more than a couple of weeks. The Mullahs prefer to work through their network of terrorist proxies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.



While it is clear that Sherman has gigantic differences with the Trump administration on a range of foreign policies, and probably domestic ones also, kudos to her for being willing to say publicly that the actions taken by Trump on two fronts that are unarguably in a good direction for Americans — are indeed a good thing.



Rod Thomson is an author, past Salem radio host, ABC TV commentator, former journalist and is Founder of The Revolutionary Act.



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