Trumpism: The Geopolitics of the United States, the Middle East and Iran

During his presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump promised to make "America great again," relieving it from the burdens of global leadership and cutting back involvements and investments in the world. He said he would move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and "tear up the Iran nuclear deal" (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA]) that the United States negotiated and signed in 2015 with Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers - the US, the UK, France, China, Russia and Germany. At some point, he arrogantly went further and states that Iran "should write us a letter of thank you" for "the stupidest deal of all time." He also hinted that he might cooperate with Russia and with Syria's Bashar al-Assad to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS). In the White House for less than nine months, Trump has greatly increased military aid to Israel and agreed to massive arms sales to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and Bahrain while expanding US military operations in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Somalia. Most recently, he supported Saudi Arabia's initiative to blockade the small Persian Gulf state of Qatar. But more egregiously, he ordered a Tomahawk missile strike on Syria and later approved the Air Force dropping the most powerful non-nuclear bomb or the "mother of all bombs" on ISIS targets in Afghanistan.