David Frum: Israel “Begun A War With Magnificent Success,” But It Doesn’t Have An Obvious Way To End It
The Atlantic’s David Frum warned the State of Israel on Thursday that President Donald Trump will “betray” them, just like he has “betrayed his wife” and “betrayed his children.” Frum said on MSNBC that there is only one exception — Vladimir Putin. “One other thing that the Israelis need to keep in mind, and my friends in the pro-Israel community need to keep in mind, Trump betrays everyone who trusts him, with one exception, and that is Vladimir Putin, not Israel,” Frum told MSNBC host Alicia Menendez. “He’s betrayed his creditors. He’s betrayed his investors. He’s betrayed his wives. He’s betrayed his children. He will betray you, too. Be wary of putting your trust in him. And Israel’s not a very exposed position.”
DAVID FRUM, THE ATLANTIC: Well, I don’t think you should compare this administration to anything else in American history. This collection of jokers and crackpots and crooks. We should not allow the drama of the moment to efface from our minds what we know about this administration. It is vacillating. It is weak. When President Trump says he needs two weeks, that means he’s looking for a way not to make a decision, not for a way to make a decision. That he enjoys the feeling of power in his hands, but he flinches from the consequences of responsibility. He staffed his administration with people who shouldn’t be in positions of public trust. One obvious move that the Iranians would have, for example, if the United States struck at them, would be to activate terror networks inside the United States and inside America’s, what remains of America’s networks of allies after Trump’s attacks on all the allies. So we’ve got to, now, if you’re going to defend the country against those, you’ve got an FBI where they’ve laid off all the counterterrorism professionals, headed by jokers. You’ve got a Department of Homeland Security that has spent hundreds of millions and millions of dollars on an advertising campaign to say, thank you, Trump, again, with kind of a play acting director. You’ve got a Defense Department who’s under the leadership that no one would put this Defense Department under on the way to war. It just doesn’t add up. So Trump loves bluster. He loves talk. One other thing that the Israelis need to keep in mind, and my friends in the pro-Israel community need to keep in mind, Trump betrays everyone who trusts him, with one exception, and that is Vladimir Putin, not Israel. He’s betrayed his creditors. He’s betrayed his investors. He’s betrayed his wives. He’s betrayed his children. He will betray you, too. Be wary of putting your trust in him. And Israel’s not a very exposed position. It’s begun a war with magnificent success, but it doesn’t have an obvious way to bring the war to a successful conclusion. It was counting on Trump to help them. They must have relied on indications. But this two weeks, two weeks, that’s what Trump does when he’s about to fold his cards.
