Thursday on the RCP Podcast, Carl Cannon spoke with RCP columnist Peter Berkowitz, former director of policy planning at the State Department and expert on Israel, about President Trump’s meeting with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and the latest on nuclear negotiations with Iran. “What is going on? Excellent question!” Berkowitz commented. “President Trump is trying to build partnerships for the U.S. in the Middle East based on commerce.” “Never mind that the leader of Syria is a longtime Sunni Muslim jihadist, he’s now wearing a suit and tie, maybe we can do business with him, let’s see. I assure you, the Israelis are skeptical,” he said. “Trump hasn’t made the old argument that economic liberalization will produce political liberalization. He’s just saying let’s do business that will produce friendship.” “He’s not making the bolder claim. It certainly raises questions in my mind, but we cannot accuse him of making the old mistake,” he said. “The point is that Trump’s not trying to transform these countries. He’s trying to take advantage of commercial tendencies that they’ve strongly demonstrated,” Berkowitz said. “I’m not worried that Trump once again is repeating a transformative error. I am worried that the president has gone too far in eliminating human rights entirely from our calculations.” “I’m sympathetic to grounding partnerships in hard, cold commercial interests, but I’d like the president to retain some room for standing for American principles.”
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