Foreign Policy Failures Dog Trump Administration

One-Trillion dollar Department of War budget is not for a Peace Prize. In fact, President Trump’s entrancement with long-reining authoritarians is unabashed. He openly admires: President Putin, President Aliyev, President Zelensky, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and President Erdogan. Strong-arm rulers whose oligarch-families have managed to stow away massive amounts of treasures for themselves, their families, and their favorites. Vlogger and Green Party Canadian Dimitri Lascaris has even commented on the establishment of Cyprus as a new getaway location for thousands of Israelis who are establishing secluded towns and gated communities.

These class-based models are what Trump is attempting to normalize in the USA, so no wonder the American version of “Peace Through Strength” is ultimately going to result in a betrayal of campaign promises to the American people, first and foremost, the claim to “End All Wars.” However embedded within this is the Trumpian ambition to also claim to be the Best President who has Accomplished the Most and Established 7 Peace Settlements within 7 months, as the White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt proudly asserts in  press conferences in August.

Not only does this trivialize the definition of Peace Treaty or skewers the meaning of such, but it also fosters a distorted version of American history that will damage the minds and hearts of future generations of Americans, who will be steered away from deeply understanding the histories of and basis for conflict-studies. Most importantly, it sweeps under the rug the violence imposed by dictators funded by U.S. taxpayers that result in ongoing death in Gaza, Lebanon, and economic frailty of Near East nations affected by wars against Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

Naqoura, South Lebanon Endure Continuing Assault by IDF

Besides the economic invasion and rise in living costs for Cypriots, there is the ongoing war against South Lebanon. Despite a ceasefire, the IDF has been invading South Lebanon since the aftermath of the pager-attacks last September. These reports are confirmed by various news sources including Al Jazeera News, Free Palestine TV, Reason2Resist, PressTV, and various others. The same reasoning that is used to crush Gaza and West Bank is also used to justify the bombing campaigns in South Syria and in South Lebanon, just a substitute for the different terrorist groups, whether Hezbollah or unnamed. If they are non-Jews, mostly Arabs or Christian-Arabs, but especially if they are Palestinian refugees, then they are fair game.

Laith Marouf and others have explained how the wars against Palestinian sent waves of refugees into Lebanon, and in the 1980s, this precipitated war against Lebanese refugee camps to “mow down” the growing numbers of Palestinian-Arabs within that country. Even after murdering the Hezbollah leaders by dropping bombs on large apartment buildings (and in the process also killing many civilians) in South Beirut last year, the drone strikes have continued. This is why FPTV reporting is so critical because few Western journalists dare to continue to publish reports on this hidden ongoing war.

The IDF (with the help of the US Central Command and Gulf Cooperative Council states) are eager to conduct full regime change in Lebanon using the same playbook as inside Syria. Under heavy sanctions and economic stress, surrounded by nations no longer respectful of Lebanon’s sovereignty, the hope is that religious sectarianism and infighting causes the nation to implode. According to the UNRWA shared by TRT World, as of March 2024, “93% of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon live in poverty. UNRWA funding cut threatens the future of 200k Palestinian refugees receiving regular aid from the agency.”

Thanks to President Trump and the conservatives, United States has withdrawn support for UNRWA and its membership in the UN Human Rights Council. Furthermore, Israel outright banned UNRWA from its territories or territories it claims since January 2025. There is no doubt that extraterritorial claims exist by reason to defend itself from Hezbollah terrorists, and so the drone strikes against Lebanese refugee areas, but even independent townships in South Lebanon number in the tens of thousands, because any Lebanese male is a potential Hezbollah supporter. The refugee camps exist in Rashidieh, Burj El Shemali, El Buss, Mieh Mieh, Ein El Hilweh, Burj El Barajneh, Shatila, Mar Elias, Dbayeh, Beddawi, Nahr al Baraed, and these are mostly along the coast.

Unfortunately, similar to Armenia, the small country of Lebanon is fraught with internal tensions and political indecision. Like Syria, it was mostly a secular government for decades, however, it is now run more by the army than by its politicians. In addition, something which Wikipedia does not describe, the punitive sanctions by the United States are clearly effective and for political reasons. As described by the USCIS Guide, sanctions target anyone associated with Hezbollah, which is a designated terrorist organization; anyone in a group who “pose a threat to stability in the region”; anyone or group implicated in corruption or human rights abuses per the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.

The obvious attempt by Lebanese politicians to appease the West has only weakened its small independent banks, and probably as in Syria (which former UK Ambassador Craig Murray reported on as a foreign correspondent), the IDF conducted special drone strikes against Lebanese banks and weapons factories, but they have already also included schools and clinics. The attempts to weaken Lebanon are clearly on display in the South however. In one video, FPTV interviews a contractor who had brought heavy machinery, such as excavators, but were destroyed by the IDF because they do not want rebuilding in South Lebanon. In another, it details how the IDF use targeted strikes against persons suspected to be part of the resistance movement, but particularly those who lived in the South. In yet another, recently in an event billed as an international press gathering, Western journalists report how they are targeted by strafing if they dare to report on the IDF war against Lebanon. The ploy is similar to Gaza, a daily death and destruction toll which seems low in number, but that is clearly additive, cumulative, and horrifying.

According to FPTV and others, the UNIFIL (UN Interim Force of Lebanon) peacekeeping forces are even complicit in enabling the IDF to conduct warfare against the largely unarmed civilian population. Often while FPTV is recording news footage the buzz of flying IDF drones can be heard overhead. There are also UNIFIL helicopters seen and heard, but the UNIFIL have not been able to stop any drones. In one interview with the UNIFIL peacekeepers, the peacekeeping officer insists that they do their job by reporting where the IDF were, but they are not mandated to intervene in any way. Asked about civilians, and the UNIFIL also asserts that it is not part of their job to assist Lebanese civilians. This is why the Lebanese civilians have complained about the uselessness of UNIFIL in life-saving emergencies, and questioned whether they are in fact assisting the IDF.

However similar complaints are aired with regard to the Lebanese Army and their unwillingness to fight against the IDF, and even standing down and allowing the IDF to carry on in their attacks. The weakness of the Lebanese government with regard to South Lebanon is all but encouraging an open invasion by the IDF, who are at the very least, making it very difficult for the Lebanese to return to their destroyed farms and villages. They discourage them by also openly desecrating churches and mosques, such as using them as open latrines, and heaping garbage inside, and destroying religious statuary.

In a recent video of the idyllic seaside town of Naqoura, which dates back to before the Roman Empire, the fisherman interviewed waved his arm showing all the empty idle fishing boats, the weather-beaten nets, the broken port machinery, and explained that the government shows practically no support for their fishing and business communities whatsoever. They are not interested in the problems of the fishing communities perhaps because they already anticipate that this land will be sold or reserved for Israeli developers. In fact, Marouf walked along a special section of the Naqoura quay, the seawall dating back to the Romans, a breathtakingly beautiful seascape, something very desirable for resort owners. Once part of an open public park, this section of beach now requires special permission by the Lebanese Armed Forces just to enter for a few hours. Who are they guarding this beach for?

The position of the United States Envoy Tom Barrack and other U.S. politicians is clear: no sanctions will be lifted unless the resistance completely disarms. While the Lebanese cabinet and its army agree that no “parallel army” must exist within the country, there is a national divide based upon the Shia Moslem ministers who back the need for citizen vigilante groups to be able to defend themselves against continuing airstrikes, IDF base camps, and a dysfunctional Lebanese army.

Armenian Diaspora Concerned about Armenia-Azerbaijan-U.S. Trump Peace Deal

Regarding the August 8th peace treaty with Armenia, there are major concerns brought up by outside diaspora observers and print commentators, who are working to defend the rights of Armenia to remain a safe welcoming host for Armenian ex-pats, since there are millions of them in South America, North America, even in the Middle East. First, there is the concern that prisoners of war are not being released at Baku; second, the Aliyev (Azerbaijan) government has not agreed to a right of return for the citizens of Artsakh; they may agree verbally yet there are many contradictions. Hundreds of cultural and religious Armenian institutions and icons have been destroyed in the effort to ethnically cleanse the region of Armenians, erase traces of such, thereby easing the way for Azerbaijani land claims; the same has been ongoing in south Syunik province of Armenia, close to the Iran border, and anywhere clashes are occurring. Third, there are no guarantees that Azerbaijan will not try to take more land from Armenia. History has shown that Armenia faces two rivals on each side; Türkiye, which has been providing arms and support to Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijan, which has in the past claimed that Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, would rightly belong to Western Azerbaijan, a territory that would swallow the country of Armenia.

This is why the Armenian Council of America prepared a Press Release for Armenian-American communities and advocates in the aftermath of the August 8th summit that reads in part:

“We are cautiously optimistic that sustained and principled U.S. engagement can lead to a just, lasting peace agreement and the full lifting of the economic blockade imposed on Armenia by both Azerbaijan and Turkey. Any final agreement must include clear enforcement mechanisms and binding security guarantees for Armenia, to ensure accountability should Azerbaijan violate the terms of the agreement. In this regard, it is a serious mistake for the U.S. Congress to discard Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act [banning arms sales to Azerbaijan]. Furthermore, the United States must do more to press Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to release all Armenian prisoners of war still held in Baku and to withdraw forces from their illegal occupation of sovereign Armenian territory. The U.S. also has a moral imperative to guarantee the safe and dignified return of displaced Armenians to their indigenous homeland of Artsakh (Nagarno-Karabakh). Anything less would fall short of the principles of justice and human rights that the United States claims to uphold.” —“ACA Welcomes Peace Initiative, Urges Strong U.S. Action for Justice and Security,” Armenian Council of America

Actually, the Treaty signed in the Oval Office on August 8, 2025 was only initialed because both parties must work things out in greater detail, including the agreement whereby the U.S. would become the long-term leaser of the Zangezur Corridor. Officially the Agreement would stand only if Armenia agrees to change its Constitution nullifying the Republic of Artsakh, denying any right of return for its former 150,000 inhabitants (unless they can return as Azerbaijanis, something most of the Armenians would object to). Besides, the Armenians have the right to demand reparations for the loss of homes, businesses, and livelihoods while they were forced to flee and live in refugee camps for extended periods of time. Fifth, an ongoing problem as well is the status of the Pashinyan presidency, because he has sowed the seeds of enmity or resentment from the state persecution of the Armenian Apostolic Church, trying to delegitimize its value as a community cultural preserve. As diaspora outside of Armenia claim, Armenian culture and legitimacy has survived precisely because of the bonds that people share through the Church, including learning about Armenian history, language, folk customs, and faith.

The status of Armenia is in jeopardy because, as at least one expert interviewed at The Groong Podcast has observed, the geopolitics and territorial claims of the NATO axis, including Türkiye, will not rest. Not only is Azerbaijan, with the covert support of Türkiye and Israel, being armed to the teeth, but the U.S. obviously will exert its political and geopolitical pressures. For instance, Syriana Analysis has noted that the U.S. has now taken down sanctions against Azerbaijan and is putting aside any reservations for selling armaments and technology to Azerbaijan, which undoubtably the Azerbaijanis will use to carve out a Western Azerbaijan or train Takfiri-like mercenaries for deployment to neighboring countries.

Probably, NATO hopes to use Armenia to complete its arc of control around Russia, but with the help of Türkiye, extend it through to Tajikistan and from there to China. This is the corridor of war which the Pentagon or MI6 and its cohorts are also planning to extend into Xin Jiang Province in China. It must first destabilize or even create a Ukraine-war type of scenario in the Caucuses, but it also involves the collapse of the Iranian regime. In fact, some military strategists are probably ranking destabilization and war with Iran as coming first, because of the vast holdings of natural gas and petroleum contained there.

Never mind that Azerbaijan and its friendly-seeming tyrannical leader, President Aliyev, is listed by humanitarian organizations as scoring high in human rights infractions and scale of corruption, whether as reported by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) or by The Lookout Report of the UK in salacious tales such as “The Two Faces of Azerbaijan: Aliyev Crime Family’s Foreign Policy.” In one revelation, the building industry is so corrupt that the authorities allowed the contractors to spray Styrofoam coverings for new facades on a variety of buildings ahead of the 2015 European Games in Baku. They had overlooked the flammability of non-flame-retardant Styrofoam until a sixteen-story high-rise apartment went up in flames, killing 16 people and injuring more than 60 people. The firefighters could not put out the toxic polystyrene gas fumes, and subsequently, many people desperately tried to remove the Styrofoam building facades, but “more than 200 Soviet-era apartments blocks were covered with the material.” A popular politician, Arif Mammadov, had to flee the country after he tweeted about the disaster. Whistle-blowers indeed live short lives or must relocate if they hope to survive.

To summarize, although the Trump Administration, including President Trump, his Secretary of State, and appointed envoys appear as a messengers of peace, ultimately war-driven conflicts are likely to continue. More fighting is necessary in order to denationalize the region and further create puppet-states. This is the case right now in Lebanon, and has become the state of things for Syria, where it is officially recorded that at least 10,000 people have been killed by HTS since December 2024. Syria, as described by Lebanon-based (and long-time Syria-based) reporter Vanessa Beeley, has fractured along ethno-religious lines.

Because they cannot count on the support of the President al-Sharaa, who, according to reporter Robert Inlakesh (The Last American Vagabond), even has embedded segments of rogue Takfiri army elements within Gaza, who are stealing the food from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in order to resell it to the impoverished Gazans. These former HTS forces have long thrived on mercenary action and are ranging out of control, attacking any non-Takfiri ethnic religious minorities, ransacking homes, kidnapping women, and murdering outspoken local leaders. This is why sectarianism is on the rise: the Druze are forming in the South, while the Sunnis are breaking into fractions in Central Syria, and the Kurds, who are not likely to give up fighting in the North.

Trump Federal Takeover of Blue Cities Planned

This is where US taxpayers billions of dollars are going, to continue to help feed the ongoing sectarian violence and daily battles occurring within Syria, Lebanon, West Bank, and Gaza, while funding Western-loving NGOs inside of Armenia, Iran, Georgia, and elsewhere. These battles are pitting the army against innocent, often unarmed civilians. But it is coming home because President Trump openly admires the strong-arm tactics of ruthless leaders, to such an extent that he is now declaring martial-law (all but in name) in D.C., and according to progressive Democrats, such as at Breakthrough News, hoping to use this model as a prototype to export to other blue cities, such as Chicago and New York City.

Imagine this kind of federal take-over in blue-voting cities across the U.S. which can further stoke civil strife that will allow the shutting down of voting election centers in 2026. It is not a conspiracy but a valid concern which the grassroots citizens must be prepared to encounter, since it is clear that the president and his cronies want to remain in power for as long as possible, no matter if they resort to strong-arm tactics.

The funds that the billionaires are helping themselves to while claiming to restore law, order, sanity, are costing huge amounts of monies. According to one estimate by former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, it is costing $450,000 per day to house, arm, provide pay, and oversee the dispatch of National Guard to D.C. Meanwhile the Congress has deprived the District of 1-billion dollars from the House withholding of funds. This is a huge amount of money that helps pay for affordable housing programs, local community programs, a host of government and public works, and much more, but apparently, this is not the type of humanitarian meaningful assistance the GOP believes in.

Even if Food Not Bombs, in a recent interview with Jimmy Dore, claims that too much money is retained and passed around among the bureaucratic class and “homeless industrial complex”, better accountability can be instituted through better oversight. This would involve holding more townhalls, inviting members of the community to become involved in reviews, holding officials accountable, developing timelines, restructuring the homelessness advocacy around number of successful placements not point-in-time counts, and legitimizing a variety of watchdog reporting. Instead on both sides, there has been covert harassment of citizen reporters who are non-affiliated with the approved media outlets, spying on homelessness advocates by field agents or the police, and creation of too many opaque cottage industry type of NGOs headed by overpaid desensitized graduates of elite university whose salary demands 1.5 times the AMI. If we want to create more housing for the homeless, one of the very first things that must be done is to dismantle the Area Median Income law for rent increases, while mandating significant elevated percentages for Permanent Supportive Housing, and Rent Control apartments.

None of this is an easy fight, yet this is the core issue in the housing and defense-spending-debt crisis, is not really a shortage of housing or budget money but a shortage of honesty, integrity, and a willingness to reform institutional policies from within. Short of this, the trend toward criminalizing poverty, jailing the homeless, stigmatizing of the disabled, callousness towards the moderate-income elderly, will only increase, because a capitalist mercenary war-based culture cannot survive without ultimately eating its tail.

Report and photo by AGN, Screenshot from RealLifeLore (Youtube)