I’ve noticed a mini-genre of foreign policy op-eds that go something like this: “Trump may have been crazy, but his foreign policy idea on [some issue I care about] was actually sensible”

Please stop. This formulation assumes the Trump admin had something approximating a rational foreign policy processes, and not an incoherent and erratic mess of a process that veered from impulse to impulse

So yes, I agree that the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan needs to be reconsidered, but don’t tell me that a troop surge, followed by vague bilateral deals with the Taliban, then abrupt declarations of withdrawal and victory constitute some kind of coherent policy vision

And yes, I also do not want war on the Korean Peninsula, but don’t tell me “fire and fury”, followed by “we fell in love”, followed by diplomatic stagnation and military parades in Pyongyang are the fruits of some master plan

Here is the great thing about Trump’s defeat: we no longer have to refract our foreign policy debates through this ignorant narcissist’s view of the world. We can go back arguing the merits of our policies on their own terms, using logic and evidence, like before times