US foreign policy continuous under Trump: Pundit

Opposition is growing, domestically and internationally, to the executive orders signed by US president Donald Trump putting travel bans on Muslims from seven countries.

Soraya Sepahpour Ulrich, an independent researcher and author from Irvine, California, says Trump is sticking to the policies of the US establishment because he has no choice other than carrying out pre-planned foreign policies.

“US foreign policy is continuous and some may think that Donald Trump is the captain behind the wheel directing this ship but that is not the case. In fact, Donald Trump is not catching up with intelligence. Donald Trump is ringed in by those that formulate US foreign policy,” Ulrich told Press TV’s the Debate program.

“Trump is nobody and he may say one thing one day and the next day he may say something else, but the policies are proceeding as planned, they’re being implemented as he is deciding who to lash out next,” she said on Friday night.

Referring to Trump’s threat to ‘tear up’ Iran’s nuclear deal, she said not only Trump but also other American officials are hoping that they could provoke Iran into reacting to their measures regarding the nuclear deal.

Ulrich also touched upon Israel’s settlement activities on the occupied Palestinian land, saying the US commander-in-chief has changed his tone on illegal settlements construction in the occupied lands because Trump knows “he needs Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and all the other countries to do the dirty work of the United States and attack Yemen, take stance against Iran, Iraq and Syria; so, he is not going to be accomplishing this by allowing openly for Israel to follow through with the settlements but he will continue to fund them.”

In a shift of tone, Trump has recently announced that building new settlements or expanding existing ones in the occupied territories of Palestine may not be helpful to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Meanwhile, a former US Army psychological warfare officer from San Francisco, said that Donald Trump’s reaction to Iranian missile test is not in line with his claim that every nation should have the “right to look after their own interests.”

Scott Bennett added that the US president underlined that his administration will not go to war with other countries and he will discontinue “the Obama regime’s ... operation of burning down the world.”

The former officer also said that the American society is tired of the US foreign policy and its neo-conservative “empire-building track” sought in the last 15 years; so, the people elected Trump to change the course and they would impeach him by their representatives if he does not stop Washington’s interventionist policies.

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