Ancient war criminal Henry Kissinger doled out some measured praise for Donald Trump on CBS’ “Face the Nation” this Sunday.
“I believe he has the possibility of going down in history as a very considerable president,” said Kissinger. It was not clear whether he meant “considerable” as in “commanding respect” or as in “large and impossible to avoid.”
But Kissinger did absolutely display confidence in Trump as future Commander-in-Chief, saying, “Donald Trump is a phenomenon that foreign countries haven’t seen. So, it is a shocking experience to them that he came into office. At the same time, extraordinary opportunity.”
Donald Trump’s foreign policy proposals so far include “cancelling” the Paris Climate Agreement, helping more countries acquire nuclear weapons, building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and forcing Mexico to pay for it, and imposing a mystery meat of economic sanctions on China.
Kissinger didn’t end up endorsing either candidate during the election after much speculation he’d officially throw his weight behind Hillary Clinton, who courted his support for months and bragged about him being her close personal friend and mentor, even though the foreign policy he oversaw under Nixon resulted in millions of deaths around the world. Naturally, not many people who consider themselves on some spectrum of The Left care for Kissinger very much. Greg Grandin put it well in The Nation this past August, “[Kissinger] stands not as a bulwark against Donald Trump’s feared recklessness and immorality but as his progenitor.”
Now, very sadly, such “recklessness” will likely characterize the future of the United States’ foreign policy. “One can imagine that something remarkable and new emerges out of it,” Kissinger said of the Trump presidency hurdling toward America like a flaming asteroid. “I’m not saying it will. I’m saying it’s an extraordinary opportunity.” Can I not take those odds?