The Berkeley Police Department is asking for the community’s assistance with a sexual assault which occurred on April 19, 2018 between 11:00 and 11:30am. The victim (a lone high school-aged minor) was walking on the 1500 block of Addison Street when she was grabbed from behind. The victim said the suspect covered her mouth and pressed a gun into her side while telling her not to scream. The victim said the suspect walked her eastbound on Addison Street and into the side yard of a residence where he sexually assaulted the victim. After the assault, the victim sought help and Berkeley Police were notified and the investigation began.  

Officers and detectives have been on scene canvassing the neighborhood for possible witnesses or homes with exterior video surveillance cameras. 

The Berkeley Police Department is asking for the community’s assistance with this crime. Anyone who lives in the area and has surveillance cameras is asked to review their footage. If they witnessed the crime or have information regarding the case, they are asked to contact the Berkeley Police Sex Crimes Detail at (510) 981-5716

“San Francisco lives with the certainty that the Big One will come. But the city is also putting up taller and taller buildings clustered closer and closer together because of the state’s severe housing shortage. Now those competing pressures have prompted an anxious rethinking of building regulations. Experts are sending this message: The building code does not protect cities from earthquakes nearly as much as you might think.”

Talk about your scary nut graf!

For those of you who aren’t news junkies, that’s the paragraph that tells you why you should really, really care about finishing reading this story. The article in question where this appeared was a big front page splash in the New York Times, San Francisco’s Big Seismic Gamble, by Thomas Fuller, Anjali Singhvi and Josh Williams .

It was scary in print, and it’s even scarier online with interactive graphics showing all the Very Tall Buildings which have been built on shaky fill subject to liquefaction when the big one hits.

The picture is frightening for San Francisco, and in light of a just-released study from the United States Geologic Service it might be even worse for Berkeley. We need to act now to avoid catastrophe. 

According to the reporters, the right questions have been being asked only since the Millenium Tower started sinking. It’s now about a foot and a half down, 14 inches lower on one side, possibly because it’s next door to the even bigger Salesforce Tower (known to the literati as the Phallus Building). 

How come no one asked before? 

“The developer and city officials knew of the building’s flaws for years, but kept them confidential until 2016, when news leaked to the public,” says the Times report, 

All in all, “At least 100 buildings taller than 240 feet were built in areas that have a ‘very high’ chance of liquefaction.” 

What? Why? 

Well, you’ll have to read the rest of the NYT story for all the gory details, but the short answer is that the builders of the recent boom buildings in San Francisco have paid scant attention to the gradually accumulating evidence of the very real danger that they’ll collapse in the inevitable major earthquake, or at least become totally unusable. Building codes have failed to deal with the new data. 

Another quote: 

“In light of the problems with the Millennium Tower, there are now increasing calls in California for a reassessment of earthquake risks, much of it focused on strengthening the building code.  

“Right now the code says a structure must be engineered to have a 90 percent chance of avoiding total collapse. But many experts believe that is not enough. 

“' Ten percent of buildings will collapse,' said Lucy Jones, the former leader of natural hazards research at the United States Geological Survey who is leading a campaign to make building codes in California stronger. 'I don’t understand why that’s acceptable.' ” 

 

 

And let’s be clear: this is a piece mostly about San Francisco, but here in Berkeley it could be even worse. We’re sitting plumb on top of the Hayward Fault. 

On Wednesday the United States Geological Survey (USGS) released a terrifying prediction about what this might mean for us. 

From the NPR account of their findings: 

“The U.S. Geological Survey released a report Wednesday predicting that there could be dire consequences if a major earthquake hits the second-largest fault in Northern California.  

“The USGS simulated a 7.0 magnitude earthquake on the Hayward Fault, which runs up and down the East Bay Area through Berkeley, Oakland, Hayward, Fremont and Milpitas. The results show that an earthquake of that scale could kill up to 800 people and cause more than $100 billion in total damage.” 

 

 

Three such structures are already in the pipeline, all approved, like those in San Francisco, without adequate data regarding earthquake risk. Berkeley’s building code is just as inadequate as San Francisco’s. 

From the NYT article : 

“Newer high rises across California, which are typically built around a concrete core, are designed using computer modeling.  

“This raises concerns among experts such as Thomas H. Heaton, the director of the Earthquake Engineering Research Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology and perhaps the most prominent skeptic of building high rises in earthquake zones. 

“ ‘It’s kind of like getting in a new airplane that’s only been designed on paper but nobody has ever flown in it,’ he said.” 

 

 

Nevertheless, both the inadequate EIR and the flawed project were enthusiastically accepted by the bespoke councilmembers who were in office when it was approved. Citizen demands for a better seismic study were ignored. 

This project is now stalled because of financing problems, but the outgoing city planning director gave backers an extension on the time limit for commencing construction under the current entitlements, so it could still be built. The entitlement holders are trying to flip the project to another builder. 

In San Francisco, historically, says the Times, “ the objection to high rises was largely cultural and aesthetic — critics deplored ‘Manhattanization’ and said high rises were not in keeping with the ethos of the city.” 

That’s been true in Berkeley too—perhaps our critical focus on culture and aesthetics, both debatable topics, distracted attention from the inadequate engineering analyses which should have been fact-based but weren’t. 

The “hotel” (plus luxury apartments) development planned for a corner on Shattuck now occupied by the Bank of America seems to be moving toward commencement. It has faced little or no civic opposition on cultural or aesthetic grounds, and again seismic risks were minimized. 

A third big building is now in the approval process, another 18 story luxury apartment development chock-a-block with the Harold Way behemoth and the Shattuck Hotel. This one still needs to come back to the Zoning Adjustment Board for final approval, so this is a good time for city officials both elected and employed to take a fresh look at newly recognized data about both construction standards and earthquake risk before rubber-stamping it. 

After the Millenium Tower started sinking, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee belatedly commissioned an independent safety investigation, the Tall Buildings Study, which will for the first time create a detailed database of that city’s high rises which can be studied for the benefit of other cities. 

From the Times: 

“ Ayse Hortacsu, the structural engineer who is leading the study, has deployed Stanford graduate students to pore over blueprints and records at the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection. 

“It would have been great to do this before this building boom in San Francisco,” Ms. Hortacsu said. “But we are going to seize the moment and make the best out of it.” 

In light of this new study, the Berkeley City Council should immediately rethink the provision in the Downtown Plan that authorizes the construction of up to five high rises there. 

The five extra-tall buildings are optional under Berkeley’s Downtown Plan, not mandatory. And even shorter buildings, six stories and above of all-concrete construction, might be riskier than previously considered. 

Berkeley should seize this moment before our own planned tall building boom takes off to figure out what we should be doing. 

It’s still possible for us to avoid the highrise tsuris that San Francisco is now experiencing, and the even worse grief that will accompany the big quake if we have collapsing buildings downtown. 

Mayor Arreguin and his Berkeley City Council majority, who after all were elected with the support of development doubters, should immediately enact a moratorium on approving tall buildings, at least until San Francisco’s Tall Building Study has been completed. 

Berkeley doesn’t need any more big luxury apartment buildings, not if they come with the risks the Times article describes so vividly. 

A friend of mine caught the mayor of Santa Rosa on the radio talking about the fire that ravaged through the area last fall "without respect for boundaries" of race, wealth or class. My friend then wrote a song quoting the mayor which then goes on to wonder who - which class, which race, which group - could possibly deserve the monstrous experience of burning to death or watching one's life or family go up in flames.

People probably knew what the mayor meant; fire is indiscriminate, wind-driven, unpredictable. The rich are just as likely, in an explosive 80 mile an hour wildfire, to suffer as the poor. But the housing policies which follow in the wake of such a disaster are unlikely to be so. They are much more likely to be riven with bizarre human prejudices.

Berkeley's tiny house obsession is a case in point. Although "tiny" houses are not cheaper, or greener, than renovated apartment buildings, and although they violate California habitability standards if they don't have heat, or windows, or a place to wash up, they remain the darling of a crew that often doesn't care that they're being used as a front group for developers hoping for a code-free world. 

Forcing people to live in glorified lunchboxes is easy in a world where the only alternative offered is hanging out behind the dumpster. I spoke to a city council representative a couple of days ago who is getting roped in to the latest tiny house proposal, and she cited the city's housing emergency declaration and the age of the target group to be served as the special sauce greasing her wheels. 

T'was ever thus. When local developer Patrick Kennedy wanted to snooker the city council for special breaks on his project requirements he rounded up local disability advocates and offered them housing - the hearings were full of talented, impassioned people with disabilities pounding podiums for his project to address an admittedly serious deficit in accessible units, people who were situated at the front of the line if the projects were approved. 

But there are better ways to address the immediate needs of unhoused or marginally housed people of any age which don't require building a thing. The most environmentally sound, cost-effective approach to housing people doesn't involved absurd miniaturization at all - just the renovation or utilization of buildings sitting empty, or empty for most of the time. 

Many libraries and schools have already repurposed themselves to provide showers, storage, and even shelter to people in need. The Homeless Commission is patiently waiting for the City of Berkeley to do the even more obvious thing - utilize empty storefronts and commercial spaces as shelters and day centers so people have someplace to sit other than the public sidewalk and a place to store belongings if they choose. These spaces have bathrooms, electricity, lights, etc., and often break rooms with small kitchens - no port-a-potties or wash stations necessary. 

Many storefronts have sat empty for years, and are more of a burden to a commercial district than some old fart sitting in the sun, the Downtown Berkeley Association's (DBA) favorite claim. It makes more sense to create shelter spaces in manageable numbers throughout town than to build something artificially separate - the "homeless" camp - or artificially small - the "tiny house" village - for people whose needs are neither separate nor small. Marginalized groups tend to have a high ratio of specialized needs which are not best served by bizarre or miniaturized housing experiments. But they are no different than the rest of us, and don't deserve to be put in what amounts to a policy zoo. 

But that isn't the only option. Zillow, when I checked today, has 32 single family rental listings in Berkeley. Trulia has 36. If you take Zillow's list the average monthly cost of a bedroom is $2,226. If you share a bedroom, as most of us have learned along the way to do, the cost is reduced to $1,113. This is a room in a house with a kitchen, a bathroom (sometimes more than one), porches, backyards, front rooms, privacy, and this is market rate, no city-driven special bargain. Trulia's list is equally eye-opening; the simple math shows that the City of Berkeley could contract tonight for shelter for 180 people for $798 a month. That's $26 a day, no construction required. If the DBA kicked in some of its $1.3 million contract it could be even less, and less still if its well-heeled board of directors, who claim to want people off the street, considered it important. 

So don't be fooled when the latest tiny house-promoter waves around a list of "religious leaders" who are on board an experimental "tiny house" proposal for more temporary placements kids will age out of and which will implicate the City of Berkeley in undermining hard-won tenant protections and habitability standards. They are understandably willing, in the light of a crisis, to try almost anything except the obvious; decriminalizing poverty and opening their own doors. Low-cost housing providers, on the other hand, can tell anyone who's listening that renovated boarding houses, single-room occupancy hotels, and shared apartment spaces are the most cost-efficient and environmentally sensible approach to housing. 

Miniaturization inappropriate to human need has no particular benefit in and of itself - just ask any good cook trying to harbor all the elements of a Thanksgiving meal for family and guests around holiday time. 

If we care about the most efficient use of our tax dollars, we'll eschew the boutique experiments on kids and the cruelty of separate facilities and take the advice of those groups right here in the Bay Area who have spent decades actually providing real, full-size, cost-efficient housing to people of all ages and with the cross-section of needs that comes with any human population. Because people on the street didn't deserve the health crisis or job loss that put them there any more than anyone in Calistoga or Santa Rosa deserved to have their house burned to the ground. People without houses are exactly that: people. 

The brutal rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl from a semi-nomadic Muslim community has sent shock waves in India. What caused such outrage was not only the heinous crime but the attitude of India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party who defended the men accused of the crime. 

The young girl was abducted and imprisoned in a Hindu temple where she was drugged, starved and gang raped repeatedly before being murdered. 

One of the accused, a police officer asked his co-conspirators to delay the killing so he could rape her one more time. The police charge sheet suggested that this was not a random killing but followed a pattern of politics of criminal behavior where Muslims are being targeted in increasing numbers since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s election in 2014. According to the police the brutal murder was premeditated to terrorize the Bakarwals, a hill tribe, and drive them out of the area. The bereaved parents fled the area unable to bury their child. 

A newly formed extremist group called Hindu Ekta Manch, or Hindu Unity Forum organized a protest march defending the accused. The co-founder of the group is Vijay Sharma a senior official of Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (B.J.P) in the region. Two B.J.P. ministers in the state government attending the march were dismissive of the crime commenting, “So what if a girl died? “Many girls die every day.” The BJP organizers want the case to be transferred to the federal Central Bureau of Investigation, a delegitimized institution which serves at the behest of the ruling BJP where the case will surely die. 

The girl’s lawyer was physically threated from filing charges against the accused. As the details of the crime trickled down to social media people responded with mounting outrage demanding the two ministers who backed the perpetrators of the crime, resign. Modi finally responded from his deep slumber and meekly denounced the perpetrators’ and fired the ministers who organized the march. 

A spokeswoman for Mr. Modi’s party, Meenakshi Lekhi, attacked opposition protests, suggesting that they were selective and opportunistic.  

“You see their plan,” she said. “First shout ‘minority minority’, then ‘Dalit Dalit’ and now ‘women women’ and then try to somehow fix blame of state issues on the center.” 

An open letter by an ex-civil servant accused Modi of investigating such violence and held him directly responsible for “this terrifying state of affairs.” Another B.J.P. official accused Muslim Rohingya of instigating the violence in Burma. 

A youth activist posted a Facebook comment that the “rape must have been fun”. Many who voted for Mr. Modi are disappointed for his failure to condemn sectarian and sexual violence and hate speech by his party colleagues and ministers. It is entirely possible that the BJP will further stoke these ethnic and religious tensions in the run-up to the next election.

An unusual triple alliance is emerging from the Syrian war, one that could alter the balance of power in the Middle East, unhinge the NATO alliance, and complicate the Trump administration’s designs on Iran. It might also lead to yet another double cross of one of the region’s largest ethnic groups, the Kurds.

However, the “troika alliance”—Turkey, Russia and Iran—consists of three countries that don’t much like one another, have different goals, and whose policies are driven by a combination of geo-global goals and internal politics. In short, “fragile and complicated” doesn’t even begin to describe it.

How the triad might be affected by the joint U.S., French and British attack on Syria is unclear, but in the long run the alliance will likely survive the uptick of hostilities.

But common ground was what came out of the April 4 meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Meeting in Ankara, the parties pledged to support the “territorial integrity” of Syria, find a diplomatic end to the war, and to begin a reconstruction of a Syria devastated by seven years of war. While Russia and Turkey explicitly backed the UN-sponsored talks in Geneva, Iran was quiet on that issue, preferring a regional solution without “foreign plans.”

“Common ground,” however, doesn’t mean the members of the “troika” are on the same page. 

Turkey’s interests are both internal and external. The Turkish Army is currently conducting two military operations in northern Syria, Olive Branch and Euphrates Shield, aimed at driving the mainly Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) out of land that borders Turkey. But those operations are also deeply entwined with Turkish politics. 

Erdogan’s internal support has been eroded by a number of factors: exhaustion with the ongoing state of emergency imposed following the 2016 attempted coup, a shaky economy, and a precipitous fall in the value of the Turkish pound. Rather than waiting for 2019, Erdogan called for snap elections this past week and beating up on the Kurds is always popular with right-wing Turkish nationalists. Erdogan needs all the votes he can get to imlement his newly minted executive presidency that will give him virtually one-man rule. 

To be part of the alliance, however, Erdogan has had to modify his goal of getting rid of Syrian President Bashar Assad and to agree—at this point, anyhow—to eventually withdraw from areas in northern Syria seized by the Turkish Army. Russia and Iran have called for turning over the regions conquered by the Turks to the Syrian Army. 

Moscow’s goals are to keep a foothold in the Middle East with its only base, Tartus, and to aid its long-time ally, Syria. The Russians are not deeply committed to Assad personally, but they want a friendly government in Damascus. They also want to destroy al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, which have caused Moscow considerable trouble in the Caucasus. 

Russia also wouldn’t mind driving a wedge between Ankara and NATO. After the U.S., Turkey has NATO’s second largest army. NATO broke a 1989 agreement not to recruit former members of the Russian-dominated Warsaw Pact into NATO as a quid pro quo for the Soviets withdrawing from Eastern Europe. But since the Yugoslav War in 1999 the alliance has marched right up to the borders of Russia. The 2008 war with Georgia and 2014 seizure of the Crimea were largely a reaction to what Moscow sees as an encirclement strategy by its adversaries. 

Turkey has been at odds with its NATO allies around a dispute between Greece and Cyprus over sea-based oil and gas resources, and it recently charged two Greek soldiers who violated the Turkish border with espionage. Erdogan is also angry that European Union countries refuse to extradite Turkish soldiers and civilians who he claims helped engineer the 2016 coup against him. While most NATO countries condemned Moscow for the recent attack on two Russians in Britain, the Turks pointedly did not. 

Turkish relations with Russia have an economic side as well. Ankara want a natural gas pipeline from Russia, has broken ground on a $20 billion Russian nuclear reactor, and just shelled out $2.5 billion for Russia’s S-400 anti-aircraft system. 

The Russians do not support Erdogan’s war on the Kurds and have lobbied for the inclusion of Kurdish delegations in negotiations over the future of Syria. But Moscow clearly gave the Turks a green light to attack the Kurdish city of Afrin last month, driving out the YPG that had liberated it from the Islamic State and Turkish-backed al-Qaeda groups. A number of Kurds charge that Moscow has betrayed them. 

The question now is, will the Russians stand aside if the Turkish forces move further into Syria and attack the city of Manbij, where the Kurds are allied with U.S. and French forces? And will Erdogan’s hostility to the Kurds lead to an armed clash among three NATO members? 

Such a clash seems unlikely, although the Turks have been giving flamethrower speeches over the past several weeks. “Those who cooperate with terrorists organizations [the YPG] will be targeted by Turkey,” says Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said in a pointed reference to France’s support for the Kurds. Threatening the French is one thing, picking a fight with the U.S. military quite another. 

Of course, if President Trump pulls U.S. forces out of Syria, it will be tempting for Turkey to move in. While the “troika alliance” has agreed to Syrian “sovereignty,” that won’t stop Ankara from meddling in Kurdish affairs. The Turks are already appointing governors and mayors for the areas in Syria they have occupied. 

Iran’s major concern in Syria is maintaining a buffer between itself and a very aggressive alliance of the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia, which seems to be in the preliminary stages of planning a war against the second-largest country in the Middle East. 

Iran is not at all the threat it has been pumped up to be. Its military is miniscule and talk of a so-called “Shiite crescent”—Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon—is pretty much a western invention (although the term was dreamed up by the King of Jordan). 

Tehran has been weakened by crippling sanctions and faces the possibility that Washington will withdraw from the nuclear accord and re-impose yet more sanctions. The appointment of National Security Advisor John Bolton, who openly calls for regime change in Iran, has to have sent a chill down the spines of the Iranians. What Tehran needs most of all is allies who will shield it from the enmity of the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia. In this regard, Turkey and Russia could be helpful. 

Iran has modified its original goals in Syria of a Shiite-dominated regime by agreeing to a “non-sectarian character” for a post-war Syria. Erdogan has also given up on his desire for a Sunni-dominated government in Damascus. 

War with Iran would be catastrophic, an unwinnable conflict that could destabilize the Middle East even more than it is now. It would, however, drive up the price of oil, currently running at around $66 a barrel. Saudi Arabia needs to sell its oil for at least $100 a barrel, or it will very quickly run of money. The on-going quagmire of the Yemen war, the need to diversify the economy, and the growing clamor by young Saudis—70 percent of the population—for jobs requires lots of money, and the current trends in oil pricing are not going to cover the bills. 

War and oil make for odd bedfellows. While the Saudis are doing their best to overthrow the Assad regime and fuel the extremists fighting the Russians, Riyadh is wooing Moscow to sign onto to a long-term OPEC agreement to control oil supplies. That probably won’t happen—the Russians are fine with oil at $50 to $60 a barrel—and are wary of agreements that would restrict their right to develop new oil and gas resources. The Saudi’s jihad on the Iranians has a desperate edge to it, as well it might. The greatest threat to the Kingdom has always come from within. 

The rocks and shoals that can wreck alliances in the Middle East are too numerous to count, and the “troika” is riven with contradictions and conflicting interests. But the war in Syria looks as if it is coming to some kind of resolution, and at this point Iran, Russia and Turkey seem to be the only actors who have a script that goes beyond lobbing cruise missiles at people. 

On April 12, 2018, the U.S., Britain, and France launched a strike against Syrian research, storage, and military targets to punish Syrian president Bashar al-Assad for his suspected use of his air power to drop chemical weapons in an attack in the Damascus suburb of Guouta, where between 40 and 70 people were reported to have been killed by banned chlorine and sarin gases. The key word here is “suspected.” Assad and Russia have vigorously denied the allegations. 

Meanwhile, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the world's chemical weapons watchdog, landed in Syria on April 14 to begin a fact finding investigation to determine whether Syria did indeed use banned chemical munitions. 

There is no doubt that Syrian Assad, like his father before him, is a brutal dictator, who caused a civil war which has shattered his nation. But why would Assad use banned chemical weapons of no tactical significance to provoke international outrage and military intervention against him when his Syrian army is winning the battle against the opposition forces and has surrounded the last town held by them? Could it be to distract the U.S. media and the public away from his sex scandals, James Comey’s new book, or the Russia investigation? 

The Trump administration should have stepped back until there was definitive proof of Syria’s use of chemical weapons and then, even if true, rethink whether a military response was even in U.S. interests. The possible use of chemical weapons by Syria may be morally wrong, but from a practical point of view, the possible use of chemical weapons by Assad presents no immediate danger to U.S. interests. 

Trump taking the moral high ground is a bit laughable, isn't it? 

The allied attack on Syria dramatically illustrates Trump’s schizophrenic approach to the Syrian conflict. Remember, in 2013, before he was president, Donald Trump tweeted: 

We should stay the hell out of Syria, the "rebels" are just as bad as the current regime. 

WHAT WILL WE GET FOR OUR LIVES AND $ BILLIONS?ZERO 

5:33 PM - Jun 15, 2013 

On April 3, after becoming president, Trump instructed military leaders to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria as soon as possible, and told them he wanted Arab allies to take over and pay for stabilizing and reconstructing areas liberated from the Islamic State. Then a day later, Trump backtracked on his insistence that the troop exit was imminent, now that the militants were “close to 100 percent” defeated. Then after signaling an attack was imminent, the allied forces launched a not-so-sneaky attack against Syria. 

On April 15, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley said the U.S. would impose more economic sanctions against Russia after its repeated support of Assad and his apparent use of chemical weapons on his own people. A day later, Trump told his national security team to hold off on implementing the sanctions after the Russia complained the sanctions were overly harsh. 

As Jim Arkedis, a former Department of Defense counterterrorism analyst, put it, "This unstrategic inconsistency is not a doctrine.” 

We should expect a more coherent Syrian foreign policy from our president.

Many Trump supporters voted for Donald because they believed he was a successful businessman -- rather than a reality TV star. These Trump adherents thought he would bring business acumen to the White House. Trump backers believed Donald had a strategic vision to "make America great again." Turns out they were mistaken. 

There are several attributes of a successful businessman. One of these is Vision: the ability to see the big picture and to propose a plan to focus the business and achieve its long-term goals. A successful President also needs vision. 

Trump holds up an image, "make America great again," but doesn't have a coherent vision of what it will take to accomplish this (noble) objective. Trump doesn't have a reasoned domestic or a foreign policy. There is no strategy; instead Trump presents a random set of assertions -- "China is taking all our jobs!" -- or tactics -- "build the wall!" 

The absence of strategy has dire consequences for America's domestic and foreign policy. So far, Trump has presented four domestic policy initiatives. He promised to "repeal and replace Obamacare," but in reality, he supported repealing Obamacare and designing a replacement later. 

Trump promised to create good-paying jobs by a combination of tax cuts and trade policy. He passed the tax cuts but there's no evidence they have generated better paying jobs. So far his tough talk on trade has not produced results. 

Trump also promised to create good-paying jobs by a far-reaching $1.5 Trillion plan to rebuild America's infrastructure. It hasn't gotten off the ground. Fifteen months of the Trump presidency have established that Trump doesn't have a job-creation or economic strategy beyond helping the rich get richer. 

Finally, Trump promised to "protect" America -- and coincidentally create jobs -- by building a multi-billion dollar wall along the southern border. Once again, nothing has come of this. 

So far, Trump's domestic policy failures haven't hurt the country. Trump inherited a strong economy and it seems to be growing in spite of him. Foreign policy is a different matter; Trump's lack of vision endangers us. 

Trump doesn't have a big picture vision of America operating in a world where there are several strong nations and our relationship to them changes depending upon context. Consider China. We're in a "trade war" with China. Nonetheless we need their help dealing with North Korea. We have a multifaceted relationship with China. 

Because he doesn't have a realistic vision of world politics, when forced to make a foreign-policy decision, Trump relies upon his instincts. And his instincts are isolationist. His slogan, "America first," means, "America alone." 

We can see this in his handling of global climate change and the Paris climate agreement. Trump wants the US to withdraw from this treaty in November 2020, "unless we can re-enter on terms the are more favorable for our country." (Trump has assigned a delegation to renegotiate terms but so far there has been no progress.) If the US withdraws, we will be alone in opposition to this deal. 

Trump's position on most foreign-policy issues goes through these two stage: first he wants to withdraw and then he backpedals to, "We'll withdraw unless we can renegotiate on more favorable terms." That's his position on NAFTA. And his position on Syria. 

To say the least, Syria represents a complicated and dangerous situation. The United States has military personnel in Syria as part of a coalition to eradicate ISIS. On March 29th, Trump announced that the US would be withdrawing from Syria "very soon." Next came Assad's use of chemical weapons in Douma; then the US and it British and French allies responded by bombing Syria. While emotionally gratifying, the bombing wasn't a strategy; as a result, Americans still do not understand what the US plans to do in Syria and the Middle East, in general. 

Russia stands in contrast to most foreign countries because Trump doesn't want to cut off relations with the former Soviet Union; instead he wants the two nations to get closer. He muses that "getting along with Russia is a good thing" and “I think I could have a very good relationship with President Putin.” Most foreign-policy experts believe that Russia is the number one threat to the United States and predict that the former Soviet Union will attempt to meddle in the US mid-term elections. Nonetheless, Trump remains sanguine. But he doesn't have a US-Russia strategy beyond his "cutting a deal" with Vladimir Putin. Trump's ego has shoved aside his isolationism. 

That's what's happening in North Korea. Trump is getting ready for personal negotiations with Kim Jong-Un the North Korean leader whom he once derided as "little rocket man." It's not clear what Trump's strategy is but it is clear that he sees this as an opportunity to cut a historic deal. 

In addition to vision, one of the characteristics of a successful businessman is collaboration -- the ability to work effectively with a team. Trump doesn't possess this attribute. He is negotiating the troubled waters of foreign policy on his own guided only by his erratic instincts. 

Donald Trump endangers the United States. And the world.