STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
A scholar of the American empire contends the war in Iran has revealed something about President Trump's view of it. Years ago, Daniel Immerwahr wrote a book called "How To Hide An Empire," a history of all the ways the U.S. has run large parts of the world or spread its influence. He says there is a reason that Trump attacked Iran, while past presidents held back.
DANIEL IMMERWAHR: Most presidents, even as they sought to imagine replacing the Iranian regime, they also had a sense of things that might go wrong for their allies, things that might go wrong in the region. And Trump just seems to have a kind of shrugging indifference to that kind of thing.
INSKEEP: From 1945 onward, the U.S. often took responsibility for global stability.
IMMERWAHR: And so there's been a kind of expansive sense of what U.S. national security might entail, culminating when the 9/11 Commission Report had this indelible line - the American homeland is the planet.
INSKEEP: So you're saying the United States up to now has felt that it greatly benefited from the international system that the United States led the way in setting up after World War II. And so it wants to keep things as they are because we do well when things are as they are.
IMMERWAHR: Yeah. One of the most extraordinary moments in the rise of Trump was when he was campaigning for president the first time, and he says, why are we policing the world? If we're going to continue to be policemen of the world, we ought to be paid for it. You know, as a historian, I'm thinking, are you kidding? Every president has known how beneficial it is for the United States to police the world. Every foreign head of state has known how beneficial it is for the United States to police the world. And yet Trump sees it just as a trap, as an expense.
INSKEEP: Has President Trump lost interest then in managing the empire? Is that what you're telling me?
IMMERWAHR: Absolutely, yeah. So, I mean, first of all, Trump seems indifferent to the existing U.S. empire, and we have reports of him asking if Puerto Rico could be quietly sold off. But more than that, I think Trump has a unique lack of interest in the main point of empire, which is control - control over what happens overseas. Trump is interested in menacing foreign countries, but he seems much more comfortable than other presidents with a wide range of outcomes. Trump, not just in Iran but everywhere, seems so comfortable with - I mean, he described it himself as having a tremendous capacity for risk in foreign affairs, which is - it almost strikes me as the opposite of imperialism. If imperialism is the desire to control, to create a vast administrative structure, this isn't that.
INSKEEP: I wonder if he is also casting aside the subtlety and making U.S. imperial ambitions more blatant. He is saying, I want to name the leader of Venezuela. I may want to name the leader of Cuba. I wish I had a chance to name the leader of Iran.
IMMERWAHR: Or I want to colonize Greenland. The subtlety was often frustrating to people because they regard it as a form of hypocrisy. The United States pretends that it doesn't see control, but, of course, that's exactly what it's doing, the critique often went. But in some ways, the subtlety was a way of seeking legitimacy. It was a way of giving allies something to latch onto, a story that maybe totally wasn't true but at least could be put forward. And Trump seems to have no interest in that whatsoever. He lies a lot, but he's also really candid.
INSKEEP: Go on. What do you mean?
IMMERWAHR: Well, so Trump fibs all the time, and he says things that aren't true. But when it comes to the larger deceptions that are often involved in the projection of U.S. power - this is entirely consensual; we're doing this because we're motivated by liberty and nothing else - that's the kind of thing that Trump has very little patience for. And, I mean, what was really remarkable in the press conference where he announced the capture of the Venezuelan head of state, Nicolás Maduro, he started out talking unbidden about Venezuelan oil. And it was just so clear that that's what he was interested in, and he had very little interest in concealing that.
INSKEEP: Daniel Immerwahr's books include "How To Hide An Empire." Thanks so much for your time.
IMMERWAHR: Absolutely. Pleasure to be on. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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