The president sees himself as the first modern American leader with the guts to complete what others only flirted with: map-changing transformations across the world that could, in his mind, cement his legacy above that of Ronald Reagan (who bested the Soviet Union in the Cold War), Jimmy Carter (who secured the 1978 Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt), and Richard Nixon (who restored U.S. relations with China). “He had been a boil on the backside of American foreign policy and in the wake of 9/11, the country’s willingness to tolerate threat was low, and its ambitions to make the world a safer place were high,” said Naftali, a scholar at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. Havana has been a persistent and bipartisan annoyance, from the humiliation of the Bay of Pigs and the anguish of the missile crisis during John F. Kennedy’s administration to “Havana syndrome,” the enigmatic health incidents of uncertain origin that have debilitated U.S. personnel.
Author: Vivian Salama
Published at: 2026-03-01 22:39:40
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