A HEAVILY trailed speech by Donald Trump on counter-terrorism, delivered in Ohio on August 15th, included little that made sense as a plan for keeping America safe, but offered some fresh insights into the self-obsessed, fact-scorning temperament of the businessman who wants to hold the world’s most powerful job. 
 
 As his poll numbers slide and the murmuring from his allies grows in volume, Mr Trump increasingly sounds like someone with a political version of Tourette’s Syndrome. Much of the speech could have been given by any of the 16 Republicans that the businessman defeated for the party’s presidential nomination, amounting to a committee-drafted recital of conventional conservative talking points. A subdued Mr Trump, reading from a teleprompter, dutifully accused Barack Obama of staging a blame-America “global apology tour” after taking office in 2009, and—together with his first secretary of state, Hillary Clinton—of destabilising the world by coddling tryants and snubbing allies, while refusing to take seriously the threat from Islamic terrorism. 
 
 But every now and then Mr Trump sensed an opportunity to boast about how prescient he had been in his assessment of foreign affairs, even as a private businessman with no seat in the councils of state, and began shouting about some of his favourite ideas, and how clever they were. Rather often this required brutalising the historical record. In his Ohio speech Mr Trump claimed, falsely, to have opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq from the very start, then called Mr Obama “incompetent” for withdrawing troops too fast from Iraq. He scolded the “Obama-Clinton group” for toppling the Qaddafi regime in Libya (though he actually praised that overthrow at the time). Mr Trump simultaneously grumbled that the Obama administration had both betrayed Reaganite ideas about freedom, and naively thought that democracy could ever be brought to such countries as Iraq. 
 
 The foreign policy speech had been billed as a chance for Mr Trump to show that he has sober, workable ideas for fighting the Islamic State (IS) terror network. The property developer ploughed through some proposals that ranged from policies already in place, such as drone strikes on terrorist leaders, to ideas that seemed to bore him as he read them out, such as a presidential commission on radical Islam, including moderate Muslims, which would craft new protocols on tackling extremism for use by local police departments. Bowing to off-stage pressure from Republican bigwigs, he backed away from his earlier, unconstitutional talk of banning Muslims from entry to America. Instead, he offered a plan for what he called “extreme, extreme vetting” of immigrants, reviving ideological screening tests last seen during the Cold War, under which consular officials and immigration officers would somehow identify those with “hostile attitudes” towards America and its values; anyone who believes that Sharia law should “supplant American law”; or any arrivals who do not “believe in the constitution or who support bigotry and hatred”; and ensure that visas only go to those “who we expect to flourish in our country.” To that end, once elected president he would ask the State Department and Department of Homeland Security to draw up a list of regions where “adequate screening” is not possible, and he would suspend immigration from dangerous regions with a “history of exporting terrorism.” 
 
 He sounded much more excited when his text gave him the chance to engage in personal abuse, accusing Mrs Clinton of wanting to be “America’s Angela Merkel”, claiming that the German chancellor has allowed “massive immigration” bringing “catastrophe” to her country. Mr Trump sounded even happier when peddling conspiracy theories, as when he flatly declared that Mrs Clinton “lacks the mental and physical stamina” to take on IS “and every other challenge we face.” He sounded happiest of all when he congratulated himself for his idea that America should have seized Iraqi oilfields (while shunning all other forms of nation-building in Iraq), leaving behind American troops to guard this war booty. “I said: ‘keep the oil, keep the oil, keep the oil, don’t let somebody else get it’,” Mr Trump said, adding: “In the old days, when we won a war, to the victor belonged the spoils.” 
 
 The audience in Ohio liked some bits of Mr Trump’s speech, as when he promised to dismantle terror networks in America “viciously if necessary”. His supporters were quiet through one of the few passages that amounted to a foreign-policy strategy that Mr Trump could realistically deliver as president, possibly because it was a fresh statement of his desire to forge closer links with the authoritarian government of Russia led by President Vladimir Putin, and “find common ground” in the fight against IS and in Syria policy. 
 
 A short while before Mr Trump’s speech, Hillary Clinton, campaigning in the scrappy, blue-collar city of Scranton, Pennsylvania, preemptively mocked her rival for taking so long to reveal his counter-terror plans, saying that his secret is that “he has no plan”. Mrs Clinton was joined in Scranton by the vice-president, Joe Biden, who condemned Mr Trump’s praise for authoritarian leaders, saying that the businessman “would have loved Stalin”, and joked that Mrs Clinton had forgotten more than Mr Trump and his entire foreign policy staff ever knew about geopolitics. 
 
 Real Cold War veterans may be forgiven for finding the 2016 election a little odd. The party of Eisenhower and Reagan has nominated a man who calls looting of foreign assets the highest priority for America in war, and who sucks up to Russia. The Democrats are running on their candidate’s national-security credentials. Meanwhile Mr Trump—judged simply as a man standing on a stage—sounds angrier and unhappier every day. This election is not about to grow more inspiring. ||||| For a speech purporting to challenge Washington’s accepted wisdom, there was much that was familiar about Donald Trump’s first big foreign policy address, not least the customary certainty of its delivery. 
 
 
 
 A call to challenge radical Islam through “philosophical struggle�? as well as military force might even have come from the lips of Barack Obama. Certainly no mainstream Republican would ever disagree with the somewhat motherhood-and-apple-pie exhortation for US presidents to view the world “through the clear lens of American interests�?. 
 
 Donald Trump unveils 'America first' foreign policy plan Read more 
 
 But how closely the speech stands up to detailed scrutiny is already the subject of fierce political debate. Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state put up to respond on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign, claimed she had never seen so many “simplistic slogans, contradictions and misstatements�? in one speech. Trump’s supporters argue instead that he was at his strongest, skewering the inconsistencies of the Democratic establishment’s approach under Obama and Clinton. 
 
 Here are 10 passages that suggest Trump may instead be doing what all politicians like doing best: having his cake and eating it. 
 
 Iran 
 
 Some groups “will never be anything but our enemies�?, Trump said after attacking Obama for doing deals with Iran. Only he claimed shortly afterwards: “The world must know we do not go abroad in search of enemies, that we are always happy when old enemies become friends, and when old friends become allies.�? 
 
 
 
 Nato 
 
 Trump also blasted Obama for letting down existing overseas partners, promising “America is going to be a reliable friend and ally again�?. Yet he delivers warnings about paying for Nato membership that might sound more like blackmail to some. “The countries we are defending must pay for the cost of this defense – and, if not, the US must be prepared to let these countries defend themselves.�? 
 
 Nation-building 
 
 He was also ambiguous about America’s role in promoting democracy in the world, claiming “we are getting out of the nation-building business�? but then adding: “I will work with our allies to reinvigorate western values and institutions.�? He also argued that promoting “western civilization and its accomplishments will do more to inspire positive reforms around the world�?. 
 
 Extremism 
 
 Then there is the standard section of any recent US presidential speech that calls on Middle East nations to do more to fight Islamic extremism. “This has to be a two-way street. They must also be good to us and remember us and all we are doing for them,�? he said of allies in the region. These comments might have more clout coming from someone who had not recently offended much of the Muslim world by threatening to ban their citizens from entering the US. 
 
 Obama’s ‘humiliations’ 
 
 Some criticisms of Obama’s “humiliations�? at the hands of foreign governments do not stand up to much scrutiny either. Trump said that Obama was snubbed during recent state visits to Cuba and Saudi Arabia because he was not greeted at the airport by a senior leader. “Perhaps an incident without precedent in the long and prestigious history of Air Force One,�? claims Trump. Strangely, the Queen’s decision to send the lord-lieutenant of Essex – hardly the most prestigious of British officials – to meet Obama at London’s Stansted airport last week was not mentioned, perhaps because it is a pretty standard way of doing things. 
 
 Olympics 
 
 A similar non sequitur arises in criticism of Obama’s failed attempt to persuade the International Olympic Committee to award the 2016 Summer Games to Chicago. The president should not have flown all the way to the IOC meeting in Copenhagen if he did not already know they were going to award the games to the US, argued Trump. But what would have been the point of flying all that way to lobby for something that had already been secured? 
 
 Principles v unpredictability 
 
 Perhaps Trump is just trying to live up to his maxim of keeping the world guessing. “We have to be unpredictable and we have to be unpredictable starting now,�? he argued at the start of the speech. Except, by the end, he argued for the virtues of a more transparent and principled approach: “The best way to achieve those goals is through a disciplined, deliberate and consistent foreign policy.�? 
 
 Migration 
 
 Sometimes it is best not to apply too much mathematics. Trump claimed, for example, that “there are scores of recent migrants inside our borders charged with terrorism�?, an assertion already open to dispute, but went on to add on top “for every case known to the public there are dozens and dozens more�?. If “scores�? means at least 40, then by this logic, Trump is claiming the existence of around 1,000 more people than anyone else has. 
 
 US interests 
 
 If the speech has one abiding slogan, it too could have done with some more fact-checking. Putting America first sounds at first just like an extension of Trump’s hallmark promise to make America great again. Yet it also harks back to the America First Committee of the 1940s, a group set up to prevent the US from joining the second world war, only to be disbanded three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. 
 
 Isolationism v interventionism 
 
 But perhaps this just points to the biggest contradiction of the speech: the tension between its isolationism and its interventionism. At once, Trump urges more of a pragmatic and realist approach to the exercise of US power, unconstrained by the niceties of political correctness, and yet blasts Obama for having “no vision, no purpose, no direction, no strategy�?. 
 
 It is perhaps unfair, however, to dwell too closely on textual analysis of a speech clearly written by a number of people. “We will no longer surrender this country or its people to the false song of globalism�? is a powerful line, but it does not sound very much like it was written by the same man who told a rally in Pennsylvania on Monday: “Do I look like a president? How handsome am I?�? ||||| Donald Trump’s speech on Monday about the war on “radical Islamic terrorism” was indifferently delivered and in many ways familiar. But there were some new elements — including an alarming suggestion that the Cold War offers a useful lesson in how to combat Islamic State. 
 
 Again Trump said that he had opposed the war in Iraq; again he attacked President Obama for opening the way for (if not “founding”) Islamic State by precipitously withdrawing U.S. forces from that country; again he disdained “nation-building and regime change”; and again he disparaged Hillary Clinton’s work as the country’s chief diplomat, this time adding the grace note that she lacked the “mental and physical stamina” necessary to deal with Islamic State. 
 
 Trump also promised to “temporarily suspend immigration from some of the most dangerous and volatile regions of the world that have a history of exporting terrorism” — the latest variation on his notorious proposal last year for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” There are too many immigrants coming in from the Middle East to perform adequate screening, he argued. But even if that’s true, many of the terrorist attacks he cited in Europe and the United States were conducted by people who wouldn’t have been subject to such scrutiny because they held European or American passports. 
 
 Requiring assent to a checklist of values would punish thoughts rather than deeds and might encourage newcomers to dissemble about their beliefs. 
 
 Trump said he would call for an international conference on halting the spread of radical Islam and described an alliance comprising NATO (which he claimed had decided to focus on terrorism at his suggestion), Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Russia. Never mind that something similar already exists under the imprimatur of the United Nations Security Council, although Russia seems more interested in propping up Syrian President Bashar Assad than in defeating Islamic State. 
 
 More interesting — and alarming — was Trump’s description of how he would combat “radical Islamic extremism” at home. Essentially, he would seek to promote liberal values, such as autonomy for women and tolerance for gays and lesbians, by adopting the conservative tactics of the 1950s. 
 
 “In the Cold War, we had an ideological screening test,” Trump said. “The time is overdue to develop a new screening test for the threats we face today.” Instead of excluding immigrants with communist views, he suggested, a Trump administration would bar immigrants “who have hostile attitudes toward our country or its principles — or who believe that Sharia law should supplant American law.” (How he would test for such attitudes — and why those who harbored them wouldn’t conceal them — went unexplained.) 
 
 And where the House Un-American Activities Committee delved into the alleged disloyalty of Americans during the Cold War, Trump would establish a Commission on Radical Islam that would “expose the networks in our society that support radicalization.” Trump said that “reformist voices in the Muslim community” would be invited to take part — an invitation unlikely to be accepted. 
 
 The goal of these initiatives, Trump suggested, would be to promote assimilation of Muslims and spare the United States the sort of alienation that has produced violence in Europe. What he apparently doesn’t recognize is that Muslims are far better assimilated in America than they are in the European countries that have been victimized by Islamist terrorists. 
 
 Obviously Americans aren’t immune to the siren call of Islamist extremism; witness the attacks in Boston, San Bernardino and Orlando, all of which Trump mentioned. Screening of potential immigrants and asylum-seekers for possible connections to terrorism is a matter of common sense as well as national security. 
 
 But ideological litmus tests for immigrants and a national commission to study “radical Islam” could be catastrophically counterproductive. Requiring assent to a checklist of values would punish thoughts rather than deeds and might encourage newcomers to dissemble about their beliefs. A commission designed to expose radicals could bring back the days of blacklists and guilt by association. These are frightening ideas. It’s no surprise that they have been proposed by Donald Trump. 
 
 Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook ||||| ADVERTISEMENT “We will no longer surrender this country or its people to the false song of globalism,” Trump promised during Wednesday’sclosely scrutinized address from a Washington hotel. 
 
 “Americans must know that we’re putting the American people first again,” he added. 
 
 “On trade, on immigration, on foreign policy, the jobs, incomes and security of the American worker will always be my first priority,” he said. “Both our friends and our enemies put their countries above ours, and we — while being fair to them — must start doing the same.” 
 
 Despite being relatively short on concrete policy specifics, Trump’s address offered the clearest look yet at his deep distrust of the international architecture that has dominated since the end of World War II in a sign of what a Trump administration might look like. 
 
 Trump delivered the address with the aid of a teleprompter to a smaller and much less boisterous crowd than is typical of his campaign rallies, which was interpreted as an attempt to unify the party after winning all five Northeastern primaries on Tuesday. 
 
 The audience of policy officials and think tank analysts responded with tepid applause, and reaction throughout Republican circles in Washington was generally mixed. 
 
 Supporters of the billionaire real estate mogul reveled in his willingness to abandon the U.S.’s integral role in global alliances, which they believe have benefited Americans minimally. 
 
 Critics pointed to apparent contradictions in the remarks and a lack of concrete specifics to claim that his ideas would undermine the U.S.’s role in the world. 
 
 The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, however, said Trumpdelivered a “very good foreign policy speech.” 
 
 Trump’s prescription for elevating American stature around the world was to force new diplomatic negotiations and “be willing to walk” if the U.S. does not get its desired results. 
 
 If elected president, Trump promised to convene American allies from NATO and Asia for summits to discuss “a rebalancing of financial commitments” and also the adoption of “new strategies for tackling our common challenges,” such as terrorism and migration. 
 
 His skepticism of international alliances is one the many areas that have raised concern from foreign policy analysts, including prominent Republicans. 
 
 On Wednesday, he only briefly mentioned his call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country, which “will help us to prevent the next San Bernardino or, frankly, much worse.” 
 
 Critics have also been alarmed by his demand that Mexico pay for a wall along its border with the U.S., the suggestion that Japan and South Korea obtain nuclear weapons, and his support for extreme military action that could qualify as war crimes, none of which were explicitly mentioned on Wednesday. 
 
 The omissions hint at the apparent efforts within Trump’s campaign to back away from some of his more extreme tendencies as he marches closer to securing the GOP nomination. 
 
 His campaign has previously suggested Trump would begin offering a more restrained and “presidential” image as he gets closer to securing the GOP nomination. However, the ­front-runner has appeared to backtrack on that planned evolution in recent days. 
 
 Trump’s previous efforts to reassure the think tank class in Washington have had mixed results. 
 
 His newly assembled team of national security advisers left many Washington hands scratching their heads, and Trump has yet to surround himself with the types of veterans that would normally complement a leading presidential candidate. 
 
 On Wednesday, Trump indicated that would not change anytime soon. 
 
 “We have to look to new people, because many of the old people, frankly, don’t know what they’re doing, even though they may look awfully good writing in The New York Times or being watched on television,” he said. 
 
 Trump first used the phrase “America first” during an interview with the Times earlier this year, but its origins date back decades. The name originally referred to skeptics of U.S. involvement in World War II, though Trump has so far declined to draw a connection with the history. 
 
 That absence, critics said on Wednesday, suggests he is unaware of the movement. 
 
 “I thought that his real title should have been ‘Blame America first,’ ” he added. “It’s not America’s fault that nations around the world aren’t governing correctly.” ||||| NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Congressmen, rival candidates, world leaders and even the creators of Harry Potter and "The Shining" all agree: Donald Trump's call to block Muslims from entering the United States goes too far. 
 
 An overflow crowed fills the hangar deck of the USS Yorktown as Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump, speaks during a rally coinciding with Pearl Harbor Day at Patriots Point aboard... (Associated Press) 
 
 Supporter Erich Schmid, center, from Hilton Head, S.C., waits with other supporters to hear Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump, speak during a rally coinciding with Pearl Harbor... (Associated Press) 
 
 The Republican presidential front-runner's statement Monday advocating a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" was blasted as bigoted, unconstitutional and potentially dangerous for American interests abroad. 
 
 British Prime Minister David Cameron, breaking the custom of British leaders not commenting on U.S. presidential contenders, slammed it as "divisive, unhelpful and quite simply wrong." U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon denounced "any kind of rhetoric that relies on Islamophobia, xenophobia, any other appeal to hate any groups." 
 
 Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling decried Trump on Twitter as worse than her fictional villain Lord Voldemort. Horror novelist Stephen King wrote, "That anyone in America would even CONSIDER voting for this rabid coyote leaves me speechless." 
 
 "This is not conservatism," Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters after a closed-door GOP caucus meeting. "What was proposed yesterday is not what this party stands for, and more importantly it's not what this country stands for." 
 
 Trump's campaign has been marked by inflammatory statements, dating back to rhetoric that some Mexican immigrants, who entered the country illegally, are drug smugglers and rapists — but even that didn't evoke the same widespread level of contempt. 
 
 The billionaire businessman and former reality television star has maintained his lead in early opinion surveys, despite the controversies, vexing his Republican rivals and alarming a GOP establishment in panic over the damage they fear he's doing to a deeply divided party. 
 
 Trump, who appears to revel in the attention, didn't back down from his proposal Tuesday, saying that banning Muslims "until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on" is warranted after last month's attacks by Muslim extremists in Paris and last week's shootings in San Bernardino, California. 
 
 "Somebody in this country has to say what's right," Trump said in an interview with ABC Tuesday. "It's short-term. Let our country get its act together." 
 
 Trump's proposed ban would apply to immigrants and visitors alike, a sweeping prohibition affecting adherents of a religion practiced by more than a billion people worldwide. Trump clarified in a round of television interviews Tuesday that his proposed ban would not apply to American citizens traveling abroad and would allow exemptions for certain people, including the leaders of Middle Eastern countries and athletes for certain sporting events. 
 
 Among those not specified in his list of exemptions are Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai and the four civil society groups that led Tunisia's transition to democracy — all Muslim Nobel Peace Prize winners. 
 
 At the White House, press secretary Josh Earnest lambasted Trump as a "carnival barker" and called on his rivals to denounce their fellow candidate. 
 
 "What he said is disqualifying," Earnest said. "Any Republican who's too fearful of the Republican base to admit it has no business serving as president, either." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Colvin reported from Newark, New Jersey. Associated Press writers Mark Sherman, Laurie Kellman, Josh Lederman and Alan Fram in Washington, Bill Barrow in South Carolina, Thomas Beaumont in New Hampshire and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Follow Jill Colvin on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/colvinj
– Donald Trump delivered what one analyst calls a "surprisingly serious" speech on foreign policy and counterterrorism Monday—but serious may not equal coherent. Many analysts were taken aback by the mix of proposals in the speech, which included policies favored by the Obama and George W. Bush administrations, along with ideas dating back to the Cold War and some touches that were pure Trump. A roundup of reactions: Some elements of Trump's speech on the war on "radical Islamic terrorism" were familiar, but what was new was "alarming," according to the Los Angeles Times editorial board. His calls for a Cold War-style "ideological screening test" and a Commission on Radical Islam could be "catastrophically counterproductive," they write—and "would punish thoughts rather than deeds," as well as encourage newcomers to the US to conceal their beliefs. Former Bush administration official Peter Feaver tells the New York Times that he gives Trump credit for the "surprisingly serious" speech, but a striking amount of it "depends on counterterrorism ideas developed by the Bush administration." The "good parts are not new," and "the new parts are not good," he says. Robert Burns at the AP believes there was a lot more Obama than Bush in Trump's disdain for nation-building. Obama ditched Bush's large-scale projects in Iraq and Afghanistan while "trying to keep enough US influence there to prevent those two countries from crumbling," he writes, noting that Trump's argument that the US should have seized Iraq's oil isn't nation-building, it's "nation-grabbing." John Noonan, Jeb Bush's former national security adviser, tells NBC News that Trump is completely correct about Obama's contribution to the rise of ISIS, and not much else. "The rest of his foreign policy is an absolutely blathering jumble of nonsense," he says. "I can't in good conscience sign my name to it." At Politico, Nahal Toosi looks at the "extreme vetting" proposal that has replaced Trump's ban on Muslim immigration and finds numerous problems. She notes that focusing on regions with a "history of exporting terrorism" would include much of Europe, even if only Islamist-inspired terrorism is included. Trump seemed bored by much of his own speech and only seemed excited when congratulating himself on his prescience or accusing Hillary Clinton of "wanting to be 'America's Angela Merkel,'" per the Lexington column at the Economist. The article notes that real Cold War veterans will find this election very strange. "The party of Eisenhower and Reagan has nominated a man who calls looting of foreign assets the highest priority for America in war, and who sucks up to Russia," it says. Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post is equally scathing in his fact-checking of the speech. Kessler debunks claims, including the notion of an Obama "apology tour" in 2009, and notes that Trump was not an outspoken opponent of the Iraq War until well after it began—and that he has apparently forgotten that he "was a fervent advocate of intervening in Libya."