President Trump makes a new Middle East Possible

Written By: - Date published: 6:04 pm, January 5th, 2025 - 23 comments
Categories: Donald Trump, International, israel, Palestine, Peace, uncategorized, war - Tags:

Now I sure don’t like him, but the U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump makes more things possible in the Middle East than the Biden administration.

For the sake of this proposal let’s make a whole group of Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Israel, Oman, Gulf States etc, and just refer to it as the Middle East for now.

Here’s some Trumpian reasons to simply extract the United States military out of that whole area for the foreseeable future.

First, nothing about the Middle East warrants U.S. investment there. The oil that the U.S. still needs to import comes largely from Canada and Mexico. The United States doesn’t need the Middle East’s oil. It could get by without importing a minor share from Saudi Arabia. This may also trigger a broader internal U.S. oil-to-climate change reality debate that the European Union has had to face via the Ukraine War.

Second from Afghanistan right through Libya, United States military involvement has just made most things worse, at immense cost and fruitless outcomes. U.S. policy in the region is an expansive and unnecessary disaster. Any 1,000+ page tome from Robert Fisk makes the same argument.

A particularly Trumpian point is that it’s a really poor deal to the United States taxpayer, with Middle East military and diplomatic investment well in excess of US$70 billion a year – outside the trillions spent on hot wars and the long scarring of U.S. ex-military citizens in homelessness and mental damage. Donald Trump knows what a bad deal looks like. The U.S. taxpayer investment in the Middle East should be closer to zero.

The United States can achieve its remaining goals in the Middle East – such as preventing major terrorist attacks, curbing nuclear weapon proliferation, and checking Russian influence – without any troops on the ground there. The consequences of a U.S. military withdrawal country by country won’t all turn out like Afghanistan.

And finally it’s time to admit, to help close the door behind you, the U.S. just isn’t good at this Middle East solution stuff. There’s no reason to keep trying to be a primary diplomat in the region when Dubai is now better at brokering regional deals than anyone else. Since the Camp David Accords under President Clinton, the U.S. hasn’t achieved much diplomatically in the region (unless you count Trump’s State Department direction over the Abraham Accords). With United Nations peacekeepers in the region now largely ignored – or worse attacked as in southern Lebanon late in 2024 –  the United States could also simply stop funding U.N. peacekeeping there as well since they don’t appear to be effective.

As for the United States, so for any country including our own using the moment to reflect on their own involvement to simply state:

The entire Middle East is a small, poor, weak region beset by an array of problems old and new that pretty much have nothing to do with most Americans – and that no United States military effort can fix. The countries that do have money and influence are big and mature enough to simply sort themselves out.

Sure we could worry about what will replace the Syrian government. But the United States’ objectives in Syria have largely been met. Assad’s rule is finished. The Iranian and Russian troops that supported the regime have withdrawn from the country. If the United States wants the new Syrian government to be capable of alleviating the current humanitarian crisis, control the country’s borders, and beginning the process of reconstruction, maintaining a U.S. troop presence in defiance of the wishes of that government will be counterproductive.

Against Iran, the loss of a friendly government in Syria is a significant blow: Tehran has lost its main route for shuttling arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and thus its path to rebuild its severely weakened “axis of resistance.” Washington no longer has a pressing need to maintain its military presence or the crushing sanctions that were initially designed to incapacitate the Assad regime. President Elect Trump should plan to remove the approximately 2,000 forces currently deployed in Syria. 

As for Israel, after 2024, it’s clear that Israel with deep U.S. help has destabilised its neighbours enough to assert that Israel has eradicated the threats around it for the foreseeable future. If broad regional chaos against all enemies was the intended outcome, job done. Israel needs the United States a whole lot less than it did. Less reason to stay.

We could also worry about stable government in Lebanon, but it hasn’t had one for many years and it hasn’t bothered any other country except Israel.

There are certainly some truly knotty problems to solve, including Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, Yemen’s perpetual war, millions and millions of refugees everywhere,  and the Kurds. What exactly is the United States interest now in solving any of them? One answer is that within the resulting anomie of a full U.S. withdrawal, ISIS grows again, or states form with the scale of repression of Afghanistan.

But the response to that reason is simple if cold: in people and material, 20 years of investment in Afghanistan wasn’t worth it. So don’t keep repeating the same massive mistakes. Some things just aren’t up to the United States to fix. Nor are they fixable by the combined efforts of the United Nations.  

The United States under Trump can go focus on its own people and problems for a term or two. Let the Middle East restabilise without the United States there.

In December 2024, after the resistance push into Aleppo, the President-Elect wrote on Truth Social: “The United States should have nothing to do with [Syria.] This is not our fight.”

U.S. military withdrawal in the Middle East could start with Syria, then Oman, then Saudi Arabia, and keep going and getting out of there. Including Israel.

For President-Elect Trump, there’s a deal to be done. The upside is worth the risk. 

23 comments on “President Trump makes a new Middle East Possible ”

  1. Stephen D 1
    5 January 2025 at 6:31 pm

    The moment the USA stops funding Israel, it’s gone.
    The influential Jewish vote goes with it.

    Reply
    • joe90 1.1
      10 January 2025 at 4:09 pm

      The moment the USA stops funding Israel,

      Not while the end times loons need someone to house sit the holy land.

      Reply
      • SPC 1.1.1
        10 January 2025 at 4:29 pm

        There is a significant end time prophecy aspect to religion there, so they see the existence of the state of Israel as a sign.

        When it is just part of the emergence of nation states out of an age of empire, for Jews it was a matter of maintaining their identity as a people of an historic land area (of itself not a guarantee – see Kurds and or those in exile as refugees).

        Reply
  2. SPC 2
    5 January 2025 at 7:07 pm

    The same attitude permeates the political right in domestic nation state politics, hand over sovereign status to investors and let oligarchy run the market run.

    No forever war to defend any people, not even the poor of ones own land.

    Reply
    • aj 2.1
      5 January 2025 at 8:31 pm

      In geopolitics a vacumn will be filled. I don't see cutting and running in the USA DNA. Especially if it's the sensible and rational move.

      Reply
      • SPC 2.1.1
        6 January 2025 at 10:51 am

        The USA abandoned the women of Afghanistan when they aided the "mujāhidīn" to take over there, and when they left to allow the Taleban to return to power.

        The Turks are murderous towards Kurds and never acted against Islamic State etc,

        Reply
      • Dennis Frank 2.1.2
        6 January 2025 at 5:07 pm

        I had both those reactions also, and your third point is also valid (even if hell freezes over before the US establishment sees it).

        Reply
  3. John 3
    5 January 2025 at 10:24 pm

    Trump will make a new middle east possible but not the way this article suggests… He will be heavily involved in the middle east. He will expand his Peace covenant "The Abraham Accords" created during his first term, with a bunch more nations aka confirming it with many (Dan 9:27).

    Trump is the Antichrist and this is his peace covenant that starts the end.

    Reply
    • Dennis Frank 3.1
      6 January 2025 at 5:14 pm

      Ah, so that's why all those christian fundamentalists voted for him! Thanks for clearing that up. Ever since he hit the tv news headlines waving a Bible at the cameras whilst remaining mute throughout the entire event I've been puzzled by it.

      I toyed with the possibility that he was doing zen suppression of his usual narcissism but wasn't confident he could be that clever…

      Reply
  4. SPC 4
    6 January 2025 at 11:16 am

    Not from Syria (containment of Turks vs Kurds) for some time yet, not from the bases in the Arabian peninsular while there is a threat to Red Sea shipping and security (from an Iranian threat) provides the means for Abrahamic Accords type leverage.

    Iraq maybe, if there is a guarantee Kurds are safe – a Baghdad and Ankara axis vs Kurds is in play there.

    https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/gaza-the-american-elections-and-the-fallout-of-a-disaster/

    Reply
  5. Mike the Lefty 5
    6 January 2025 at 12:25 pm

    Another question is whether a Trump-led US will encourage Israel to expel all the remaining Palestinians to other Arab countries around the region and simply annex Gaza, rebuilding it as another part of Israel.

    Reply
    • SPC 5.1
      6 January 2025 at 12:59 pm

      The failure of peace talks in 2000, the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and then the end of Palestinian unity (Hamas rule in Gaza, PA rule limited to the WB) has provided Likud the landscape in which to continue to expand West Bank settlements.

      The WB settlements being their main objective (permanency).

      Hamas and Gaza played a distraction role.

      It still does.

      Gaza will be re-built and hopefully civil society will emerge there. Then Likud will want the world to move on (while the WB remains occupied).

      The lack of Palestinian nation state existence impacts on rights to the gas offshore from Gaza.

      Reply
    • Binders full of women 5.2
      8 January 2025 at 6:04 am

      The only problem with that is that all three of Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon want nothing to do with the Palestinians.

      Reply
    • Jenny 5.3
      8 January 2025 at 9:45 am

      Mike the Lefty @5

      6 January 2025 at 12:25 pm

      Another question is whether a Trump-led US will encourage Israel to expel all the remaining Palestinians to other Arab countries around the region…..

      I wouldn't be surprised at all if this is Trump's game plan.

      If Trump decides to apply Nixon's attempted strategy to end the war in Vietnam, to Gaza, logistically Israel doesn't have enough 200 pound bombs and aircraft to totally flatten the whole of Gaza's built infrastructure and drive the Palestinians out. Such a project would require a massive increase in US military aid to Israel.

      If Trump is able to cut a deal with Putin to partition Ukraine, such a deal would allow Trump to divert US bombs, mines, missiles, drones, and aircraft to Israel enough for this massive task.

      All it that would remain, would be for Trump to put the squeeze on the US puppet, Al Sisi to agree to let all 1.7 million displaced Palestinians flood into the Sinai Peninsula.

      Al Sisi's collaboration, combined with a massive final push from the IDF to drive the Palestinians out. By starting in the north and moving south, all the new US supplied hardware, will allow Israel to totally flatten and erase all that remains of Gaza's remaining built infrastructure, housing, industrial buildings and shelters, combined with sowing the agricultural land with mines, will make all of Gaza no longer fit for human habitation.

      Peace in our time.

      …..Egypt has begun building an enclosed area ringed with high concrete walls along its border with Gaza that appears intended to house Palestinians fleeing a threatened Israeli assault on the southern city of Rafah.

      Photos and videos released by the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights (SFHR), a monitoring group, show workers using heavy machinery erecting concrete barriers and security towers around a strip of land on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing.

      The videos, dated 15 February, gave little indication of authorities installing water or other infrastructure. Satellite imagery released by Planet Labs on the same day shows cleared strips of land adjacent to the Gaza border.

      SFHR said on social media that the videos showed efforts to “establish an isolated area surrounded by walls on the border with the Gaza Strip, with the aim of receiving refugees in the event of a mass exodus”.

      Israel’s bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza since Hamas’s 7 October attacks have displaced an estimated 1.7 million people internally, according to the UN, most of them pushed south in recent weeks, with more than a million in Rafah, vastly swelling its prewar population of 280,000…..

      https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/16/egypt-building-walled-enclosure-in-sinai-for-rafah-refugees-videos-suggest

      Reply
  6. Dennis Frank 6
    6 January 2025 at 5:28 pm

    A good thought-provoking overview. I wonder if the Saudis sense that geopolitical ground moving out from beneath them.

    If you're right about US no longer needing their oil, the CFR would front input to Trump on that basis, huh? Granted his temperament is to rebel against establishment views, if they happen to shift into accord with his view he'd feel the zeitgeist as wave to ride.

    I agree with your logic re regional military dis-investment – yet Stephen's comment @ 1 is also valid (& T's family ties are relevant). Retreat into isolationism would be a re-run of traditional US foreign policy thus comforting all conservatives who aren't imperialist.

    Reply
  7. CallToAccount 7
    7 January 2025 at 1:22 am

    What about ISIS? Specifically it’s barbaric approach to everything ‘different’, culture, religion, race, history…. surely you remember the horrific cross border scale of it all? Withdraw, disengage, tax cut and then… what? Repeat the cycle.

    Reply
  8. Jenny 8
    7 January 2025 at 4:25 pm

    "First, nothing about the Middle East warrants U.S. investment there. The oil that the U.S. still needs to import comes largely from Canada and Mexico. The United States doesn’t need the Middle East’s oil." advantage

    US imperialism does not need Middle East oil, that's true

    The United States has been a net petroleum exporter since 2020:

    • The U.S. exported about 10.15 million barrels per day (b/d) of petroleum, while importing about 6.48 million b/d, resulting in a net petroleum export of 1.64 million….

    But the MENA region has been an arena of Big Power rivalry long before the importance of oil was realised or its discovery in that region. Imperialism is not just about dominating global markets and gaining control over natural resources and territories, Imperialism is also about denying these markets and resources to rival economic and political powers.

    You are dreaming if you think the US hegemon will leave the MENA region to China, or any other world power, for that matter.

    ……Beijing’s strategy in the Middle East has emphasized a comprehensive plan to expand its influence in almost all key domains…..

    ….normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia will occur. China does not necessarily see itself as a benefactor of such normalization because a security pact between the United States and Saudi Arabia, a precondition for Israel-Saudi normalization, will undermine China’s efforts to shape a new regional security architecture with less U.S. involvement and influence.

    ….China is likely to use its energy, economic, and political engagement to neutralize the impact of the Saudi-U.S. defense agreement, particularly if such a pact includes clauses that hinder security and technological cooperation between China and Saudi Arabia…..

    ….China has been pushing against a U.S.-led regional security organization or mechanism—what the Chinese have termed a “Middle Eastern NATO.”

    China would like to see a regional security architecture anchored on a balance of power, with Iran as a strong pillar and as China’s partner in countering U.S. dominance in the region’s security affairs.

    In the Chinese policy community, it is widely acknowledged that Israel is the “victim” of U.S.-China great power competition coming to China’s policy toward the war in Gaza….

    …..China is trying to displace the United States’ regional dominance by facilitating the creation of a new security structure in the Middle East; a structure in which China could play a more significant role given its growing economic weight and political ties with various powers in the region….

    Yun Sun,

    When we are talking about Donald Trump we are talking about a hyper imperialist.

    There is no way Trump is going to let the Middle East go to any up-start super power, not when he is fantasising about taking over even more territory for the US empire.

    ….Donald Trump is heading into 2025 with imperialism on the brain.

    Since his November victory, the president-elect has suggested the U.S. should own Greenland, annex Canada and reclaim the Panama Canal — an expansionist air he doubled down on in a spree of Truth Social posts on Christmas Day…..

    ….A Trump transition official, granted anonymity to speak about the president-elect’s thinking, noted that Canada has already committed to securing the northern border and cracking down on drugs, evidence Trump’s pressure campaign is working. But while this suggests he may not be serious about annexing the United States’ northern neighbor, the official did not deny Trump’s intentions to secure the Panama Canal or control Greenland…..

    …..Trump also used his Christmas message to reiterate his desire to control Greenland, an idea he floated in 2019. The government of Greenland — a territory of Denmark — has again rejected this idea, but Trump may be attracted to its undeveloped natural resources, including critical rare earth elements used to make electric vehicles, wind turbines and other clean technology. Russia, in particular, sees the region as a strategic opportunity, with the Trump transition spokesperson noting that Trump’s intent would be to curb Russian aggression.

    https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/26/republicans-trump-canada-greenland-negotiation-00196050

    Reply
  9. Jenny 9
    7 January 2025 at 5:58 pm

    President Trump makes a new Middle East Possible

    Written By: advantage

    President Nixon promised to make a new Vietnam possible too, just like Trump is promising to end the war in Gaza, Nixon campaigned for the US presidency on the promise to end the war in Vietnam.

    Once in office, the world got to see what Nixon meant about promising to end the Vietnam war. What he meant was to bomb Vietnam so heavily and indiscriminately that the Vietnamese would sue for peace on America's terms.

    Nixon Guilty of War Crimes

    February 17, 1996

    ….Nixon in his campaign speeches promised to end the Vietnam war. Instead, he escalated that war, and it continued for four more years. Nixon secretly bombed Cambodia. The massive carpet-bombing of the Cambodian countryside caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and increased peasant support for the murderous Pol Pot. It helped facilitate the genocide that occurred later in Cambodia…..

    https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1996/2/17/nixon-guilty-of-war-crimes-pthe/

    In the amount of death and destruction he is prepared to countenance to crush Palestinian resistance, I think it is possible that Trump may be even worse than Nixon,

    The only peace Trump can achieve with this strategy is the peace of the grave, and we will get to witness the genocide in Gaza reach its final gory solution.

    As Gaza truce talks resume in Qatar, Dan Perry, a former regional editor for The Associated Press, says chances “are low” that a ceasefire deal gets done. “Israel’s leaders are waiting for Donald Trump to take office because they think they’ll have greater leeway.

    Trump wants Gaza war over ‘in any possible way’: Analysis

    Transcript beginning @5:00 minutes:

    ….Israel is waiting, I believe, for Donald Trump to take office, because they think they'll have greater leeway.

    And more of a permission to basically put – and your viewers will hate me for this – more humanitarian pressure on Gaza.

    Within the bounds of the laws as they interpret them, but more pressure, in order to get Hamas to finally relent.

    I'm not so sure this is going to a happy place….

    @5:26 minutes

    So you don't feel that Prime Minister Netanyahu is under pressure from Donald Trump, who has indicated that he wants the war in Gaza to be over?

    @5:36 minutes

    Yeah. Look I think he will come under such pressure, but when Trump says, 'Get this done', I think what Trump means, is I don't care about the consequences, just get it done, in any way you possibly can, so it's over with, and I can take credit for having brought peace no matter how it was achieved.

    I do not think Donald Trump cares about the humanitarian situation and therefore Netanyahu would have a freer hand now.

    As someone who has friends in Gaza, and who has worked in Gaza, and who cares about Gaza this is rather heartbreaking to me, because I think the strategy, probably, is wrong…..

    Reply
  10. Jenny 10
    9 January 2025 at 11:40 pm

    “All hell will break out in the Middle East, and it will not be good for Hamas, and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone”. President elect Donald Trump.

    not good for anyone,

    Hamas will not release the hostages without a reciprocal swap and a peace deal

    The plan; drive the Palestinians from Gaza into the other Arab countries, starting with Egypt.

    No amount of US tax dollars will be spared to supply Israel with the weapons to do it.

    No amount of US tax dollars will be spared to bribe or coerce Al Sisi to go along.

    Reply
    • Jenny 10.1
      10 January 2025 at 7:17 am

      Every imperialist colonialist project, faced with an insurgency that just won't quit no matter what you throw at them, has two options, negotiate or genocide.

      Guess which one Trump will choose

      Reply
  11. Jenny 11
    10 January 2025 at 11:11 am

    Issuing ultimatums backed up by threats is not negotiation.

    Hamas schools Trump on diplomacy

    Reply
  12. Jenny 12
    10 January 2025 at 3:29 pm

    "People should know when they are conquered…."

    Trump threatened in his 'Gates of hell' comments, that if the hostages aren't released,
    "…..it will not be good for anyone."

    Forcible annexation and takeover of territory in Gaza and the West Bank, expulsion of the Palestinian population, threats and diplomatic blackmail, sanctions and even US military strikes on neighbouring Muslim countries (Yemen, Iran, Lebanon). None of this is off the table,

    With only 10 days to go

    Here's how Donald Trump will open the 'Gates of Hell' in Gaza

    JFeed Jewish World News

    Kikar HaShabbat contributed to this article.

    ….details are emerging about how the President-elect's dramatic "gates of hell" ultimatum could materialize into concrete action.

    Leading Israeli political commentator Amit Segal outlines two primary mechanisms available to Trump:

    ….The humanitarian aid lever appears most immediate and potent.

    [Famine]

    The territorial option presents another significant pressure point. Segal points to Trump's 2020 "Deal of the Century," which recognized the Golan annexation and considered sovereignty over Jewish settlements in the West Bank…..

    – Qatar's economy depends heavily on U.S. trade, with the American Central Command base essentially guaranteeing its security

    – Egypt recently received approval for $5 billion in military aid, including tanks, aircraft, and ammunition

    – Turkey, still hosting Hamas leaders, risks increased tariffs, NATO isolation, and other sanctions…

    [Conquest]

    https://www.jfeed.com/news-israel/spthyf

    Imperialism hasn't changed much;

    "People should know when they are conquered"

    "At my signal, unleash hell"

    https://www.youtube.com/shorts/G3tCV–TNSU

    Reply

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