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What Next After Rome?

April 22, 2025

No one was more surprised than Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu when he learned of Donald Trump’s intention to reopen negotiations with Iran over its nuclear-weapons program. At an April 7 meeting in Washington, Netanyahu almost certainly expected to move forward on plans for a potential Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs, perhaps together with the United States. There were, of course, other issues on the agenda, particularly Trump’s tariff war with friends and foes alike, but Iran’s existential nuclear threat to Israel was the most pressing.

Trump rebuffed Netanyahu (https://apnews.com/article/trump-netanyahu-tariffs-iran-gaza-9aaf17d50beb5a5891895a702a1bac5d) according to multiple press accounts. Neither the first nor the second negotiations, on April 12 and 19, produced any visible progress, although the sides agreed to reconvene on April 26, preceded by “technical-level” talks. Trump would do well to remember one of baseball’s most important rules: three strikes and you’re out.

Iran’s unrelenting efforts to acquire deliverable nuclear weapons, and the extraordinary threat posed thereby, make the logic of preventative destruction of its capabilities unarguable to Netanyahu and many others, Israeli and American alike. With good reason, therefore, Israel believed that Trump would agree that destroying Iran’s nuclear program was entirely justifiable.

No one could say Israel was acting hastily or rashly. For three decades, Iran has pursued deliverable nuclear weapons, and the threat has grown with time. Nothing has changed the mullahs’ strategic decision to achieve that goal, not diplomacy, not economic sanctions, and not mere threats of using force. Iran’s progress on both the nuclear and missile fronts has been clear and dangerous, and the need to decide whether to use military force, already long overdue, is increasingly apparent.

What the outside world knows about Iran’s capabilities, frightening though it is, must also be weighed against what we do not know because of inadequate intelligence and international oversight. Tehran has consistently obstructed the International Atomic Energy Agency, barring its inspectors from key military facilities undertaking the critical weaponization work on nuclear arms. Moreover, Iran could be even closer to achieving nuclear weapons than suspected because of its cooperation with North Korea. exemplified by the North’s construction of Iran’s Dair Alzour reactor in Syria, destroyed by Israel in 2007. Pakistani nuclear proliferator A.Q. Khan supplied both Tehran and Pyongyang their initial uranium-enrichment and weapons-design plans. Thus, what we detect in Iran could be merely a part of its nuclear program, with subcontracted facilities buried undetected in North Korea.

Accordingly, for Israel, the key question is not if it should strike Iran’s nuclear program, but when, and whether it would strike alone or with the United States. Viewed strategically, Washington has every justification to take military action against Tehran’s proliferation efforts. Iran’s nuclear threat is not a problem merely for Israel, but for the entire world. For thirty years, the ayatollahs have sought to become a nuclear power, to the detriment of everyone else. America has the wherewithal to eliminate this proliferation threat, and would be politically and morally justified in doing so. Helping Israel de-fang Iran follows quite logically.

Trump may not have the resolve or character required to make this difficult decision. Reports indicate deep splits(https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/us/politics/trump-israel-iran-nuclear.html?searchResultPosition=1) within his administration over using force against Iran, with several of its least competent senior officials arguing against doing so. Fortunately, however, while a combined US-Israeli strike would be more likely to achieve total success, Washington’s participation is not a necessity. Israel’s own forces can destroy or at least substantially cripple Iran’s program far into the future, albeit with some subsequent maintenance work from time to time. Moreover, if Israel is prepared to act, it should not seek merely a partial destruction of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, but its entirety. There may not be a better time than now.

What the ayatollahs will really fear after Israeli strikes, with or without US participation, is the reaction of Iran’s people. Tehran’s ayatollahs have lost enormous power in the Middle East and are urgently trying to rebuild their network of terrorist proxies even while trying to shore up the regime domestically. Assad’s fall in Syria, added to the defeats Israel has inflicted on Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis since October 7, has produced significant finger-pointing and recrimination inside Iran(https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/13/world/middleeast/iran-syria-assad.html).

The very foundations of the 1979 revolution are now severely weakened. Losing the nuclear program could be the spark that ignites Iran’s people, at long last, to rise against the regime and fragment its top leadership. The ayatollahs desperately need relief from Israel’s punishing military assaults and from international economic sanctions. Entering lengthy negotiations with Washington would give them a lifeline.

For those who oppose the world’s most dangerous nations possessing the world’s most destructive weapons, this is not a time, as Lady Thatcher once advised, to go wobbly. End the fruitless discussions with Tehran, and do what is necessary to safeguard the world from a nuclear Iran.

This article was first published in the Independent Arabia on April 22, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

What Trump Really Intends

April 07, 2025

What does Trump really intend? What is bluff, braggadocio, and bargaining and what is not? Because he does not have a philosophy or a national-security strategy, and often doesn’t seek pre-conceived objectives, observers from left to right are often confounded. Trump is the very epitome of “transactional,” his one immutable focus being himself. Accordingly, assessing such aberrational behavior, what’s really happening inside his head, can be nearly impossible. Media, politicians and businesspeople alike frequently persuade themselves he is simply posturing, but are continually surprised by what he does. Consider Ukraine, NATO, and tariffs.

Trump, many said, would never embarrass himself by a Ukraine settlement that conceded too much to Russia. During the 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly boasted that the Ukraine war (and the Middle East war) would never have occurred had he been President, thereby criticizing Biden’s (and, later, Kamala Harris’s) weakness. However, neither Trump supporters nor opponents perceived his obsession with resuming his personal friendship with Vladimir Putin. To Trump, good personal relations between leaders signify good relations between their countries, an enormously oversimplified view of the world.

But he wanted better ties with Putin. Putin said he wanted peace, and Trump accepted it(https://www.voanews.com/a/russia-intensifies-attacks-as-us-ukraine-prepare-for-talks/8002466.html). That is why Trump has made so many concessions to Russia, and why Volodymyr Zelensky rightfully feels so beleaguered. This is the personal motivation so many observers missed, speculating instead on “policy” reasons why Trump would not change America’s Ukraine policy. He had no desire to vindicate Ukraine’s freedom and independence, and felt no imperative to show strength against Russia’s unprovoked invasion to deter, for example, China’s irredentism regarding Taiwan.

Moreover, starting in his first term, Trump has wanted a Nobel Peace Prize. He envied Barack Obama’s award, in his first year in office for no apparent reason, and felt he deserved one too. Accordingly, Trump saw resolving either Ukraine or the Middle East as possible paths in his second term’s opening months. This is likely the reason Trump often bragged that he could resolve Ukraine on his first day in office, or at least in twenty-four hours after getting Putin and Zelensky alone in a room. It also explains why, in his March address to Congress he called the war “senseless”(https://www.whitehouse.gov/remarks/2025/03/remarks-by-president-trump-in-joint-address-to-congress/). Obviously, such a war is easier and quicker to end than one where real issues are at stake. This is a man in a hurry for his Nobel.

Those who believed Trump would not undercut Ukraine or, even worse, shift sides to support Putin, were repeatedly surprised. They took comfort, for example, when Trump’s named long-term advisor Keith Kellogg as his chief peace negotiator. But Moscow objected that he was too “pro-Ukraine,” and he was swept aside, purged one might say. Kellogg showed Trump unwavering fealty, but that was, as always, insufficient for Trump. Personnel decisions are not safe predictors of how he will act.

On NATO, observers said, Trump was merely bargaining when he declared America wouldn’t defend members not meeting the 2%-of-GDP military-spending target. And so too, they said, he was just bargaining when he raised the target to 5%. But Trump means what he is saying here. NATO is not safe from US withdrawal, especially if allies fail to grasp that the potential for withdrawal is still top-of-mind for Trump.

Then there’s Trump’s fascination with tariffs. The damage Trump has caused Ukraine and NATO pales by comparison to what his tariffs will do to America’s economy and the entire international economic system. If Trump had acted on April 1 instead of 2, he could quickly have said it was all an April Fool’s Day joke, thereby saving the global economy trillions of dollars of damage when markets started heading south. Unfortunately, however, Trump is totally serious(https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/how-trumps-30-year-fixation-on-tariffs-began-with-japan/2025/04/01/405961e9-d836-4d40-bcaa-ede5b7658214_video.html), a fact evident long before “Liberation Day.”

Here too, “experts” and anxious businesspeople steadfastly ignored Trump labelling “tariff” the dictionary’s most beautiful word. Tariffs, they said, will be targeted, carefully calibrated, and he’ll do deals quickly. It’s all a bargaining tactic, Treasury Secretary Bessent said in October, 2024: “escalate to de-escalate”(https://www.ft.com/content/fa08cc45-e6d1-4e19-b49b-047c5a23ca39). Even as global stock markets drop like rocks, experts are still rationalizing what his “strategy” is.

Wrong again. Trump is more likely to win the Nobel Prize for literature than for peace. As with Ukraine, Trump listens primarily to himself, not to others. He creates his own world, this time an imaginary trade world, and then lives in it. Trump isn’t lying so much as he is ruling a parallel universe(https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/04/03/tariffs-trump-global-trade-talks/), like a boy’s tree house, where numbers mean what he says they mean. He doesn’t react well when the real world’s numbers don’t match: after all, who’s in charge here?

Trump can’t tell US friends from its enemies, either politico-militarily or economically, and doesn’t seem to care. What matters are Trump’s friends and enemies, which are manifestly not the same as the America’s.

This article was first published in the Daily Telegraph on April 7, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

Europe could blow the west apart

March 25, 2025

Donald Trump has confirmed since 20th January that he is an aberration in American politics. That was clear in his first term, but many refused to acknowledge reality, fervently hoping his second term would be a legacy-building project. Their mistake was assuming that their definition of “legacy”—what normal political leaders see as solidifying a positive mention in the history books—was the same as Trump’s. His definition of success, however, looks more like a Vandal warlord’s than a Roman consul’s.

Many of the president’s critics see his peregrinations as a “new normal”. One election might be a fluke, they say, but not two. Thus, they conclude, the transatlantic alliance requires major changes. This is a critical error. Such changes, once made, will prove far harder to reverse than Trump’s antics, however destructive and unnecessary. Predictably, European Union theologians have declared Washington permanently unreliable, but in the land of Edmund Burke, we should surely expect “rational, cool endeavours” instead.

It bears constant repetition that Trump has no philosophy. He follows no national-security grand strategy. He does not do “policy” as that word is commonly understood. True, he has long held certain views, for example his penchant for lower interest rates, in good times or bad, growth or slowdown, inflation or recession. Why? He is a Manhattan real-estate dealer for whom higher interest rates mean, as William McChesney Martin said, that the Federal Reserve is removing the punchbowl. Belief in low interest rates does not constitute a philosophy. So too with tariffs, which are an end in themselves, invoked variously because of prior bad trade deals; the threat of fentanyl smuggling from Mexico and, of all places, Canada; as a bargaining tool; or because he thinks a country is “nasty” (back to poor Canada).

There are more examples, but the point is clear. Neuron flashes are not policy analysis. Nor can it fairly be deduced from the 2024 elections that Trump’s voters favoured invading Panama, Canada, Greenland or Gaza; launching a trade war unprecedented since the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariffs, which turned the 1929 crash into the Great Depression; switching sides to back Russia over Ukraine; or dismantling Nato and other alliances that provide what little order exists in an increasingly dangerous, anarchic world. Voters had many grievances, mostly domestic, like persistently high inflation and “wokeism”, but 2024 shows simply that the United States remains, as it has long been, a politically centre-right country. Nothing more, nothing less.

What is different from the first term is that Trump spent four years stewing at Mar-a-Lago, refining and amplifying his personal grievances, and realising that he wanted as advisers only yes-men and yes-women who would not trouble him with data, options and consequences he didn’t want to see or hear. On this score, he has succeeded quite well, unconcerned that all this could come back to haunt the country. Trump is not playing sophisticated, three-dimensional chess, as his loyalists might think, but merely regular chess one move at a time.

This background is critical to understanding Trump’s actions on Ukraine and Nato. He wants a Nobel Peace Prize, arising from resentment over Barack Obama’s 2009 award a mere 11 months into his presidency. Trump says incessantly that the Ukraine war would not have happened with him in office. Vladimir Putin showed his KGB training earlier this year when he agreed! Trump sees foreign affairs through the prism of personal relations: good relations with Putin mean good US-Russia relations; bad vibes with Volodomyr Zelensky mean bad US-Ukraine relations. The recent Oval Office debacle shows how Trump regards Zelensky. Trump’s efforts to force a ceasefire on Ukraine but merely cajole Russia show how he regards Putin.

Trump has already conceded so much to Russia (for Ukraine, no full restoration of its territorial integrity, no Nato membership, no Nato or US security guarantees) that Moscow could hardly have asked for more. Beyond his own Nobel, Trump wants this “Biden war” to go away, an important source of Putin’s leverage. As a result, Russia’s main strategic objective—not just victory in Ukraine, but fundamentally weakening Nato—is now close.

Trump came very close to withdrawing from Nato at the 2018 Brussels summit, and withdrawal during this term is entirely possible. He believes the US defends Europe and gets nothing for it, that the Europeans don’t pay, and, just as irritating, that the EU has unfair trade advantages over America. His complaints will not be answered by Europe now belatedly meeting the 2014 commitments Nato members made to spend 2 per cent of GDP on defence. Trump now says, correctly, that defence spending should be 5 per cent of GDP, which Europe is nowhere near ready to do. Fortunately, Congressional opposition to Trump’s random walk across national security is growing, albeit slowly. For example, Pentagon speculation about Trump relinquishing Nato’s supreme commander slot to a non-American—a clear step towards formal withdrawal—drew quick, sharp opposition from the Republican chairs of the Senate and House armed-services committees.

European leaders are reacting strongly. They are wrong to do so. When Friedrich Merz, likely Germany’s next chancellor, calls for his country’s “independence” from Washington, or the Estonian European Commission vice president Kaja Kallas demands a new western leader, or Brussels acolytes again advocate an EU “pillar” within Nato, they are singing Trump’s song. They are giving him a permission slip to withdraw from Nato, which he can justify as graciously acceding to European wishes. The Soviet Cold War objective of splitting the west is now before us, by our own hand. The next time Europe faces a militaristic, authoritarian enemy, do let us know how it turns out.

The right answer for Europe is neither pleasant nor easy. Trump has 46 months left, but his lame-duck status is becoming clearer. To avoid catastrophe, we must keep our eyes on overcoming the global threats posed by Beijing, the evolving China-Russia axis and the dangers of terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and asymmetric and grey-zone warfare, all of which will outlast Trump. The worst outcome would be taking steps now that increase the havoc he will cause or hamper the repairs that will be needed once he leaves office. Most significantly, cheap talk about US withdrawal from international security affairs undercuts the credibility of America’s “extended deterrent”, thereby dramatically increasing the risk of global nuclear proliferation. Fretting about how Trump treated Zelensky does not justify allowing 30 or 40 nuclear-weapons states.

The UK’s role is critical, along with EU states that can still reflect before reacting, understanding that the problem is not the US itself, but only Donald Trump. For example, to enhance western defence-industrial capability generally, London should stress that Europe’s resorting to autarky on defence matters is as economically illiterate as Trump’s resort to tariffs. Concerned Americans should stress that reduced US aerospace and defence sales internationally will hurt Europeans’ own economies in both employment and GDP. National missile-defence capabilities for all Nato members would be a joint project well worth the effort and expense.

London can also suggest Nato engagement in areas where even Trump would agree. Freedom of the seas—the principle that international waters are free to all and belong to none—has long been a core principle of UK and US policy. Until recently, strikes against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis were undertaken primarily by US and UK forces. Since Europe would be the principal economic beneficiary, reopening the Suez-Red Sea maritime passage should surely be a Nato enterprise.

More broadly, as Dwight Eisenhower believed, you can sometimes more easily resolve a problem by expanding it. Nato should adopt former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar’s suggestion to make the alliance global, adding states like Japan, Australia and Israel. Israel’s involvement could reengage Trump, and adding Asian members could replace Europe’s obsession on Russia with a focus on the China-Russia axis as the 21st century’s biggest threat.

Trump does not equal the US any more than a random pick from among the EU’s 27 leaders would represent Europe. Trump’s capacity for damage is enormous, but European overreaction could provide the critical mass required to blow the west apart. It is time to step back and reflect, as Edmund Burke would surely advise, and start thinking about 20th January 2029.

This article was first published in Prospect Magazine on March 25, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

Ukraine, Trump and the Middle East

March 17, 2025

Donald Trump’s jarring Oval Office confrontation with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky symbolizes what is wrong with Trump’s dysfunctional approach to foreign policy. In what seemed like a television comedy show, Trump accused Zelensky of everything from risking World War III to having no cards to play in defending his homeland from Russia’s unprovoked aggression. Trump then kicked Zelensky out of the West Wing without even providing lunch.

Most American children are raised to be more polite to their guests. The real meaning of the Oval Office debacle, however, does not turn on who committed the worst breaches of etiquette. Instead, Trump’s evident hostility toward Zelensky reflected the reversal of America’s position in the Russo-Ukrainian war, from supporting Ukraine to effectively supporting Russia. Recent US history provides nothing remotely comparable to Trump’s about-face.

Trump, of course, contends he is merely seeking peace to stop what he called in his State of the Union address the “senseless” war in Europe’s center. Of course, neither Russia nor Ukraine consider the war “senseless,” albeit for very different reasons. The Kremlin is fighting to recreate the Russian empire, a goal Putin announced as far back as 2005, whereas Ukraine is defending its freedom and independence. Americans once fought for freedom and independence, and certainly didn’t consider it “senseless.”

What explains Trump’s emphasis on rapidly ending the conflict, and his sympathy for Moscow? He has frequently said that if he has good personal relations with a foreign head of state, then America has good relations with that leader’s country. Conversely, if his personal relations with a foreign leader are bad, then US relations with his country are bad. Personal relations have a place in international affairs, as in all things, but they are not decisive factors in national-security decision-making, especially for the world’s hard men like Putin, China’s Xi Jinping, or North Korea’s Kim Jung Un. These authoritarians are cold-blooded and clear-eyed in knowing what their national interest are, and they pursue those interests unhesitatingly.

Trump, by contrast, pursues his personal interest. He thinks Putin, Xi, and Kim are his friends, even saying(https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/we-fell-in-love-trump-and-kim-shower-praise-stroke-egos-on-path-to-nuclear-negotiations/2019/02/24/46875188-3777-11e9-854a-7a14d7fec96a_story.html) he and Kim “fell in love.” In the case of Ukraine, that explains Trump’s tilt toward Putin and against Zelensky: Trump wants the war, which he considers Biden’s responsibility, behind him so that Moscow-Washington relations will improve. During the 2024 campaign, Trump said repeatedly that the war would never have begun had he been President.

Based on my own observations, Putin, reflecting his KGB training and skills, does not think he and Trump are friends. Rather, Trump is an easy mark, to be manipulated to achieve Moscow’s objectives. In short, the Kremlin sees Trump as what Vladimir Lenin once called a “useful idiot,” meaning he can be made to serve Russian purposes without realizing what he is doing. As part of his ongoing manipulation, Putin recently agreed the war in Ukraine would not have occurred under a Trump presidency(https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/24/world/putin-trump-ukraine-crisis-talks-intl/index.html).

Putin continued the manipulation by releasing Marc Foley, an American hostage held in Moscow, followed by Belarus releasing another US hostage, and much more. The game continues, as reflected by Putin’s conditional acceptance of the Saudi-brokered cease-fire between Washington and Kyiv. Putin doesn’t want to endanger the concessions Trump has already made to him, so he carefully accepted the cease-fire in principle, only to obscure it with conditions and modifications. Despite this carefully muddled answer, Trump was enthusiastic, saying it was “very good and productive(https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/russia-calls-for-trump-putin-talks-on-ukraine-war-4dd35ede).” The Kremlin must have celebrated its success.

What does Trump himself want? He wants the Nobel Peace Prize. After all, Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel for no particular reason, just months after assuming office. Under Nobel’s prize rules, nominations for a given year must be submitted by January 31 of that year(https://www.nobelpeaceprize.org/nobel-peace-prize/nomination/), meaning Obama’s nominations had to be received eleven days after his Inauguration, making the award laughable. Trump may not realize it is already too late for him to win this year, but he still craves the faded glory of a Nobel prize.

The likely next step on Ukraine is direct Trump-Putin talks, which Trump clearly wants as soon as possible. Putin also wants direct negotiations because it provides an opportunity to manipulate Trump directly, rather than through intermediaries. Moreover, by definition, their conversation would exclude Ukraine and the Europeans from the real dealmaking, which won’t bother Trump as all. While there is no certainty to the outcome of this coming conversation, all signs point to a result heavily skewed in Moscow’s favor.

The lesson for the Middle East goes straight to the question, how to deal with Trump? He is not pursuing some American grand strategy or playing sophisticated three-dimensional chess. He is pursuing a Trump-centric strategy in two dimensions, one move at a time. Keep that in mind, pile on some personal flattery of Trump, add pomp and circumstance, and who knows what Trump will be prepared to give away?

This article was first published in Independent Arabia on March 17, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

The Only Question Trump Asks Himself

March 11, 2025

Ukraine’s Volodomyr Zelensky is “a dictator without elections,” with only a four percent
approval rating( https://www.newsweek.com/what-trump-has-said-about-zelensky-since-2022-
2039000 ). The war in Ukraine( https://apnews.com/article/trump-speech-congress-transcript-
751b5891a3265ff1e5c1409c391fef7c ) is “madness” and “senseless.” While it is true Russia is
currently “pounding” Ukraine, “probably anyone in that position would be doing that right
now( https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crknjxj3n4zo ).” Kyiv is “more difficult, frankly, to deal
with” than Moscow.
This Russian propaganda could be easily dismissed, were it not being verbalized by
Donald Trump. He has turned US policy on the Russo-Ukraine war 180 degrees. Instead of
aiding a victimized country with enormous agricultural, mineral, and industrial resources in the
heart of Europe, bordering on key NATO allies, a region whose stability and prosperity have
been vital to American national security for eight decades, we now sides with the invader.
Ukrainians are fighting and dying for their freedom and independence, as near neighbors like
Lech Walesa fully appreciate(( https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/03/polish-ex-
president-lech-walesa-expresses-orror-and-distaste-at-donald-trump-volodymyr-zelenskyy-jd-
vance-spat?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email ). For most Americans, “freedom” and
“independence” resonate, but not for Trump.
He has gone well beyond rhetoric. In an unprecedented nationally televised display, he
clashed with Zelensky face-to-face in the Oval Office, ironically a very Wilsonian act: open
covenants openly destroyed. Trump suspended US military aid to Ukraine, including vital
intelligence, to make the obdurate Zelensky bend his knee. Even when Trump “threatened”
Russia with sanctions and tariffs, the threat was hollow. Russia is already evading a broad array
of poorly enforced sanctions, and could evade more. On tariffs, US imports from Russia in 2024
were a mere $3 billion( https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c4621.html ), down ninety
percent from 2021’s level, before Russia’s invasion, and trivial compared to $4.1 trillion in total
2024 imports( https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/business/economy/us-trade-deficit-2024-
record.html ).
The Kremlin is delighted. Former President Dmitri Medvedev wrote on X: “If you’d
told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US president, I would have
laughed out loud( https://tass.com/politics/1916157) .” Unfortunately, none of this is new for
Trump. His view on Putin has remained constant for years. Saying recently that dealing with
Putin was easier than with Zelensky and that Putin would be “more generous than he has to
be( https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/07/trump-says-it-is-easier-to-deal-with-
russia-and-putin-wants-to-end-the-war )” simply reprises Trump’s first term. Leaving the White
House in July, 2018, for a NATO summit (where he almost withdrew America from the
alliance), and later meetings with Prime Minister Theresa May in England and Putin in Finland
(where he seemed to back Putin over US intelligence), Trump said meeting Putin “may be the
easiest of them all. Who would think( https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/10politics/trump-putin-
meeting/index.html )?” Obviously, only Trump.
This is serious, and may be fatal both for Kyiv and NATO. Trump has sought for years
to debilitate or destroy the alliance. He doesn’t like it; he doesn’t understand it; he frowns on
its Brussels headquarters building; and, worst of all, it was deeply involved not only in Ukraine,
but Afghanistan, which he didn’t like either. Trump wants to withdraw from NATO, but, near
term, he can do serious-enough damage simply to render the alliance unworkable. Recent
reports that Trump is considering defending only those NATO allies meeting the agreed defense-
spending targets( https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-considering-major-
nato-policy-shift-rcna195089 ) mirrors prior suggestions from his aides. This approach is not
merely unworkable, but devastating for the alliance( https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-should-
lay-off-nato-target-the-u-n-7e02e960 ).
What explains Trump’s about-face on Ukraine and disdain for NATO? Many find it
impossible to grasp how aberrational Trump is: he does not have a philosophy or a national-
security grand strategy. He does not do “policy” as Washington understands that term. His
approach is personal, transactional, ad hoc, episodic, centering on one question: what benefits
Donald Trump? In international affairs, Trump has said repeatedly that if he has good personal
relations with a foreign head of state, then America has good relations with that country. While
personal relations have their place, the hard men like Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jung Un are not
distracted by emotions. Trump thinks Putin is his friend. Putin sees Trump as an easy mark,
pliable and manipulable, demonstrated by his approach post-November 5.
Trump says he trusts that Putin wants peace and will honor his commitments, despite
massive contrary evidence. Notwithstanding considerable efforts. Zelensky has never escaped
the “perfect” phone call precipitating Trump’s first impeachment. Of course, that call turned on
Trump’s now-familiar extortionist threat to withhold security assistance to Ukraine if Zelensky
did not produce Hilary Clinton’s server and investigate other supposed anti-Trump activity in
Ukraine aimed at thwarting his 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns. The entirely personal
nature of Trump’s approach also manifests itself domestically. Trump is now reversing what
Biden did in Ukraine, just as, in his first term, he reflexively reversed Obama. Trump derided
Obama for not providing lethal military assistance to Ukraine, so he did just that, sending
Tomahawk cruise missiles and more.
Ronald Reagan knew what to do about nations that might commit unprovoked aggression
against US interests. Trump clearly does not. This does not reflect differences in strategy,
which Trump lacks. Instead, it’s another Trump reversal, this time of The Godfather’s famous
line, “it’s not business, it’s strictly personal.”

This article was first published in The Atlantic on March 11, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

How to Protect NATO and Other Alliances From Trump

March 04, 2025

Responsible advisers and GOP lawmakers should redirect his focus to other targets, especially the EU.

Last week’s Trump-Vance-Zelensky train wreck proved that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is on increasingly shaky ground. Starting with Donald Trump’s Feb. 12 phone call with Vladimir Putin about the Ukraine war, things got worse when Mr. Trump called Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator” and the war’s instigator. Vice President JD Vance’s neocon-like complaints that Western Europeans were insufficiently democratic, without comparable analysis of Russia, eased Mr. Putin away from diplomatic purdah. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s plan to consider massive cuts in defense spending foreshadows even worse consequences. The Oval Office grudge match finished the picture, and all now points to trashing history’s most successful politico-military alliance. Mr. Trump hasn’t formally withdrawn from NATO, but he is so gravely weakening it that leaving would simply be the final insult.

NATO isn’t America’s only alliance in jeopardy. In his first term, Mr. Trump’s assault on NATO arrived alongside his criticism of other allies, albeit not as publicly as today. The Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network, the Australia-U.K.-U.S. consortium to build nuclear-powered submarines for Australia, and the export-control rules designed to keep rogue states from acquiring weapons of mass destruction—are all at risk. Even bilateral ties with Japan and South Korea are in question. Taiwan should be very worried.

Israel may escape for now, but Israelis should recall Martin Niemöller’s poem, which concludes: “Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Two complementary political counterattacks are needed—to save Ukraine from Russia and to salvage NATO. Although the evidence is tenuous, there may still be enough alliance supporters among Mr. Trump’s advisers to change course. If so, they must advise the president on what he should be doing, not just responding “yes, sir” to his ill-informed statements.

I’ve been through this myself, as have others, and can attest it will be unpleasant for those showing loyalty to our country and its Constitution. But at some point, principles must rise above job security and ambition. Resignation becomes the only honorable course. Each adviser will have to make his own decision. But they need to start making them.

House and Senate Republicans must also stand up against dismantling our alliances and gutting the defense budget. Some lawmakers are asserting themselves on Ukraine and NATO, and more must follow. They will find allies among Democrats, and together they could constitute majorities in both chambers. Vocal congressional support for bolstering our alliances and substantially increasing defense spending is important in its own right—and for the reassurance it will give like-minded Trump administration officials. There is no argument more powerful to Mr. Trump than his own political well-being.

Alliance supporters should also persuade Mr. Trump to focus on his well-known disdain for the European Union, thereby easing the assault on NATO. Mr. Trump’s distaste for the EU reflects European weakness and inadequate defense spending, as well as his criticism of trade terms negotiated by previous U.S. administrations. Some of that dissatisfaction is justified but not enough to dismantle broader American security interests.

Here, Europeans must reject EU dogmatism, especially espoused by France, which insisted, even before the EU’s creation, on Europe’s separateness from America. Long reflected in calls for a “European pillar” within NATO, this groupthink has corroded the alliance’s cohesion. Ironically, and potentially fatally, if France’s EU ideology prevails and the EU tries to substitute itself for NATO, that would provide support for Mr. Trump’s view that America should withdraw. Not all of Europe suffers from this kind of thinking. Much of Donald Rumsfeld’s “new Europe” in the east and some “old Europeans,” like the U.K. and Nordic NATO members, have always emphasized Atlanticism. It is “old Europeans” such as France and Germany that are the main problem.

Europe’s first reaction to Mr. Trump’s fusillade, predictably led by French President Emmanuel Macron, was to assume Washington was irretrievably departing. Instead, to protect the West’s overall security and shared concerns about rising global threats, NATO advocates on both sides of the Atlantic must resist the misimpression that Mr. Trump’s position is enduring. Whether Europeans can stand alone against the China-Russia axis, the real overarching menace, is doubtful. Europeans should prize being part of the West more highly than being part of the EU, and act on that basis. Unfortunately, incoming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz moved immediately in the wrong direction, saying he would seek “independence” from the U.S. Saying that “the free world needs a new leader,” as EU official Kaja Kallas did, also doesn’t help.

Mr. Trump never appreciated Winston Churchill’s insight that “there is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them.” Accordingly, advancing U.S. national-security interests under Mr. Trump, and saving our admittedly imperfect alliances, requires enduring before prevailing. One answer is to outlast him, distract him and find him other targets. But the most important course is to tell the truth to the American people, starting now.

This article was first published in the Wall Street Journal on March 3, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

After the Oval Office Debacle

March 03, 2025

Vladimir Putin was the only winner in last week’s Oval Office grudge match between Donald Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump harmed US national security by ignoring our profound, long-standing interest in European stability, which we learned through the 20th Century’s two hot world wars and one Cold War. Ensuring our enemies do not control the European landmass, and having extensive trans-Atlantic economic, political, cultural and familial relations are palpably important to our way of life. All this is at risk. Trump has not merely gone neutral in the Russo-Ukraine war, he is objectively on Moscow’s side.

Likely now to be abandoned by Washington, its largest single source of military and economic aid, Kyiv’s problems are even worse. Ukraine still faces the implacable Russian enemy, whose leadership is determined to recreate the Czars’ empire, especially by absorbing “little Russia” as they patronizingly call it. The Europeans, for all their bluster, are woefully inadequate substitutes, especially if Washington moves even further into Russia’s camp, perhaps lifting economic sanctions and seeking investments in Russian mineral resources.

The instant analysis of Friday’s debacle, pitting Trump supporters against Zelensky supporters, largely turned on questions of etiquette. This is seriously wrong. What is at stake is not an Emily Post-style assessment of who blew up the meeting, who was rude or disrespectful, or judging “where the meeting went wrong.” Almost certainly, everything the three principals said with the press watching, they would have said while meeting privately after the Oval Office photo opportunity. The issue is US national security, not whose behavior was more juvenile.

Trump argued that Zelensky was not serious about peace, and that his comments made it harder to persuade Putin to come to the negotiating table. But Putin is hardly a snowflake, wounded by unkind Zelensky remarks. In fact, Putin is one of the most cold-blooded leaders in today’s world. He knows exactly what he wants. Even though his logic, especially regarding the value of human life, does not correspond to ours, he has relentlessly pursued his objective of restoring “greater Russia.” Ukrainians object to this outcome not because they have bad manners but because they insist on freedom and independence (should be familiar words for Americans) from foreign oppressors.

Indeed, it is precisely Washington’s massive shift toward Moscow that moving legitimate discussions between Kyiv and Moscow into the future. As Trump hands the Kremlin one concession after another, Russia’s incentive to negotiate diminishes. Why seek compromise through negotiations when obtaining precisely what they want by direct US intervention?

Former Russian President Dmitri Medvedev wrote prior to the Oval Office disaster, “if you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the U.S. president, I would have laughed out loud(https://nypost.com/2025/02/20/world-news/russia-praises-trump-after-he-ripped-ukraines-zelensky/).” He was referring not just to Trump calling Zelensky a “dictator” but to abandoning US and NATO positions that Ukraine must reobtain full sovereignty and territorial integrity; that Ukraine could ultimately join NATO; and that America or NATO itself would give Kyiv security guarantees under a comprehensive peace deal. Such retreats clearly evidence that Trump is now siding with Moscow rather than Kyiv and America’s own security.

Trump’s insistence that he wants “peace,” while carefully phrased for its political benefits, is in fact the most dangerous outcome of the Oval Office meeting. Peace can always be obtained by surrender. “Peace at any price” is always on offer. Russia’s unprovoked aggression put Ukraine at risk, not its desire to join NATO. That has been America’s official position since at least 2008 under George W. Bush. Russia did not strike against Ukraine until 2014, and then waited eight years to attack again in 2022. By adopting the Kremlin’s view that Ukraine and NATO precipitated the war, Trump is repeating Russian propaganda. Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson called this notion “Orwellian”: “you might as well say that the swimmers were responsible for attacking the shark in Jaws or the United States were responsible for attacking Japan at Pearl Harbor( https://www.lbc.co.uk/politics/uk-politics/boris-johnson-on-trumps-ukraine-comments/).”

Whether Ukraine and America can find a way back from the precipice remains to be seen. The real threat for the United States, however, is that we now have a President who can’t tell our friends from our enemies.

This article was first published in the Washington Examiner on March 3, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

Trump’s Gaza Dreaming

February 10, 2025

Donald Trump’s remarks on the Gaza Strip after his February 4 meeting with Israeli Prime Minster Bibi Netanyahu precipitated enormous controversy and confusion. They were not idle musings, but written in advance. Typically, Trump wandered off-script, speculating about using US military force in Gaza, which White House handlers walked back the next day. Trump himself then promptly walked back the walk-back, insisting he was serious about American control of Gaza, although without force. (For the record, I have never advocated deploying the US military in Gaza.)

The ensuing furor has obscured the reality that Trump addressed two vastly different issues. First, and most bizarrely, he asserted that Israel would hand control of Gaza to the US, which would “own” it, and make it “the Riviera of the Middle East.” Second, and far more important, was Trump’s contention that resettling Gaza’s population in the Strip was the wrong way forward, at least near-term. This distinction is critical to evaluating Trump’s statements, until changes positions again, perhaps while you read this article.

Trump’s first idea is not going to happen. It springs from no underlying philosophy, national-security grand strategy, or consistent forward-looking policy. It derives instead from his first-term pitch to North Korean leader Kim Jung Un that his country’s untouched beaches could become major resort areas. That did not materialize, but the dream never died.

Wild as it was for North Korea, it is even more so in Gaza. The aphorism “capital is a coward” is directly applicable. Because of the ongoing cease-fire/hostage exchange, Hamas is reasserting control in Gaza, suggesting it may not be as debilitated by Israeli military action as initially thought. In turn, that means Israel will likely resume hostilities, rightly so, when the exchanges end. Until Gaza is fully secure, capital and labor necessary to build the Middle East’s Riviera, will be few and far between. “Gaza” itself is an historical accident, reflecting military reality at the end of the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948, simply a part of the ancient Mediterranean path leading to Egypt. Standing alone, it is not economically viable as far as the eye can see.

Trump’s second suggestion about Gaza’s future is not new, having emanated from multiple sources long before his February 4 comments. If adopted, it would fundamentally, permanently alter the Middle East. Among other things, it would be the final death knell for the “two-state” solution. Well before Hamas’s barbaric October 7 attack, the two-state solution had become simply an incantation. Afterwards, in Israel, it all but disappeared as a serious proposition. Nonetheless, absent any serious effort to create an alternative, the mantra has remained the default position.

Those days are over. The fundamental problem with the putative Palestinian “state” was its artificiality, a legacy of radical Arab leaders like Egypt’s Gamal Abdul Nassar; its lack of any economic basis; and its susceptibility to terrorist control. Nonetheless, if the two-state concept is dead, we must find an alternative. I once proposed a “three-state” solution: returning Gaza to Egypt, with Israel and Jordan dividing sovereignty over the West Bank. This approach would safeguard Israeli security while also settling Palestinians in viable economies, with real futures.

Palestinians, however, have for decades been so abused by the region’s radical, post-colonial ideologies that neither Cairo nor Amman welcomed having potentially subversive populations come under their jurisdictions. But the palpable difficulty of resolving the Palestinian issue should not lead regional states and concerned outside powers to fall back to reconstructing high-rise refugee camps in Gaza. So doing, involving enormous costs in clearing the rubble and unexploded ordnance, not to mention eliminating the Hamas tunnel network, and then reconstruction itself, would inevitably lead to another October 7. That is obviously unacceptable.

There is an alternative, however, namely changing the way Palestinians have been treated for over seven decades. UNRWA, the UN’s Palestine relief agency, which is functionally an arm of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, should be abolished, and responsibility for Palestinian refugees transferred to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. In turn, UNHCR should follow its basic humanitarian doctrine, under which refugees are either repatriated to their country of origin, or, if that is not possible, resettled in other countries. There is nothing forcible about UNHCR resettlement, since both refugees and recipient countries must agree. But it is also true that, unlike UNRWA, UNHCR refugee camps do not last forever.

This is not to the detriment of Palestinians. Exactly the opposite. It means they will receive the same humanitarian treatment as every other refugee population since World War II. As difficult as switching to the UNHCR model may be, Trump’s comments, the first such by a major world leader, may finally ignite the debate that must occur to find a lasting home for the Gaza Palestinians.

This article was first published in the Daily Telegraph on February 10, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

Ignore Trump’s Gaza distraction. Focus on Iran

February 05, 2025

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with President Donald Trump, the first post-inaugural White House visit by a foreign leader, could shape the Middle East for generations. Pre-meeting speculation centered on how the leaders would handle the Hamas-Israel war.

Stunningly, Trump’s comments just before and then after his meeting with Netanyahu focused on the U.S. taking control of the Gaza Strip while Gaza’s residents are resettled elsewhere in the Middle East. There is little point in commenting seriously on this “idea,” which appears to be entirely Trump’s own.

The most important strategic issue in the real Middle East remains Iran’s existential threat to Israel. Tehran’s ayatollahs can only be delighted if the Trump administration expends any time and effort at all on the Gaza idea rather than addressing their nuclear weapons program. Restoring the “maximum pressure” campaign from Trump’s first term is a sound decision, but still only the beginning of an effective strategy.

Since Hamas’s barbaric Oct. 7, 2023, attack, Israel, with U.S. assistance, has dealt Iran and its “ring of fire” strategy major blows. Hamas and Hezbollah have been decimated but not destroyed. Iran’s ballistic missile production facilities and its sophisticated, Russian-supplied, S-300 air-defense systems have been all but eliminated. Syria’s Iran-friendly Assad regime has fallen, and its S-300 systems and other military assets have been destroyed. Unfortunately, the Houthis in Yemen, West Bank terrorists, and Iranian-controlled Shia militias in Iraq are only wounded, and not severely.

The job is unfinished, but enormous progress has been made to diminish Iran’s overall threat, especially its terrorist surrogates. The existential danger remains: Its nuclear program is essentially intact, with only one location, the Parchin weaponization facility, attacked. Looking ahead, the central issue remains how to destroy Tehran’s nuclear weapons efforts, which threaten not only Israel but also constitute a major proliferation threat to America and the world.

Eliminating this menace is Netanyahu’s real top priority, but it should not be solely Jerusalem’s responsibility. The United States is the only country that can stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (chemical and biological as well as nuclear). For America and Israel, there has never been a better time to do just that, using carefully targeted force against Iran’s nuclear arms facilities.

Accordingly, Israeli-American objectives should be victory against both Iran’s nuclear and terrorist threats. In World War II, Prime Minister Winston Churchill explained to his countrymen why this was the only acceptable outcome: “victory; victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”

The real debate is between those advocating victory and those advocating the Obama-Biden approach: endless negotiations on an elusive deal to return Iran’s government to civilized behavior. There are certainly legitimate questions about the timing of striking Tehran’s nuclear facilities. Most important is reducing Iran’s capacity to retaliate against Israel, friendly Gulf Arab states, and deployed U.S. forces in the region. In Lebanon, Hezbollah likely retains tens of thousands of Iranian-supplied missiles, and Iran itself still has significant numbers of missiles and drones. The clock is running. Tehran is racing to repair the production facilities Israel leveled in October 2024 to replenish its missile stockpiles.

Another mutual priority is achieving Israel’s objective of eliminating the political and military capabilities of Hamas and Hezbollah, as Netanyahu stressed yesterday. Although Israel has enjoyed remarkable success in Gaza and Lebanon, the recent Gaza hostage releases were staged to portray Hamas as a viable fighting force, with considerable support among Gaza’s civilians. Yet under former President Joe Biden’s ceasefire deal, which Trump’s pre-inaugural pressure on Netanyahu ironically brought to fruition, Israeli negotiations with Hamas over Gaza’s future are due to start. Yet this is precisely what Netanyahu wanted to avoid and why Biden failed for seven months to close the deal. Just because it is now Trump’s deal does not improve it substantively.

Hamas can have no part in any future Gaza, whatever it looks like, nor can Hezbollah have any future in Lebanon. Only by removing these cancers can Gazans and Lebanese have any prospect of normality. And so long as the ayatollahs rule in Tehran, they will do their best to rearm their terrorist proxies, even under “maximum pressure” against Iran.

Following their summit, Netanyahu and Trump must demonstrate the resolve to persevere, as Churchill said, however long and hard the road may be. Watch what happens on Iran.

This article was first published in the Washington Examiner on February 5, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

Trump and the Middle East

January 28, 2025

History in the Middle East is moving very fast these days. The long-overdue fall of Syria’s Assad regime is only the latest evidence, and Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration will accelerate the pace. The central question is whether the principal players seize opportunities now open for lasting regional peace and security before they quickly close. Of course, there are massive, daunting uncertainties, but leaders should remember the Roman saying, “fortune favors the bold.”

Surprisingly, one of the major uncertainties could be Trump. In his first term, he was viewed as automatically pro-Israel, moving the US embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over disputed territory in the Golan Heights. It would be wrong for several reasons, however, to assume reflexively that this pattern will recur during his second term.

For example, Trump’s private view of Netanyahu is far more negative than generally perceived, exemplified by Trump’s anger when Netanyahu congratulated Biden on winning the 2020 presidential election(https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-jerusalem-israel-middle-east-iran-nuclear-d141ca03a5e38bfb60b37f94a38ecda8). To most of the world, this was hardly noteworthy, but Trump’s fixation never to be perceived as a loser forced him to argue that the Democrats stole the election, which mythology Netanyahu violated. Even before that, Trump said in an interview that he thought the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas wanted peace more than Netanyahu(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq1seiWI8ro), which hardly expresses confidence in the Israeli leader. Moreover, Netanyahu is an expert politician, far more astute than Trump, which undoubtedly also inflames Trump’s vanity.

Moreover, Trump’s obsession to seek a deal on anything and everything, even with Iran’s ayatollahs, may come to dominate his Middle East actions. As I previously recounted in The Room Where It Happened, Trump came remarkably close to meeting Iran’s then-Foreign Minister, Javid Zarif, at the August, 2019, G-7 summit in Biarritz, France. French President Emmanuel Macron suggested such an encounter to Trump immediately upon his arrival in Biarritz, and he was initially inclined to agree. Conferring in Trump’s hotel room with Jared Kushner and White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvanery, I urged against meeting with Zarif. Trump ultimately did not see Zarif, but, as the Duke of Wellington said of Napolean’s defeat at Waterloo, it was “the nearest run thing you ever saw.”

Trump’s pre-Inauguration intervention in Joe Biden’s long effort to obtain a cease-fire/hostage-release deal between Hamas and Israel is also noteworthy. After seven months of failure, Trump’s pressure on Israel resulted in Netanyahu finally accepting Biden’s deal, or at least its first phase. Trump wanted to take credit for the hostage releases, hearkening back to the start of Ronald Reagan’s administration, when Iran returned US embassy officials taken hostage during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. On that level, Trump succeeded where Biden failed. But whether Trump understands Biden’s plan has other phases is far from certain, as are the prospects that even the first phase will conclude successfully, let alone those that follow.

Improbably, however, there have been signs, before and after Trump’s Inauguration, that he may believe that the Gaza war has actually ended. Steve Witkoff, his family friend and now a special Middle East envoy, has stresses that “phase two” of Biden’s deal, which involves further negotiation between Israel and Hamas, should begin promptly. This can hardly be what Israel expects. In addition, Witkoff’s Trumpian “zeal for the deal” mentality, and his inexperience, reflected in naïve public comments(https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-envoy-says-gaza-ceasefire-could-pave-way-mideast-normalization-deal-inflection-point), are factors that could militate against Israel in the immediate future. Impressed by Witkoff’s performance to date, Trump may have decided to give him a role in Iran matters, although that remains unclear(https://www.axios.com/2025/01/23/trump-witkoff-iran-diplomacy-nuclear-deal). Nonetheless, both have said they favored diplomatic options to resolve Iran’s nuclear threat.

If true, this creates a dilemma for Netanyahu. Right now, Israel and America have the best opportunity ever to destroy Iran’s nuclear-weapons and missile programs. Israel has already massively damaged Iran’s missile-production facilities(https://www.axios.com/2024/10/26/israel-strike-iran-missile-production) and at least one target involved in weaponizing highly enriched uranium(https://www.axios.com/2024/11/15/iran-israel-destroyed-active-nuclear-weapons-research-facility), not to mention flattening Iran’s sophisticated, Russia-supplied, S-300 air defense systems(https://www.voanews.com/a/israel-s-attack-on-iran-has-left-tehran-offensively-and-defensively-weaker/7848701.html). Additional attacks in Syria after Assad’s overthrow have opened an air corridor allowing direct access from Israel to Iran. The path is clear.

Obstacles remain, notably Iran’s and Hezbollah’s remaining ballistic missiles, which would enable either retaliatory strikes against Israel, or even a pre-emptive strike to foreclose Netanyahu’s options. Israel, Jordan, and nearby Arab states must also worry about the current regime in Damascus, led by the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (“HTS”) terrorist group. Having shed his nom de guerre, and changed from combat fatigues to suits and ties, HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa is doing his best to convince outsiders that he now simply seeks responsible government in Syria. Whether this is true remains unclear, as do Turkish aspirations in Syria and across the region. The Biden administration(https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/01/24/us-syria-intelligence-hts-isis/) reportedly went so far as to share intelligence with HTS about ISIS, although whether Trump will continue this risky business is unknown.

What is inescapable is that while Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities have never been more vulnerable, Trump’s new administration seemed undecided on its future course. His first term may not be an accurate prediction of his second. There is no Trumpian grand strategy at work here since he does not do grand strategy. Instead, he is transactional, episodic, and ad hoc, often making decisions based on whatever the last person he consults with recommends. This may be the real future of America’s policy in the Middle East.

This article was first published in Independent Arabia on January 28, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

Securing America’s Interests In a Challenging World

Category: Featured