Trump's Clownish Plans for the Middle East

To the extent that the new Trump administration has a discernible agenda for the Middle East, it has nothing to do with putting American interests first.

Mike Waltz’s recent comments about the incoming administration’s policies in the Middle East do not inspire confidence:

“I think now is a moment to craft some type of arrangement that doesn’t just put a pause for future October 7ths — truly bring stability to the Middle East and sets the stage for what we saw just a few years ago with the Abraham Accords,” Waltz said, referencing treaties Israel struck during Trump’s presidency with Morocco and some of its other semi-close neighbors.

“We had peace deals being signed on the White House lawn, just four years ago. Look at where we are today. I am confident President Trump and his leadership and the team he is putting around him will get us back to that point in pretty short order.”

Pretending that the normalization agreements under Trump were “peace deals” seems to be a requirement for Trump supporters, but it isn’t true. None of the governments that normalized with Israel had been at war with Israel, so the deals had nothing to do with making peace. In each case, the U.S. cajoled or bribed these governments to formalize the informal contacts they already had. It is hard to see what U.S. interests were served by any of this, since the U.S. ended up making all the concessions and providing all the benefits for the authoritarian clients while getting nothing in return.