What makes Trump’s proposal so wildly irrational is that it undermines everything he says he wants to do in the Middle East. Moving 2 million Palestinians out of Gaza and assuming ownership of the area will end any chance of normalization between Saudi Arabi and Israel; break the Abraham Accords, Trump’s first term foreign-policy achievement; undermine the Egypt-Israel and Jordan-Israel peace treaties, which are pillars of U.S. policy in the region; and reempower Iran at a moment when it is vulnerable. It would also entangle the United States in a regional conflict—an outcome no one wants, especially Trump, or at least that is what he has told his legion of devoted followers. In his current spasm of megalomania, the president has apparently forgotten that opposition to American adventures abroad was a principal theme of his three runs for the White House.
There are good ways to be a so-called disrupter. This is not it. In just one press conference, Trump undermined U.S. credibility and added more uncertainty and instability to a region that has experienced too much of both.
Written by Steven A. Cook, a columnist at *Foreign Policy* and the Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
It’s really frustrating in discussions around this people are dismissing this as a negotiation tactic, as flooding the zone, as just another one of Trump’s hare-brained ideas, etc. DOGE was also similarly dismissed at the start, and we can see now how well those downplays have aged. Trump means what he says. Whether he carries them out or not is dependent on how much pushback he gets and how difficult it becomes. Only then will he just say “It’s just a prank, bro”
This could just be a red herring for everything going on behind the scenes with Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, especially since it followed the day after the tariffs were dropped against Canada and Mexico.
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What makes Trump’s proposal so wildly irrational is that it undermines everything he says he wants to do in the Middle East. Moving 2 million Palestinians out of Gaza and assuming ownership of the area will end any chance of normalization between Saudi Arabi and Israel; break the Abraham Accords, Trump’s first term foreign-policy achievement; undermine the Egypt-Israel and Jordan-Israel peace treaties, which are pillars of U.S. policy in the region; and reempower Iran at a moment when it is vulnerable. It would also entangle the United States in a regional conflict—an outcome no one wants, especially Trump, or at least that is what he has told his legion of devoted followers. In his current spasm of megalomania, the president has apparently forgotten that opposition to American adventures abroad was a principal theme of his three runs for the White House.
There are good ways to be a so-called disrupter. This is not it. In just one press conference, Trump undermined U.S. credibility and added more uncertainty and instability to a region that has experienced too much of both.
Written by Steven A. Cook, a columnist at *Foreign Policy* and the Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
It’s really frustrating in discussions around this people are dismissing this as a negotiation tactic, as flooding the zone, as just another one of Trump’s hare-brained ideas, etc. DOGE was also similarly dismissed at the start, and we can see now how well those downplays have aged. Trump means what he says. Whether he carries them out or not is dependent on how much pushback he gets and how difficult it becomes. Only then will he just say “It’s just a prank, bro”
This could just be a red herring for everything going on behind the scenes with Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, especially since it followed the day after the tariffs were dropped against Canada and Mexico.
The White House is already walking it back.
To what depths will this clown go?
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