Afrasianet - Trump needs a reasonable period of calm in the Middle East, during which he focuses on his domestic issues and foreign policy files that directly affect it.
It is unusual in the American political tradition the sudden cooperation between two American presidents, one whose term was not yet over, and the other who had not yet entered the White House, especially if they were on opposite sides, and there was a missing friendliness between them. Trump refused to attend Biden's inauguration on 20/1/2021, and not only accused him of rigging the presidential election, in which he was defeated, but also encouraged his supporters to storm the Capitol by force, in an attempt to express rejection of the results of the presidential election, which he claimed to be Stolen from him.
However, that is what has happened. Last weekend, Trump sent his special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Whitkoff, to Doha to participate in the latest round of negotiations, which aimed at stopping the war in Gaza, and he and Biden's Middle East envoy, Brett McGurk, officially represented the United States. From there, Trump's envoy phoned Netanyahu, who is adamant about procrastination and procrastination, forcing him to back down and accept an agreement he did not want to approve.
Trump has not failed to publicly boast that he had achieved a major achievement before he set foot on the White House, and claim that without him the war in Gaza would not have ceased for more than fifteen months. But this recognition has significance beyond his desire to deceive Biden and defame his administration, because it means that he has a clear interest in striking an agreement that he is keen to attribute to himself, and thus will ensure that all parties involved commit to implementing all its phases. This is the test he will face during the round of phase II negotiations.
The war in Gaza will not be the only file on the agenda of Trump's foreign policy towards the Middle East, as there are many other files, foremost of which is the Iranian nuclear program, in light of Iran's direct involvement in the military conflict against Israel, the Syrian file, after the fall of the regime of Bashar al-Assad, the Lebanese file, in the presence of an elected president of the republic and a prime minister-designate, the file of Ansar Allah in Yemen, who entered the armed confrontation line with Israel, and the file of managing the relationship. In Iraq... etc.
All of them are overlapping files, which are difficult to deal with in isolation, as this overlap requires a unified vision that allows harmonious dealing between all files, and the removal of any contradictions that may exist between them. Because domestic policy issues are at the top of the Trump administration's agenda in its second term, it is expected to address various foreign policy files from the perspective of how much it affects "how to make America great again." In this context, it is not excluded that gaps will emerge. There is a broad range of American and Israeli interests in the short and medium term, especially if Netanyahu manages to overcome his internal crises and succeed in continuing to lead the current government until the end of its natural term.
Trump needs a reasonable period of calm in the Middle East, during which he focuses on his domestic issues and foreign policy files that directly affect it. Therefore, he is expected to give priority, during the first months of his term, to the files of migration, economy and energy, at the internal level, and to the files of the Ukrainian war and the rearrangement of the files of the relationship file between China and NATO, at the external level.
Because relative calm is expected to prevail in the Middle East, in the coming period, at least during the six weeks it will take to implement the first phase of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, Trump is expected to try to use this period to explore the willingness of the Arab Gulf states to cooperate with his administration in efforts to search for a "new or modified deal of the century" in order to stabilize this region that is vital to American interests.
Soon, however, he will run into two obstacles that he must work to remove from his path. The first is related to ways to ensure the continuation of the ceasefire in Gaza, because it will be impossible for him to find any political horizon that leads to stability in the region if the war in Gaza flares up again, especially since it has turned, from the beginning, into a war of genocide that could cause great damage to Trump, who is very keen to appear as a "peacemaker" instead of a "torch." Wars."
The second is related to ways to find a formula that is suitable for containing Iran, preventing it from manufacturing nuclear weapons, and developing its missile program, on the one hand, and preventing it from regaining its regional influence, by reviving and expanding the "axis of resistance", on the other hand, especially since it will be impossible for it to find any political horizon that leads to stability in the region without the positive participation of Iran. In other words, it can be argued that Trump will need, in the short and medium term, to achieve two goals: Two presidents. The first is to ensure the implementation of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza through all its stages, which prompts him to work seriously to make the negotiations of the second phase of the agreement successful without clashing with Netanyahu. The second is to seek ways to enable it to enter into serious negotiations with Iran aimed at determining its readiness to participate positively in arrangements related to the stability of the region as a whole, before resorting to other violent options, such as comprehensive sanctions or military action.
Netanyahu's priorities seem to be very different, especially since the disintegration of his government will lead not only to the end of his political role, but also to the possibility of him going to prison. Therefore, he is not looking for calm and stability in the region, because they are the shortest way that may lead to the fall and disintegration of his government, but rather for escalation, through the resumption of war, and working to convince domestic public opinion that Israel faces an existential threat, which are his preferred means to ensure survival in power and avoid imprisonment.
Therefore, Netanyahu is expected to adopt a tough stance on the negotiations of the second phase of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, especially since Bezalel Smotrich, Minister of Finance and head of the Religious Zionist Party, threatened to resign and leave the government with his party ministers if the war on Gaza does not resume, after the expiration of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement.
At the same time, Netanyahu is expected to continue his attempts to convince Trump that the time has come to take military action that leads to the overthrow of the Iranian regime, claiming that this regime is now at its weakest, after the painful blows suffered by its allies in the "axis of resistance", and that the continuation of the policy of appeasement with him, such as that pursued by the Biden administration during his years in office, will strengthen him and enable him to rebuild the "axis of resistance" again, which will undermine American and Israeli interests in the country. area.
The Trump administration's divergence of priorities, especially at the beginning of its second and final term, from those of the Netanyahu government, the most extreme in Israel's history, does not mean that a clash between the two men is imminent. Trump strongly believes, both ideologically and politically, that Israel is the only true U.S. ally in the Middle East and that its security is integral to U.S. national security. Thus, everything that serves Israeli interests necessarily flows into the river of American interests.
But Netanyahu is one thing and Israel another. Thus, not everything that is in Netanyahu's interest is necessarily in Israel's interest, and this is a cognitive area that has not yet been explored, and everything about it is still shrouded in Trump's mind. It is true that the relationship between the two men seemed to be fine during Trump's first term, and it is also true that Netanyahu and Trump did not change, but the priorities of the United States and Israel changed, as well as the global and regional situation, especially after the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and under the term of office. A second in which Trump will be less affected by pressure from the Israel lobby in the United States, and then, it is not inconceivable that Trump would prefer to deal with an Israeli prime minister other than Netanyahu.
In any case, there will come a moment when Trump, who covets "America becoming great again," will have to decide whether Israel has really become a major obstacle to enabling America to achieve this "noble goal," especially since it is now before the International Court of Justice for genocide, and its current prime minister and former security minister are simultaneously wanted to appear before the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide. Committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.
When the United States is cleansed of the crime of the Holocaust, which it participated in with Israel in committing against the Palestinian people, and when it is ruled by a president who realizes that the Zionist project has become a burden on it, not a weapon in its hand, the way for it will be paved for it to return "great as it was." But this moment has not yet come.