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 Trump hasn’t formally withdrawn from NATO, but he is so gravely weakening it that leaving would simply be the final insult.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.

Are Egypt and Israel possibly stumbling toward war?

February 24, 2025

Dr. David Wurmser

As we enter the final dramatic moments of the Gaza episode, the issue of Egypt and its peace with Israel is entering unchartered territory. Moreover, this is not the result of only events in the last weeks, but the culmination of much longer-term dynamics that cannot easily, or even at all, be mastered and reversed at this stage. The conflagration that Hamas began on October 7 may have triggered a chain of events that exposes these long-term trends and failure and brings them to a dramatic head – perhaps even a broader war.

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in protecting its common border with Gaza from the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money and material to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability; Egypt tried to bury the legacy of its failure by focusing on Israel’s control of the Philadelphia corridor and arguing that Israel’s presence violated the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty (it does not). While a diversion, it further exacerbates the problem.

Moreover, it did not solve the basic problem; October 7 had made the reemergence of a Gazan population under its own control with agency – whether at the hand of Hamas or the Palestinian Authority – as obsolete. After October 7, it had become too dangerous for Israel to allow Palestinian agency so close to its heart any more; it threatens the existence of Israel itself. As such, trying to resurrect the status quo dressed in some modification no longer was feasible. But this meant Cairo could no longer contain the Gazan problem across the border at arms length. So it began to reinforce its border — not to stop smuggling but to stop the potential outflow of Palestinians. This, however, solved nothing, and again dumped the entire Gaza problem – the parameters of which Egypt had a hand in vastly inflating by failing to control the border — onto Israel. And to make its point even more forcefully, Cairo began recently to deploy large numbers of armor, built airfields and deployments in violation of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty further complicated the situation and led to dangerous developments. The demilitarization of the Sinai is the alpha and omega of the peace treaty, and its violation is itself a gravely serious affair.

What was unfolding since October 7, and is accelerating now, is no doubt a failure of immediate policy in the Obama and Biden administrations. But it is a far greater failure that is both indigenous to the region and dates back for most to the last century. Egypt’s policy on Gaza was just one manifestation of the typical regional pattern of dealing with problems emanating from ideological danger: indulge and reconcile with the problem by exporting it to others who will deal with it.

Of course, that pattern of dealing with the problem solves nothing. The problem always returns, having acquired a far more dangerous form. Egypt did that with the Gamaat al-Islami, and it returned. Saudi Arabia did that with bin Ladin, and it exploded back onto the region on 9/11. Syria mobilized the Palestinians in the camps in Tripoli, Lebanon in the 2000s to create Ansar al-Islam and al-Qaida Iraq (Musab al-Zarqawi). Both eventually returned to haunt them as ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra/Haya at-Tahrir ash-Shams (HTS). The Arab world’s proclivity to export its problems outward for someone else to deal with rather than directly resolve or erase it consistently comes home to roost. Gaza, indeed the Palestinians as a whole, are no exception.

So, the Palestinian/Gaza problem returns to haunt Egypt. Egypt’s 75-year policy of tapping, appeasing and paying the Palestinian piper under the assumption it is Israel’s problem has finally come home to roost for Egypt itself. Israel can no longer tolerate Palestinian agency in Gaza, and the destruction that results from asserting its security control over it will leave no real option for Israel other than the removal of the population — perhaps temporarily but more likely permanently. Both Jerusalem and Washington have now come to this conclusion, resulting in the Trump plan for Gaza. Egypt, of course, opposes the American plan to resettle Gazans to safer lands because doing so imports the problem it so desperately exported. It would move it inside the house.

Though a circumstance of its own making, this places Egypt in a very difficult position. On the one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts the Trump plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in the second disaster, or “Nakba.” It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in the early 1950s for his failure to prevent the first Nakba in 1948. Any leader that fails to stop the second Nakba, let alone participates in it, will not only lose his legitimacy, but will be seen as a leader who has lost his image of strength. Not only did the perception of buckling on the Palestinian issue result in Anwar Sadat’s assassination, but as-Sisi will be seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, which will signal his people that he is losing his resolve and has retreated into their patronage to survive. He has not upheld his manliness, which is, of course, critical in the region for regime survival.

Ultimately, this will prove fatal. If Egypt buckles, as-Sisi would be seen as a wounded fish by the region’s sharks who stalk him. Turkey, Qatar and Iran – Cairo’s true enemies — will gather around the limping Egyptian nation and incite the population against the government in an invigorated attempt to carry the Islamist sweep to power in Cairo that had seized Damascus in December. That is the threat can bring the government down, not the United States.

On the other hand, refusing the Trump plan will drive a wedge in US-Egyptian relations, and likely will terminate the large amount of aid and weapons sales. But he can weather the U.S. opposition; he cannot weather an upheaval from below fomented by Qatar, Turkey and Iran. And indeed, if current reports coming out of Qatari news channels are true, as-Sisi already has made his choice and decided to indefinitely postpone his trip to Washington next week. In these circumstances, it is possible that we are not only approaching unchartered territory; Egyptian-US relations may have already entered it into a much deeper crisis than appreciated.

So how far can this go?

First of all, context. There are signs that Iran has made the decision to move toward confrontation, which will also of course drive Hizballah and the Houthis again. And then, within 48 hours of Hamas leaders visiting Tehran for consultations, Hamas announces it is suspending the ceasefire agreement. At the same time, Ayatollah Khamenei slammed the door shut on negotiations with the US over its nuclear program, and then in anniversary celebrations this week of the Islamic Revolution, billboards with facsimiles of a death notice for President Trump appeared, as well as a passion play of his trial and hanging. Iran has clearly decided to escalate against the United States, and this pushes Hamas to push Gaza back into war – the last thing Egypt needs right now.

While the current Egyptian threats, training, rhetoric and deployments are increasingly belligerent to Israel, the assumption of most Western analysts and intelligence agencies is that it is chest beating. Most in the West assume that an Egyptian-Israeli war is unthinkable. This should be reexamined; considering scenarios, unfortunately the idea that war is off the table for Egypt is not solid. There are scenarios in which Egypt would see it in its interest to go to war, even though it knows it would be devastating, that it would lose the Sinai and that it would terminate US alliance and aid.

Regarding the question of “why would Egypt see it in its interest to invite the destruction of its army and Air Force, alienate the Americans and lose the Sinai?”: It is undeniable that destruction of its assets & losing territory will wound the Egyptian regime deeply, but not as would as-Sisi’s evincing unmanly weakness. Regimes survive in the region on their ability to project ruthless, confident resolve to survive. Any sign of fear, weakness or faltering confidence can quickly turn fatal almost immediately.

As such, inviting devastation — losing a bit of his army and the Sinai — as painful as it is, may yet to him be viewed as preferable to the damage he would sustain in appearing to cower to Israel and accept, even participate, in the second Nakba. China and Russia can replace the material. Qatar can replace it.

But nobody can restore as-Sisi’s or his regime’s honor, and nobody in Egypt will forgive him for forfeiting it. Especially not Egypt’s real enemies — Turkey, Qatar and Iran.

Under those circumstances, as-Sisi may decide to assert his manliness, make a stand, knowing that he would lose good bit of the military as well as the Sinai, but he would emerge from this looking tough and willing to accept risk and inflict lots of losses, even on his own people in order to survive and uphold the stature of the Egyptian military government.

Added to this is the unfortunate dynamic that has before gripped Egyptian-Israeli relations; it has a habit of whipping itself into a frenzy over which it loses control and into a war it may not have originally intended.

It would thus be wise for Western intelligence agencies to at least consider that there is a real potential for an Egyptian-Israeli war. Sadly, this war has potential to still end in a conflagration. If such an unfortunate turn of events is thrust onto Israel, then it is one from which Israel would need to emerge with a victory as decisive as 1967 — despite its best efforts to the contrary.

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.

Entangling a new president: the Biden team lays traps in the Middle East

January 24, 2025

Dr. Dave Wurmser

Transitions of administrations, when passing from one party to the next, are always tricky processes. There is much change, and there is much effort to avoid change. From my experience in previous transitions, this is especially true for transitions that pass from a left-leaning government to a conservative-leaning government. This is true for two reasons. First, the left has as part of its beliefs the institutionalization of power in the government, while the right inherently is more averse to institutionalized government power. As such, the left being far more attentive to the power of embodying ideas and ideologies within institutionalized structures, they are more attentive as those institutions pass to and slip from their executive control. This is especially true of progressives even more so than liberals, since the former is schooled in the ideas of Antonio Gramsci and the “Long March through Institutions” – a primer for socialists and communists on how to take over corporate and governmental institutional structures. Second, the vast majority of the government’s employees identify more with the left than the right. This is especially true as a conservative government that defines itself against the Washington establishment comes into power. As such, every transition, and most likely this one far more than most, if ever, is accompanied by a mad race by those loyal to the ideas of the previous administration to set and lock the new administration into policies anchored in the concepts of the outgoing administration.

There is a window of opportunity to do this during transition because before the new team can take over, its most senior positions – the ones filled by the most reflective of the new administration’s ideas and trusted by the incoming president – require confirmation and are generally filled only in the weeks after inauguration. Thus, the unconfirmed personal staff of the president – the National Security Advisor or special assistants – are the only ones on board at the start. Second, because of security clearance requirements and the fact that an official has no authority to hire employees before he himself holds the position, second tier and deeper down political appointments are slow to be filled – meaning those few aides who are installed in the first days of the president’s term still must rely on staff, bureaucracy and in some cases even the appointees of the previous administration. Needless to say, an isolated president, with a few lone staffers and no supporting bureaucracy is highly vulnerable to having policies and ideas foisted upon it unwillingly, unwittingly, or even somewhat dishonestly. I saw this in action myself during the transition in 2001. Indeed, as late as 2005, one major proliferation/arms control policy issue came up that demanded a fundamental policy reconsideration, but when raised, the bureaucracy refused to allow the issue discussed since, it said, there had already been the final high-level policy decision. When? In early February 2001 – namely in the first weeks of the new Bush administration before any staff below the cabinet level had come on board, and even some cabinet members were still not confirmed.

Such policy fiats can be set either through finagling major policy statements, forcing decisions by the security cabinet before they have any staff, or it can be done by signing treaties and executing policies by the previous administration in its last days, especially when those policies embody the strategic imagery that is being rejected by the incoming administration.

Avoiding this transition trap relies entirely on the patience and savviness of some of the top staff of the new administration who are in non-confirmation positions – – which means they can take office immediately on 20 January and do not need confirmation. They will help set and monitor the implementation of policy on behalf of the president. But they do not have their own staff, nor are they offered the ones who really have the expertise, and most importantly there isn’t a group of people surrounding them who think like them that can reinforce their new policy outlook. As such some of these early staffers get overwhelmed, manipulated and barreled over into fulfilling the policy set by the previous administration intentionally designed to lock the incoming administration into the strategic concept that had failed before the new offices were taken.

This is likely the situation now with respect to Middle East policy. The new administration advocates a sharp departure not only from the previous administration, but from the common wisdom and consensus of the established foreign policy elites and the ensconced foreign policy bureaucracy. The “America First” policy may be somewhat undefined, but a clear principle is that we treat our friends better than our enemies, and that we do so since we know strong friends who project power both secure American interests and reduce their reliance on the constant investment of American power. In terms of the Middle East, the most marked feature of this is strong support for Israel, and more respect to Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain to protect themselves and defend against those who would challenge them.

The departing administration had the opposite view. The unapologetic assertion of regional power was seen as provocative and the support for allies had to be tempered by our desire to moderate and integrate (some would describe this as appease) our enemies. Israeli power was seen to make Israel too secure to be pliable to adopt policies preferred by Washington but rejected locally. The rising influence of progressivism on the left, moreover, sharpened this hostility to Israeli, Saudi and UAE power and influence.

As such, during a transition, not only are residual staffers from the previous, largely progressive, administration trying to tether a new administration and prevent it from embarking on a new path, but so too are foreign powers, like Qatar, Turkey, and others, who trying desperately to freeze policies in place that were highly advantageous by the previous Biden administration, were aligned with their strategic vision, worked to their benefit. These foreign powers, thus work aggressively during transition to prevent the proper and smooth construction and application of a new policy that may be favorable to their opponents. Again, this is especially marked in this transition. It is no secret that most of the political appointees now in confirmation to enter the new administration are strongly pro-Israeli, support the Saudi kingdom, and see the world much in the same way that America’s strongest supporters of Israel see it. Their vision is diametrically opposed to the vision of the outgoing administration.

The two core pillars upon which the Biden team rested its strategic outlook in the Middle East were first that Iran can be moderated, integrated and harnessed to provide regional stability, and second that regional instability is primarily driven by the failure to solve the Palestinian problem, which in turn can only be solved by the creation of a Palestinian state within the 1948 armistice lines. The Abraham Accords were dismissed as a marginal event and not a real peace treaty – let alone strategic bloc forming – because they did nothing to bring about a solution to the Palestinian problem. Moreover, the solution to the Palestinian conflict was informed in the Biden era by an idea President Obama (much of the Biden team hailed from that administration) himself formulated in a teleconference with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations a decade ago: Israeli strength reduced Israel’s longing for peace and hardened Israeli will to reject compromise. It also lent Israel a buffer of strength that rendered it more immune to American pressure to impose concessions Israel would otherwise be unwilling to make.

After October 7, this determination to solidify the two pillars of paradigm was actually reinforced in Washington. Israeli victory and destruction of its enemies akin to the 1967 victory was resisted. Israel’s effort to bear down on all the proxies constituting Iran’s ring of fire were leashed, and Israel’s strikes against Iran itself were capped and diminished. But at the heart of the State Department’s greatest efforts was the attempt to tap into Israeli vulnerabilities – – such as the hostages – – and desires – – like peace with Saudi Arabia – – and leverage them to impose on Israel strategic weakness and dependency. In Israel’s strategic weakness and dependency, the Biden team hoped to be able to impose on Israel policies that Israel would normally reject as either strategically dangerous or ideologically repulsive. As such, the Biden team tried throughout the war to increase Israeli dependency and vulnerability and prevent a solid Israeli strategic victory.

At the same time, Israel suffered trauma and vulnerability after October 7. Its world of ideas and paradigms – deterrence, condominium with Palestinians, status quo, slow moderation of the Palestinian political orbit – all crashed. Israeli weakness and pain did not make Israel pliable and dependent as President Biden had theorized a decade earlier but drove Israel into a defensive crouch and war it believed was its second war of Independence – a desperate battle just to survive with little or no latitude for compromise, goodwill or tolerated vulnerability. Israel was in its own World War II battle of civilizational survival against absolute evil. As such, the world of the Biden team was the opposite of the world as seen by Israel.

Clearly the incoming Trump administration subscribes to Israel’s view of the world and the region, not the Biden team’s. So the effort in this transition of the Biden team is to ensure that policies, agreements and statements are made that lock the new administration into their strategic paradigm, therein derailing and sabotaging the principles of the “America First” agenda, much like UNSC Resolution 2334 of December 23, 2016, attempted to lock the incoming first Trump administration into its policies rejecting any Israeli legitimacy beyond the 1948 ceasefire lines.

Enter the various ceasefire agreements now pursued by the Biden administration during transition.

In its twilight days, the Biden administration has focused its efforts into obtaining a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. But Hamas would settle for nothing less than a full Israeli defeat and a return to the status quo ante of October 6 in terms of a powerful Hamas state ruling over all Gaza with improperly regulated access to resupply its weapons and access to the world through Egypt. Moreover, the aims of Hamas were not altogether opposed to every aspect of US policy, which also sought to prevent a decisive Israeli offensive victory and reoccupation of Gaza. So to pursue its objective and to secure a ceasefire, the administration leveraged what was at its disposal to prevail over Israel – – namely Israel’s primordial hope to retrieve its hostages, its practical need to obtain arms supplies from the United States, and its diplomatic need to have an American cover internationally. The war, the Biden team hoped, could actually advance the idea that Israel cannot win militarily, must concede to the Palestinians in order to make peace, and that Israeli weakness can successfully impose Israeli malleability, and thus makes more likely peace and the establishment of a Palestinian state. It also makes Israel dependent entirely on the United States for addressing the existentially, threatening Iran nuclear issue and again subjugates Israel to a fiat by Washington on the Palestinian issue accordingly. The cease-fire agreement and the Lebanese cease-fire agreement are both thus anchored fundamentally to that idea. If the United States under the Trump administration adopts and carries through both agreements, and it forces Israel neither to react to violations nor jettison either agreement at critical phases to finish the war that could not be finished under the Biden administration, then essentially the incoming administration perpetuates the world view on the Middle East that embodied the previous administration.

The second trap is peace with Saudi Arabia. The Abraham accords were grounded in the idea that there is such an overarching strategic interest for the UAE, Bahrain and others to align strategically with Israel to face common enemies and to take advantage of the common capabilities of both countries to strongly advance the economies, strategic survival and interests of each. The Abraham Accords were informed already then by the idea of reducing American presence, a strong and robust Israel that is self-confident and independent, and a rejection of the subordination of those relations to the Palestinian issue. Essentially the big innovation was to remove the Palestinian veto over peace with Arab countries and decouple the issue entirely.

The Biden administration through the ceasefire to the Gaza conflict has essentially now welded progress in pursuing an Israeli-Saudi peace to the Palestinian issue. That grants the Palestinians – any Palestinian faction whether Hamas or the PLO — a veto over an Israeli peace treaty with any Arab country: the lowest common denominator Palestinian faction attains thus the ability to derail it. It has attempted to do so since early this year – using Israel’s deep desire for such a peace – and, in fact, ever since it took office in 2001 to shunt it off the main rails into running through the Palestinian track. It forced Palestinian representation and involvement in all the Abraham Accords working groups already in 2022, in effect paralyzing them and making them moribund. The third phase of the cease-fire – a regional state-building effort to rehabilitate Gaza– is essentially transformed also into the first phase of a peace-process between Israel and Saudi Arabia, so Israel must accept a devastating, life-threatening strategic defeat in Gaza and allow essentially a Palestinian entity run by Hamas and internationally, supported to arise there in order to get to through the third phase and get into the serious process of making peace with Saudi Arabia. This forces Israel, if it wishes to have peace with Saudi Arabia, to strategically suffer a catastrophic defeat in Gaza.

This of course, would amount to a catastrophic sabotage of the new administration. The new Trump team would not only be unable to build a policy anchored to “American First” principles upon which it would most pride itself, but it also would make Israel weak and unable to carry its own burden. Israel would be ever more dependent because of its weakness, which ensures that the United States will not have a strong ally that will share the burden of regional defense in Israel, or in the Saudi Kingdom or among others. Instead, the United States would be forced to invest more in endless support of allies who cannot defend themselves. This is a danger to the United States, a rejection of its stated principles in favor of continuing the Biden administration’s, and represent an existential threat for Israel, Saudi Arabia in the UAE.

But that is precisely the global approach with which the Biden administration is trying to shackle the incoming administration and force it into adopting replete with all of its assumptions, worldviews, and conceptions.

The ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas may be necessary in order to retrieve whatever live hostages Israel is able to repatriate. Every family in Israel longs for closure and the Israeli state owes that to its bereaved, tortured and terrified citizens.

But it is a vital American interest under advertised “America First” principles to allow Israel to restart the war, and perhaps to enforce unilaterally UNSC Resolution 1701 and 1559 in Lebanon which are embedded in the Lebanon ceasefire. If Hamas emerges with a story of victory in any form, not only will Israel soon face another October 7, replete with a global explosion of antisemitism, but so too will the global Jihadi effort feel its oats with the steroid of perceived success – a ghoul which will raise its head not only in the Middle East, but in cities and towns all over the West.

We already see it. A new, dangerous narrative is emerging regionally. Prominent Syrian Islamists aligned with the new Syrian government, now argue that Syria’s Baathist regime fell not because Israel had annihilated the Hizballah/IRGC security infrastructure and substructure of Syria’s regime, leaving it unable to even mount a minimal defense of itself, but because the momentum of the great “victory” of Oct 7 “Al-Aqsa flood” had translated into a regional tide that swept out Assad and ushered in the beginning of a new Islamist era that will liberate Jerusalem, destroy the “Zionists,” and defeat the West. As long as Hamas rules Gaza and argues it survived, and thus won, the war, this view will grow as a cancer that will haunt Israel, Europe and America.

Israel must be allowed – for our sake as much as their own — to abandon the ceasefire agreement when the last hostage it can hope to still retrieve has been liberated and finish the war in a way that results in a cataclysmic victory. It must be allowed to complete a devasting defeat of regional radical threats and deflate global Jihadi confidence and momentum.

¹https://x.com/hahussain/status/1880279055003459876?s=43&mx=2

Will Lebanon Weather the Moment or Whither?

January 21, 2025

Dr. Dave Wurmser

There is a spurt of great optimism on both sides of the political spectrum in the United States, and even Israel, that the Lebanese government, now that it has installed Joseph Aoun as its president, will finally leverage Israel’s devastating victory over Hizballah to assert Lebanon’s sovereignty. In order to uphold the November ceasefire between Hizballah and Israel, it will execute not only UNSC Resolution 1701 – under which Hizballah was to be removed from south of the Litani River – but also UNSC Resolution 1559 – under which all armed factions are to be disarmed and the monopoly of power be returned to the Lebanese government. Moreover, for the first time in five decades, powerful regional forces seem held at bay; the PLO is gone and Iran and Hizballah are laid to waste. Lebanon is back in Lebanese hands. And indeed, the speech Aoun gave upon assuming office contained language that lends substance to this promise: “The era of Hizballah is over; We will disarm all of them.”

Perhaps with age, one’s more jaded and curmudgeonly essence comes forward, but Lebanon likely is far from out of the woods, far from adequately executing its obligations under the ceasefire, and certainly far from emerging as a calm state at peace with Israel. The problem is because Lebanon’s instability arises not from the external array of forces, but from the very foundations of the Lebanese state that then are leveraged by external forces.

The quote that never was

Let’s start first with the most obvious. President Aoun was reported to have said the above quote. The problem is he did not say it. He actually said:

“My mandate begins today, and I pledge to serve all Lebanese, wherever they are, as the first servant of the country, upholding the national pact and practicing the full powers of the presidency as an impartial mediator between institutions … Interference in the judiciary is forbidden, and there will be no immunity for criminals or corrupt individuals. There is no place for mafias, drug trafficking, or money laundering in Lebanon,”

To note, he raised this in the context of the judiciary, not the military. Regarding the disbanding of the Hizballah militia as a military force, he was careful in his words and suggested it would be subsumed into the state rather than outright eliminated – exactly the greatest fear of Israel (Hizbazllah’s integration into the LAF):

“The Lebanese state – I repeat the Lebanese state – will get rid of the Israeli occupation … My era will include the discussion of our defensive strategy to enable the Lebanese state to get rid of the Israeli occupation and to retaliate against its aggression.”

The structure that cannot reform

Words in the Middle East mean only so much. One can dismiss this episode of the quote that never as essentially inconsequential. The problem is that it reflects something far deeper: the structure of the Lebanese state – the National Pact to which he refers — cannot develop into what we hope it will, because the structure of the Lebanese state is not aligned with the only form of Lebanon that potentially gives reason to its very existence as an independent state, let alone one at peace with its southern neighbor.

The existence of Lebanon is not a result of a colonial gift to a Christian community by the French at the end of World War I. Lebanon actually has an older and more defined reason to exist than almost any other state in the region but Israel, Iran, Turkey and Egypt. The colonial definition of Lebanon established at the end of World War I unwittingly and out of the best intentions to the Lebanese Christians actually undermined that essence.

Lebanon embodies the result of a major event: the Battle of Ayn Dera in 1711, where the powerful Chehab clan both converted from Sunni Islam to Christianity, aligned with the powerful Khazen Maronite clan, and unified the remaining non-Greek Orthodox Christians into a powerful force, all aligned with half of the Druze under the Jumblatt, Talhuq, Imad and Abd al-Malik clans. This Maronite-Druze coalition won against their premier enemy – the Ottoman empire and its governors of Sidon and Damascus — and expelled the Ottoman proxies, the Arslan, Alam al-Din, and Sawaf Druze clans from Mount Lebanon to the east in what today is the area of Jebel Druze/Suweida in Syria. This was the key enemy around which the Lebanese state was formed, thus, in 1711 was the Ottoman threat from Damascus and the area of Sidon and ousting the Turkish nemesis than a Sunni Arab issue, which played a marginal role as proxies, if they played any at all at that time. The Shiites were not even a factor, although they too held as a their nemesis the Ottoman specter, of which the Sunni Arabs was a mere instrument.

The problem with the Lebanese structure is that the military and its government are fundamentally anchored to the National Pact: a concept of a multi-confessional equilibrium among four communities, and not around the core idea of Lebanon as established as a result of the battle of Ayn Dara in 1711 around a Maronite-Druze core. This multi-confessional essence divorced Lebanon from its only reason for existence: to be a homeland for a Christian state aligned with the Druze ally. Lebanon, as constructed embodies the multi-confessionalism, and not the alliance of the 1711 Battle of Ayn Dera and its results.

At first, this was a moot point: the Maronites and the Druze were a strong majority, and thus dominated the State. But the Greek Orthodox were never fully on board with the idea, and over the 20^th century, the Sunni populations grew, largely through immigration, as did the Shiite, to the point at which the Christians were no longer the majority. The multi-confessional equilibrium thus shifted from being a cover for Maronite dominance to being a genuine rickety, artificial coalition of forces that could not manage to overpower each other. Any attempt by any faction to overpower the other at this point inherently then resulted in a breakdown of the equilibrium, a collapse of civic order and violent conflict.

There is really no way to square the structure of the Lebanese government and its premier materialization, the armed forces, which is a manifestation of this equilibrium of forces, to move the nation from the essence of where Lebanon needs to go – a rejection of the National Pact and return to its original and only raison d’être and therein be the only regional Christian nation that at this critical time gathers the various regional Christian communities into a homeland as their last hope for regional survival.

At the end of the day, neither Syria nor Lebanon exist, because they are institutions and institutions don’t really exist in the Middle East the way we understand them in the West. While we believe institutions have a real existence that transcends those that constitute it – even the head of an institution in the West is considered a steward rather than an embodiment of the structure, institutions in the region are merely the embodiment of the people and groups that constitute it at that moment. Indeed, institutions are structures to regulate intercommunal interactions and conflicts, and they do not have an essence, sovereignty, existence of their own. And since the institution of the Lebanese military and state are fundamentally anchored to an equilibrium, they cannot survive any attempt to suppress one element of that equilibrium to the advantage of others without triggering conflict.

Strategic forces at work

That said, neither are the outside forces fully held at bay. Indeed, the looming threats from the outside push the fragile artificial institution of the Lebanese state and army to hedge yet further rather than move decisively to extirpate the remains of Hizballah. And its inherent instability and misalignment with its original purpose invite those external interventions.

Indeed, there is logic in that for the Lebanese government, because it has a neighbor next door – Syria — which essentially has never recognized Lebanon’s existence as a valid state. Syria was also established as an Arab state with large minorities – a multi-ethnic, confessional quilt, and as such is not easily distinguished from a multi-confessional Lebanon. The mix is different; a much larger Sunni Arab community, with large Alawite minorities. And the Christians in Syria were largely Greek Orthodox – who had made their peace with Arab nationalism since it allowed them to transform the irreconcilable and potentially mortal Turkish nemesis into a digestible Arab one. As such, if Lebanon were to remain a multi-confessional state rather than narrowly a Maronite state with a Druze entity, then its digestion by Syria is conceivable.

And again, what is most concerning is that what is emerging in Damascus is not a multi-confessional nation with enough of its own problems to leave Lebanon alone, but a Sunni-Arab state under Turkish influence, if not possible suzerainty. And Turks are flooding the new Syria, as well. As such, the Ottoman nemesis that was defeated in Ayn Dara in 1711 is on the move to reverse that verdict – this time without their Druze allies but with the natural affinity of the sizeable Sunni Arab populations of northern Lebanon.

As such, the Lebanese government right now is more worried about what will threaten them from Damascus, and about the rise of the Sunni Lebanese alliance with the HTS entity emerging in Damascus and led by Ahmad ash-Shara (Abu Muhammad al-Julani) to subvert Lebanese independence on behalf of the neo-Ottoman project led by Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan, than they are with Hizballah — which Israel essentially has reduced to such diminished parameters that they pose a distant, and not acute problem that needs immediate and urgent attention for the central Lebanese government and its multi-confessional military. Indeed, the Lebanese government may even entertain husbanding the remaining forces of Hizballah as an asset to mobilize in a rainy day against the Sunni threat emerging from Ankara and Damascus.

And to deal with such a complex regional context at the same time as injecting a cataclysmic earthquake – namely the erasing of the now-diminished and vulnerable structure of Shiite protection and power — into the domestic tapestry anchored to an equilibrium that no faction can mast and dominate, is likely seen by any current Lebanese government as a prescription for civil war and invasion by the new Syrians and their Turkish overlords. This would be tantamount to willfully inviting the apocalypse.

As such it is unlikely that the Lebanese government will risk its very existence as an artificial institution anchored to a false equilibrium, by trying to rearrange the power structures. It is far more worried about maintaining a sense of stability to not give Syria the immediate ability to interfere and enter through the Sunni question, effectively ending Lebanon as a country.

In the end, Lebanon’s only path to long term survival lies not with this equilibrium, but through returning to the essence of what Lebanon was meant to be, the Spirit of Ayn Dara and 1711, and establish a protective strategic umbrella with other regional forces, such as Israel (whose alliance with Lebanon is the only way for Israel to ever secure its northern border), and the Western world that is still interested in preserving the oldest churches of Christianity in the cradle of Christianity.

But this involves an upheaval which at this moment, the Lebanese people appear unwilling to entertain – and understandably so. Lebanon’s people, being very averse to conflict after decades of civil war, would rather kick the can down the road and maintain even a bad equilibrium, rather than upset the apple cart and descend into intercommunal strife. It is in this context that President Aoun’s call for integration of all militias – essentially a re-manifestation of the national pact and integration of Hizballah into it– needs to be understood rather than the clean call to disarm and erase Hizballah which the EU, US and Israel expect.

And given that insurmountable reality, peace with Israel and a strategic reorganization of the coastal Levant will have to wait – until the Syrian cauldron again comes to visit, as Lebanon’s Sunnis align with it, and as the neo-Ottoman empire threatens – of which will shortly happen. Only in the framework of that will there be a realignment of Lebanon and likely strategic cooperation and even peace with Israel.

Negotiating Advice for Ukraine Supporters

January 13, 2025

During the 2024 campaign, candidate Donald Trump said he could resolve the Ukraine war in twenty-four hours by getting together with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky to thrash things out. At a January 7 press conference, President-elect Trump conceded it could take up to six months. Call that learning.

Trump fundamentally wants the war to disappear. He has said repeatedly it would never have occurred had he been President, as he has also said about the ongoing Middle East conflict. Of course, these statements are, by definition, neither provable nor disprovable, but they reflect his visceral feeling that the wars are Biden’s problem and should disappear when Biden does.

Neither war will disappear so quickly, but Trump’s comments strongly suggest that he is indifferent to the terms on which they end. That is likely bad news for Ukraine, though it could be good news for Israel in its struggle against Iran’s “ring of fire” strategy. As Inauguration Day nears, there is precious little information publicly available about what Trump will actually do. And, because he has neither a coherent philosophy nor a strategic approach to foreign affairs, what he says in the morning may not apply in the afternoon.

Accordingly, those concerned for Ukrainian and Western security should focus clearly on what is negotiable with Moscow and what is not. Early decisions on the central components of potential diplomacy can have far-reaching implications that the parties will inevitably try to turn to their benefit. Ukraine especially must make several key decisions about how to proceed. Consider the following.

Although a cease-fire linked to commencing negotiations may be inevitable because of pressure from Trump, such a cease-fire is not necessarily in Ukraine’s interest. Talking while fighting was a successful strategy for the Chinese Communist Party in its struggle against the Kuomintang during and after World War II. It could work for Ukraine today under certain conditions. Most important, of course, is the continued supply of adequate military assistance, which is questionable with Trump in office.

But a cease fire can be more perilous for Ukraine than for Russia: the longer negotiations take, the more likely it is the cease-fire lines become permanent, a new border between Ukraine and Russia far into the future. As negotiations proceed, the absence of hostilities will provide opportunities for Moscow to seek full or at least partial easing of economic sanctions, which many Europeans seem poised to concede. Moreover, once hostilities stop, they are far harder politically to resume, which is also likely to Ukraine’s disadvantage. Although Russia would probably win an indefinite war of attrition, it also needs time to rebuild its debilitated military and economy. A cease fire affords that opportunity, and thereby buys time for Russia to heal its wounds and prepare the next attack. Russia waited eight years after its 2014 offensive, and can afford to wait again until the West is distracted elsewhere.

If Trump insists on a cease-fire-in-place and contemporaneous negotiations, Ukraine must be careful to avoid having the talks aim at a permanent solution rather than a temporary accommodation. Russia will see any deal as temporary in any case, no matter what it says publicly. Vladimir Putin obsesses over reincorporating Ukraine into a new Russian empire, and each slice of territory Russia takes back brings that goal closer. Negotiating an “end” to the war plays into the Kremlin’s hands, since it provides the false impression to gullible Westerners that there is no risk of future aggression.

Both the cease-fire issue and the duration of any deal raise two other questions: should there be “peacekeepers” along the cease-fire line, and should Ukraine insist on “security guarantees” from the West (NATO or otherwise) against future Russian aggression?

Peacekeeping is operationally complex, and rarely successful in any sense other than helping prolong a military stalemate. That is nearly the uniform outcome of UN peacekeeping. Peacekeeping forces (like UNIFIL in Lebanon or UNDOF on the Golan Heights) simply become part of the landscape, in peace or war. The Security Council loses interest in resolving the sources of the underlying conflict. The peacekeepers become irrelevant, as recent developments along the cease-fire line between Israel and Syria demonstrate. In short, peacekeepers are essentially only hollow symbols.

Indeed, it is the recognition of UN ineffectiveness that has likely inspired calls for deploying NATO peacekeepers along the Ukraine-Russia line-of-control. But does anyone expect Russia to agree meekly? Will Moscow not suggest peacekeepers from Iran or North Korea along with NATO? Moreover, there has been little discussion about what a peacekeeping force’s rules of engagement would be, whether deployed by the UN or NATO. Would these rules be typical of UN operation, where the peacekeepers can only use force only in self-defense? Or would the rules be more robust, allowing force in aid of their mission? Really? In aid of their mission, NATO peacekeepers would be allowed to use force against Russian troops? Or Ukrainian troops? In such circumstances, potential troop-contributing countries would make themselves very scarce.

Future security guarantees for Ukraine, which it is insisting upon, are unfortunately likely to be blue smoke and mirrors. Russia has repeatedly said that NATO membership — the only security guarantee that really matters — is a deal-breaker. European Union security guarantees? Good luck with that. Security guarantees by individual nations? That was the approach of the Budapest agreements on returning Soviet nuclear weapons to Russia; they didn’t work out so well. In short, “security guarantees” are mellifluous words, but evanescent without US and NATO participation, which Trump seems unlikely to endorse.

Negotiations are looming primarily because Trump wants the war to go away. Europe is too tired and too incapable of charting a different course. Contemplating these depressing scenarios, therefore, Ukraine and its supporters may have little choice but to acquiesce in talks on unfavorable terms. For that very reason, Kyiv should be very cautious on what it agrees with Trump.

This article was first published in 19fortyfive on January 12, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

Trump risks hamstringing Marco Rubio

January 08, 2025

Turf-fighting is a way of life at the State Department, as in much of the federal government. The department’s complex and varied responsibilities have, over time, led to an organizational chart that has defied multiple attempts at rationalization. Its internal culture has simultaneously grown more entrenched. The Foreign Service is perhaps the government’s strongest civilian bureaucracy, buttressed by the department’s civil-service employees.

This is not the “deep state” so attractive to conspiracy theorists but a species of bureaucratic culture possessed by every federal department and agency and well-explored in public-choice economics. The State Department’s cadres instinctively resist political direction and control, trying to emulate the centuries-long insulation from politics of Europe’s foreign ministries. My own experience led me to conclude in Surrender Is Not an Option that the only solution to the department’s formidable bureaucracy is a “cultural revolution,” one that will take years to accomplish since the culture itself took many decades to evolve.

Every secretary of state, therefore, faces massive obstacles to giving new directions to their bureaucracy, especially Republicans, including President-elect Donald Trump’s secretary of state nominee, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). Worryingly, however, Trump has announced multiple appointments that could add serious complications to Rubio’s leadership and ability to successfully implement the administration’s foreign policy.

None of these Trumpian decisions are fatal, nor are further confusion, obstructionism, turf-fighting, backbiting, leaking to the press, and a generally Hobbesian foreign-policy involvement. Perhaps sweetness and light will prevail. However, the risk is palpable that Rubio’s enormous responsibilities will be considerably more difficult because of assignments and personalities he may have had a precious little role in deciding.

Trump’s practice is superficially similar to prior administrations: The White House routinely makes political appointments, while the State Department proposes career ambassadors. Critically different, however, are the natures of the positions being filled (or created), the unprecedented reality that some are already performing their “duties,” and whether they have direct access to Trump. By contrast, Rubio has kept a low-profile since being tapped, the customary approach before Senate confirmation.

For example, Trump chose Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) as his U.S. ambassador to the United Nations before announcing Rubio, similar to 2016 when Trump picked Nikki Haley before Rex Tillerson. That did not turn out felicitously, either for Tillerson or his successor, Mike Pompeo. Whether or not our U.N. ambassador has Cabinet rank (and my view has always been “should not”), there can only be one secretary of state. Other opinions are welcome, but the department can only have one boss. Take my word. You have to watch those U.N. ambassadors.

Matt Whittaker, tipped for senior Justice Department roles (and perhaps still Plan B for FBI director), is to be our NATO Ambassador. Trump’s negative views on NATO are well-known, whereas Rubio has always been a strong NATO advocate. Will Whitaker report directly to Trump or to Rubio, and with what effect?

There is no doubt Keith Kellogg will have a direct line to Trump in his coming, newly-created role as assistant to the president and special envoy for Ukraine and Russia. Assistants to the president serve in his executive office, not at the State Department or another department. Trump once told me, “You know I wanted [Keith] as national security adviser after [H.R.] McMaster. He never offers his opinion unless I ask.”

This is the very paradigm of the fealty Trump wants from subordinates. Who knows what role Rubio will have in Ukraine policy?

The list of newly-concocted positions goes on: Massad Boulos, Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law, as senior adviser to the president on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs, and Steve Witkoff, a Trump family friend, as special envoy for the Middle East. Ever since Henry Kissinger and then Jim Baker, those roles have been for the secretary of state personally. Two more newly-forged, ambassadorial-style positions will go to first-term alumni: Richard Grenell as presidential envoy for special missions, “including Venezuela and North Korea,” and Mauricio Claver-Carone as the State Department’s special envoy to Latin America, which presumably still includes Venezuela. However, with Ukraine covered by Kellogg and two envoys already working in the Middle East, Grenell’s exact role is unclear.

Perhaps for belt-and-suspender purposes, the president-elect has not only nominated Warren Stephens, a respected investment banker, to be ambassador to the United Kingdom but just weeks later named Mark Burnett, producer of the former president’s television show The Apprentice, as special envoy to the U.K. Donald Trump said Burnett would “work to enhance diplomatic relations, focusing on areas of mutual interest, including trade, investment opportunities, and cultural exchanges,” which sounds suspiciously like the ambassador’s job.

Of course, all these appointees could also complicate the National Security Council’s interagency process, so Rubio will not likely be the only top-level Trump official wondering, “Who’s on first?” There may be more: Donald Trump hasn’t even taken office yet.

This article was first published in the Washington Examiner on January 8, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

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