One of the hundreds of drumbeats against Trump becoming President was that he would get the USA into a war.
Whether it was because of a Giant Toddler TantrumTM (the uncontrolled anger trope, see McCain, John, 2008) or because he’s a Colossal MoronTM (see Bush, George, 2004). And it need hardly be said that he was too stupid and unstable to craft any peace treaties.
Well, as has been the case with most criticisms of him…
The president, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed released a joint statement Thursday, after the three spoke “and agreed to the full normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.” The statement said that the “diplomatic breakthrough” was at “the request of President Trump,” and that Israel will “suspend declaring sovereignty over areas outlined in the President’s Vision for Peace and focus its efforts now on expanding ties with other countries in the Arab and Muslim world.”
With this peace agreement, the UAE officially recognises Israel and promises to “fully normalise” all relations — including economic relations, direct flights to Israel and so forth. Combining UAE money with Israeli biotechnology, agricultural technology and computer technology will be very beneficial to both sides. Other Gulf states like Bahrain and Oman will likely follow at some point as it’s long been known that they were in an open-secret alliance with Israel and Saudi Arabia against the Shi’a Islamists of Iran. And Saudi will be along as well, although they have more intense domestic Islamic opposition that is only slowly being worn down.
But…, but…., I was told by the Best And The Brightest that Donald Trump was likely to start a yyyuuuge war, as well as being such an incompetent reactionary isolationist that alliances would be wrecked and peace plans shelved and… Well, there were no end to the disasters that would unfold under this brutal, callous, selfish, racist, xenophobic [insert insult of choice] and stupid man.
The whole thing about peace between Israel and “The Arabs” has effectively been a moot point since the 1978 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, since Egypt was the primary military threat, even more so than Syria. All the rest has been optics weaponised by pro-Palestinian groups to beat Israel over the head as being the source of ME unrest. Only once the Palestinian problem had been resolved in their favour could there be peace: that was the line. And it’s true that even here part of the deal was that in exchange for normalised relations, Israel agreed to suspend its West Bank annexation plans.
For the moment.
In reality the Palestinian issue only mattered where Arab nations could use it to hopefully beat Israel instead of constantly losing actual wars against her. And once those nations began to give up on the Palestinians – especially when the Gulf states saw how they sided with Saddam Hussein in 1990 – this sort of thing was inevitable.
Live by the optics. Die by the optics.
Naturally some people have their panties in a twist about Trump “taking credit” for something that had been in the works for a while. Here’s former Obama Deputy National Security advisor Ben Rhodes – last seen dismissing journalists as 27 year olds who know nothing (Foreign Policy Magazine), just after he’d manipulated them into his proudly described “echo chamber” over the Iran deal and then slapping them in the face by boasting about how he’d screwed them:
This agreement enshrines what has been the emerging status quo in the region for a long time (including the total exclusion of Palestinians). Dressed up as an election eve achievement from two leaders who want Trump to win.
Shorter Rhodes: Waaaahhhh. My buddies in Iran will be even more isolated. Not only that but the day was supposed to have been a Biden-Harris news day, and instead everyone is talking about a major Trump foreign policy success.
But what really burns the likes of Rhodes is that the paradigms of he and his fellow Progressives can’t explain this success. After all, it if it was so easy how come Hillary, Kerry and Obama couldn’t get it done? Moreover this peace deal didn’t involve sending billions of dollars to Iranian terrorists who love killing Jews and Americans.
BTW – I loved this quote from the Foreign Policy magazine article link:
Rhodes comes off like a real asshole. This is not a matter of politics — I have voted for Obama twice…. But, as that quote indicates, he comes off like an overweening little schmuck.
And of course one can always go full conspiracy theory:
“In late 2015, international dealmaker and current cooperating witness in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation George Nader convened a secret meeting aboard a massive luxury yacht in the Red Sea. Nader pitched to several Middle Eastern leaders a plan for a new pro-US, pro-Israel alliance of Arab nations that would fundamentally alter the geopolitics of the Middle East while marginalising Iran, Syria and Turkey.
To succeed, the plan would need a highly placed American politician willing to drop sanctions on Russia so that Vladimir Putin would in turn agree to end his support for Iran. The gathered leaders agreed their perfect American partner was Donald Trump, who had benefited immensely from his Saudi, Emirati and Russian dealings for many years, and who had, months earlier, become the only US presidential candidate to argue for a unilateral end to Russian sanctions.”
Meantime I’ll just leave this out here.
No Minister 
Tom … fair post (and I say that as an unbeliever).
But, but, but the WaPo says that at best Trump’s involvement was inadvertent:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/15/despite-uae-israel-deal-trump-will-leave-mideast-bigger-mess-than-he-found-it/
…although I’m guessing they didn’t say that about Jimmy Carter in 1978 😂.
Trump does not get a fair press. Much of that is self-inflicted but the media should give credit where it is due. His aversion to war is one plus, as is his kick in the pants to NATO. UN agencies. The UN. Iran. The PLO. The problem is that he undoes all the good stuff by being a jerk.
His kick in the pants to some parts of NATO – like those nations that refuse to spend their required 2% of GDP on their military contribution. For some strugglers like Italy it might be fair to cut them some slack for a few years, but we’re also talking about Germany FFS!
And it’s not like it’s a new issue. Bush and Obama both bitched about it, but did so behind the scenes – politely, diplomatically, in a non-coarse, non-boorish way, with the result that everybody could save face while the Germans just kept ignoring it. Not to mentioning hooking themselves up to Russian gas.
Meantime NATO member Poland is spending on its military big time. They’re even paying for the recent move of US troops and heavy tanks on to their soil – from Germany.
Speaking of Poland – and your wife may appreciate this, Tom – I watched a video last night of a Polish-American military strategist who was discussing with a native Pole that country’s perpetual dilemma: Which country do you fight first to ensure Polish national survival? The answer he got back was, “Oh, that’s easy. Business before pleasure. So you fight the Germans first, then you deal with the Russians”.
No doubt I’ve just addd to Andrei’s Slavic paranoia. Yes, Andrei, the Finns, the Swedes, the Poles, the Germans, the Roumanians, the Turks, the Iranians, the Afghans, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Americans and the British are all very dangerous. Everyone but the Serbs. 😂🇷🇺
Hmmmm…. considering Poland’s limited success against each opponent over the centuries I do hope he was being tongue-in-cheek on that!!!!!
For me it would be defence-in-depth – to the degree that’s even possible in a small…ish nation with tank-friendly countryside – that’s designed not to win a war but make it clear that for any invader it’ll be a Pyrrhic victory that’s not worth starting a fight for. That thinking might even be more effective for Poland when you consider that they’ve usually been invaded simply as a highway for armies going somewhere else.!
Yes. Belgium/the Netherlands and Korea are other small nations that tend to have the same location-location-location historical problem when it comes to multiple, big, powerful and often-aggressive neighbours wanting to use them as a bypass. The Schlieffen Plan and circumventing the Maginot Line, anyone?. The Dutch would break their dykes as a worst-case Pyrrhic scenario to thwart off invading armies taking advantage of their tabletop-flat landscape.
But the WaPo is right – conquest and annexation, including by stealth and increment, something that is not meant to occur in the post-1945 order, just took a step further to legitimisation with this deal. None of the West Bank/Occupied/Disputed (take your pick according to your politics) should be settled by Israelis or incorporated into Israel until the two main protagonists broker a peace deal.
Is contrary to NZ’s long-standing two-state negotiated-settlement policy and I hope we stick to it. Including and especially if and when National regain power. Not that our views on the matter count for much, although we punched above our weight when the occasion arose to co-sponsor UNSC2334.
All right. I wondered when somebody was going to pick up on that.
Well it’s taken me a year Kimbo but I’ve finally got ya Israeli-Palestinian shit fight right here.!
You wanna kick it off by asking if I’m an anti-Semite because I’ve dared to question and criticise some of the current Israeli Government’s policies? 😳😂
Joking aside, yeah, ok, bullshit sabre-rattling and calls for Muslim solidarity aside, no other Islamic country in the Middle East – including Iran – really gives a crap about the Palestinians or their statehood. Instead it is a pretext and/or distraction, although most wouldn’t shed a tear if the modern state of Israel was wiped out in another holocaust. And as two previous (Ancient) versions of Israel were wiped out, nothing in life is certain.
What were we just saying above about Poland and a shitty location? Mind you, the modern Zionists, especially in 1948 chose it so they went in with their eyes wide open, dodgy historical and theological justifications for the location notwithstanding. And were prepared to use terrorism and ethnic cleansing to get their precious state. “Sow the wind, gain the whirlwind”. But then maybe aspects of most nations’ histories are the same, including ours. But post-1945 is meant to be different. That’s the important takeout for a small nation like NZ.
But truly the Palestinians are unluckiest bastards (along with the Kurds) in the world and ultimately the ones who have paid the price for the historic problem of European anti-Semitism. Even in spite of Abba Eban’s neo-colonialist trope, “the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity”.
Mind you, part of you wants to shake them and say, “hey, other countries would give anything to have Israel and all she offers as a peaceful neighbour and trading partner”. But you can’t force a peace where there is bad will and no peace to be had.
And like the ANC during apartheid South Africa the current Palestinian leadership seems to be counting on long term birth rates making continued Israeli occupation and settlement untenable. And it sure looks like Israel is heading to a place where they will enforce what are Bantustans on the West Bank. Like Nixon counselled Golda Meir after the Yom Kippur War (and reflecting on his own experience in Vietnam), “you may be strong, but if your enemy will not surrender you are weak, because you have no exit strategy”.
Peace with the UAE, Saudi Arabia, hell, even Iran one day if they have a regime change (as was the case with diplomatic relations under the Shah) is all very well. But until the Palestinians accept they have to share – and likely millions of their countrymen and their offspring expelled in 1948 will have to remain in exile – then there is no peace to be had. But in the meantime Israel can do its bit by giving up its purported right to annex territory taken in conquest. Irrespective of the irrelevancy of whether Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (if they ever existed) or David or whomever lived there over 2,000 years ago
Trump may not have started any new foreign wars, but neither has he ended old ones.
We still have around 200,000 of our military stationed in just about any country you can think of. Our tentacles reach far and wide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_overseas_military_bases#United_States
Trump is quite happy going to war with his own country; it’s cheaper, plays to his basket of deplorables, and he gets to watch it on FOX 24/7.
Wah, fucking wah. Look at that record above compared to the previous five Presidents. You have to start somewhere.
And it’s not like he hasn’t been trying to withdraw from Afghanistan (I’ve been working on a post specifically about that), with oppositon from the Democrats and Neo-Conservatives (all of whom are NeverTrumpers) as well getting shit from the same crowd for pulling troops from Iraq and the Syrian border regions.
Funnily enough it was actually asshole Rhodes who coined a term to describe the Military-Foreign Policy wallahs in Washington D.C. that are largely opposed to Trump and who are there through Democrat and Republican administrations. Rhodes labeled them the Blob in that now infamouse New York Magazine article.
But as the Obama-voting writer at the Foreign Policy link above says in response:
Heh, heh, heh. Biden again.
Not hardly. Perhaps you should not be so keen to have those 200,000 troops back home. After all, they can be used to hunt down the likes of you, although since your pathetic CHAZ barricades couldn’t stop cops on bikes an Abrams M1A2 would seem to be overkill! (oooo – I’ve said it now).
And the latest versions of the Abrams have been upgraded for urban warfare!😃😃😃😃😃😃
I vote Anne Tiffa as Seattle’s Tank Man – except the local Seattle crowds will be cheering the tanks!