Palestinians make their way back to their homes in the ruins of Gaza
On February 4, the international community will get to see President Donald Trump wading into the midstream of West Asia’s crisis, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu enters the Oval Office hoping for an opportunity to shape US regional policy.
Do you get déjà vu? Oh Do you get déjà vu? Indeed, what comes to mind is the beautiful song by Olivia Rodrigo, the 21-year old American singer-songwriter, three-time Grammy award winner and flag carrier for a new wave of pop artists who incline toward power ballads that internalise emotions.
But Trump is no longer in the orbit of late Sheldon Adelson, the Jewish American billionaire businessman and political donor. And West Asia has phenomenally transformed since his first presidential term. Besides, intervention is apparently not in Trump’s toolbox. Therefore, conditions are favourable for a shift to diplomacy.
For a start, Trump ought to take a shot at the “Iran question”. Iran realises that it cannot have an optimal level of economic development so long as the western sanctions remain. And Tehran is open to negotiations with Trump.
Something has to give way before October, which is the deadline for the UN Security Council to exercise the snapback mechanism built into the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that allows for the reimposition of UN sanctions against Iran overnight if it is deemed to be violating its nuclear commitments.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio hinted in an interview last week that much as the ceasefire in Gaza is important, “the real challenge here is going to be what happens when the ceasefire period expires. Who’s going to govern Gaza? Who’s going to rebuild Gaza? Who’s going to be in charge of Gaza?” Good questions.
Rubio feels that “if the people who are in charge of Gaza are the same guys that created October 7th, then we still have the same problem there.” Why not leave that choice to Gaza’s voters to elect their rulers?
Rubio was sanguine about Lebanon where the new government “hopefully will become more powerful than Hizballah… and there’s a ceasefire that was extended there that ultimately will lead to that.” On Syria, Rubio said that although the rulers in Damascus are “not guys that would necessarily pass an FBI background check, per se,… if there is an opportunity in Syria to create a more stable place than what we’ve had historically, especially under Assad,… we need to pursue that opportunity and see where that leads.”
Rubio is cautiously optimistic. As he put it, “if you have a region in which you have a more stable Syria, a more stable Lebanon, where Hizballah is not able to do the things it does on behalf of Iran, a weakened Iran who has now lost all these proxies, it now opens the door to things like a deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which would change the dynamic of the region, and then ultimately not make easy but make easier resolving some of these challenges that we face with the Palestinian question and in particular with the Gaza question. So there’s a lot of work to be done there. None of it is certain. All of it is hard. But real opportunities that we couldn’t have even imagined 90 days ago.”
Is such optimism warranted? In Rubio’s vision, all roads lead to the Abraham Accords process. Yet, Rubio maintained dead silence on Israel. Consider the following.
The Israeli media, especially Hebrew press, openly admits that all that Israel has achieved through the horrific killings and wanton destruction of Gaza is that Yahya Sinwar has been replaced by his brother Mohammed Sinwar. As hundreds of thousands Palestinians stream back into northern Gaza in the wake of the ceasefire, Hamas flags are seen everywhere; Hamas cadres are in charge flaunting weapons.
Israel’s female soldiers who have been released are praising their Hamas captors to the heavens for their hospitality and Muslim culture which treats a woman “like a queen.” Succinctly put, the entire Israeli narrative has been blown to smithereens.
But Netanyahu would have none of it. His fixation is how to retain the support of the hardliners in his government lest his coalition unravels and he loses immunity from prosecution and ends up in jail. Hence his Faustian pact with the two fascist ministers in his cabinet, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, he’d sabotage the ceasefire plan and resume the genocide in Gaza at the first opportunity. He is focused on short term expediency but will go his own way in the long term execution of Greater Israel plan.
That is why Israel has comprehensively destroyed Syria’s capacity for self-defence. If Syria descends into chaos, the spillover will destabilise the entire region, starting with Egypt.
Turkey would have us believe that it controls the jihadi groups ruling Syria. But in reality, there is no one in charge in Syria and there is much violence going on there, including a nascent insurgency by ex-Baathist cadres.
A recent brief by RUSI estimates that “The more instability that emerges in Syria as a result of renewed conflicts, the less capable Turkey will be of shaping developments in line with its priorities and interests… The US holds effective bargaining chips vis-á-vis HTS, as it could ease Syria’s isolation and remove sanctions.” But does the US have the persuasive power to get Islamists to reconcile with Israeli occupation?
From the above, does it look as if conditions are favourable for Saudi Arabia to recognise Israel? It will take a decade at the very least to put Humpty Dumpty back on the wall in Gaza. On the other hand, Trump’s “seaside view of Gaza” seems to be getting the better of him. It is most likely a plan hatched up in Israel, which caught Trump and Witkoff’s imagination as great real estate developers.
Indeed, Trump’s explosive comment on relocating Palestinian refugees to Jordan and Egypt suggests that he has some real estate plans for Gaza. Not only are Palestinians in Gaza unlikely to leave but the Arab countries have taken a united stance that they will not accept such a plan. The Jewish investors/ settlers may never be able to explore the potential for Gaza’s seaside location and its salubrious climate.
There has been no pressure from Trump to Israel to vacate its occupation of Lebanon, another beautiful country with great beaches and ski slopes —although the deadline has come and gone. Disarming Hezbollah will get progressively more difficult the longer Israeli military forces stay on Lebanese soil. Yet, Trump administration extended the cease-fire deal for another 22 days with no guarantee that Israel is ready to leave Lebanon next time either, with no trust on both sides and no apparent US pressure.
American discourses are saturated with the self-serving notion that Iran is a “weakened” country after the regime change in Syria and the time is opportune to make it a surrogate power. Nothing will be more horribly wrong than wallowing in such foolish notions. Americans have had first hand experience of the mainsprings of the 1979 Islamic Revolution when Iran was more or less in the same position as today’s Syria. But Iran has surged to unprecedented heights in its comprehensive national power in recent years so that its resolve to preserve strategic autonomy can be doubted by any adversary only at its own peril. Simply put, Iran can only be engaged in an equal relationship.
Actually, Iran is also “exporting” its revolution to neighbours such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt or the UAE, who, despite being the US’ allies, are increasingly diversifying their external relations to create space for their strategic autonomy.