What does Trump really intend? What is bluff, braggadocio, and bargaining and what is not? Because he does not have a philosophy or a national-security strategy, and often doesn’t seek pre-conceived objectives, observers from left to right are often confounded. Trump is the very epitome of “transactional,” his one immutable focus being himself. Accordingly, assessing such aberrational behavior, what’s really happening inside his head, can be nearly impossible. Media, politicians and businesspeople alike frequently persuade themselves he is simply posturing, but are continually surprised by what he does. Consider Ukraine, NATO, and tariffs.
Trump, many said, would never embarrass himself by a Ukraine settlement that conceded too much to Russia. During the 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly boasted that the Ukraine war (and the Middle East war) would never have occurred had he been President, thereby criticizing Biden’s (and, later, Kamala Harris’s) weakness. However, neither Trump supporters nor opponents perceived his obsession with resuming his personal friendship with Vladimir Putin. To Trump, good personal relations between leaders signify good relations between their countries, an enormously oversimplified view of the world.
But he wanted better ties with Putin. Putin said he wanted peace, and Trump accepted it(https://www.voanews.com/a/russia-intensifies-attacks-as-us-ukraine-prepare-for-talks/8002466.html). That is why Trump has made so many concessions to Russia, and why Volodymyr Zelensky rightfully feels so beleaguered. This is the personal motivation so many observers missed, speculating instead on “policy” reasons why Trump would not change America’s Ukraine policy. He had no desire to vindicate Ukraine’s freedom and independence, and felt no imperative to show strength against Russia’s unprovoked invasion to deter, for example, China’s irredentism regarding Taiwan.
Moreover, starting in his first term, Trump has wanted a Nobel Peace Prize. He envied Barack Obama’s award, in his first year in office for no apparent reason, and felt he deserved one too. Accordingly, Trump saw resolving either Ukraine or the Middle East as possible paths in his second term’s opening months. This is likely the reason Trump often bragged that he could resolve Ukraine on his first day in office, or at least in twenty-four hours after getting Putin and Zelensky alone in a room. It also explains why, in his March address to Congress he called the war “senseless”(https://www.whitehouse.gov/remarks/2025/03/remarks-by-president-trump-in-joint-address-to-congress/). Obviously, such a war is easier and quicker to end than one where real issues are at stake. This is a man in a hurry for his Nobel.
Those who believed Trump would not undercut Ukraine or, even worse, shift sides to support Putin, were repeatedly surprised. They took comfort, for example, when Trump’s named long-term advisor Keith Kellogg as his chief peace negotiator. But Moscow objected that he was too “pro-Ukraine,” and he was swept aside, purged one might say. Kellogg showed Trump unwavering fealty, but that was, as always, insufficient for Trump. Personnel decisions are not safe predictors of how he will act.
On NATO, observers said, Trump was merely bargaining when he declared America wouldn’t defend members not meeting the 2%-of-GDP military-spending target. And so too, they said, he was just bargaining when he raised the target to 5%. But Trump means what he is saying here. NATO is not safe from US withdrawal, especially if allies fail to grasp that the potential for withdrawal is still top-of-mind for Trump.
Then there’s Trump’s fascination with tariffs. The damage Trump has caused Ukraine and NATO pales by comparison to what his tariffs will do to America’s economy and the entire international economic system. If Trump had acted on April 1 instead of 2, he could quickly have said it was all an April Fool’s Day joke, thereby saving the global economy trillions of dollars of damage when markets started heading south. Unfortunately, however, Trump is totally serious(https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/how-trumps-30-year-fixation-on-tariffs-began-with-japan/2025/04/01/405961e9-d836-4d40-bcaa-ede5b7658214_video.html), a fact evident long before “Liberation Day.”
Here too, “experts” and anxious businesspeople steadfastly ignored Trump labelling “tariff” the dictionary’s most beautiful word. Tariffs, they said, will be targeted, carefully calibrated, and he’ll do deals quickly. It’s all a bargaining tactic, Treasury Secretary Bessent said in October, 2024: “escalate to de-escalate”(https://www.ft.com/content/fa08cc45-e6d1-4e19-b49b-047c5a23ca39). Even as global stock markets drop like rocks, experts are still rationalizing what his “strategy” is.
Wrong again. Trump is more likely to win the Nobel Prize for literature than for peace. As with Ukraine, Trump listens primarily to himself, not to others. He creates his own world, this time an imaginary trade world, and then lives in it. Trump isn’t lying so much as he is ruling a parallel universe(https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/04/03/tariffs-trump-global-trade-talks/), like a boy’s tree house, where numbers mean what he says they mean. He doesn’t react well when the real world’s numbers don’t match: after all, who’s in charge here?
Trump can’t tell US friends from its enemies, either politico-militarily or economically, and doesn’t seem to care. What matters are Trump’s friends and enemies, which are manifestly not the same as the America’s.
This article was first published in the Daily Telegraph on April 7, 2025. Click here to read the original article.
Ukraine’s Volodomyr Zelensky is “a dictator without elections,” with only a four percent
approval rating( https://www.newsweek.com/what-trump-has-said-about-zelensky-since-2022-
2039000 ). The war in Ukraine( https://apnews.com/article/trump-speech-congress-transcript-
751b5891a3265ff1e5c1409c391fef7c ) is “madness” and “senseless.” While it is true Russia is
currently “pounding” Ukraine, “probably anyone in that position would be doing that right
now( https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crknjxj3n4zo ).” Kyiv is “more difficult, frankly, to deal
with” than Moscow.
This Russian propaganda could be easily dismissed, were it not being verbalized by
Donald Trump. He has turned US policy on the Russo-Ukraine war 180 degrees. Instead of
aiding a victimized country with enormous agricultural, mineral, and industrial resources in the
heart of Europe, bordering on key NATO allies, a region whose stability and prosperity have
been vital to American national security for eight decades, we now sides with the invader.
Ukrainians are fighting and dying for their freedom and independence, as near neighbors like
Lech Walesa fully appreciate(( https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/03/polish-ex-
president-lech-walesa-expresses-orror-and-distaste-at-donald-trump-volodymyr-zelenskyy-jd-
vance-spat?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email ). For most Americans, “freedom” and
“independence” resonate, but not for Trump.
He has gone well beyond rhetoric. In an unprecedented nationally televised display, he
clashed with Zelensky face-to-face in the Oval Office, ironically a very Wilsonian act: open
covenants openly destroyed. Trump suspended US military aid to Ukraine, including vital
intelligence, to make the obdurate Zelensky bend his knee. Even when Trump “threatened”
Russia with sanctions and tariffs, the threat was hollow. Russia is already evading a broad array
of poorly enforced sanctions, and could evade more. On tariffs, US imports from Russia in 2024
were a mere $3 billion( https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c4621.html ), down ninety
percent from 2021’s level, before Russia’s invasion, and trivial compared to $4.1 trillion in total
2024 imports( https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/business/economy/us-trade-deficit-2024-
record.html ).
The Kremlin is delighted. Former President Dmitri Medvedev wrote on X: “If you’d
told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US president, I would have
laughed out loud( https://tass.com/politics/1916157) .” Unfortunately, none of this is new for
Trump. His view on Putin has remained constant for years. Saying recently that dealing with
Putin was easier than with Zelensky and that Putin would be “more generous than he has to
be( https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/07/trump-says-it-is-easier-to-deal-with-
russia-and-putin-wants-to-end-the-war )” simply reprises Trump’s first term. Leaving the White
House in July, 2018, for a NATO summit (where he almost withdrew America from the
alliance), and later meetings with Prime Minister Theresa May in England and Putin in Finland
(where he seemed to back Putin over US intelligence), Trump said meeting Putin “may be the
easiest of them all. Who would think( https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/10politics/trump-putin-
meeting/index.html )?” Obviously, only Trump.
This is serious, and may be fatal both for Kyiv and NATO. Trump has sought for years
to debilitate or destroy the alliance. He doesn’t like it; he doesn’t understand it; he frowns on
its Brussels headquarters building; and, worst of all, it was deeply involved not only in Ukraine,
but Afghanistan, which he didn’t like either. Trump wants to withdraw from NATO, but, near
term, he can do serious-enough damage simply to render the alliance unworkable. Recent
reports that Trump is considering defending only those NATO allies meeting the agreed defense-
spending targets( https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-considering-major-
nato-policy-shift-rcna195089 ) mirrors prior suggestions from his aides. This approach is not
merely unworkable, but devastating for the alliance( https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-should-
lay-off-nato-target-the-u-n-7e02e960 ).
What explains Trump’s about-face on Ukraine and disdain for NATO? Many find it
impossible to grasp how aberrational Trump is: he does not have a philosophy or a national-
security grand strategy. He does not do “policy” as Washington understands that term. His
approach is personal, transactional, ad hoc, episodic, centering on one question: what benefits
Donald Trump? In international affairs, Trump has said repeatedly that if he has good personal
relations with a foreign head of state, then America has good relations with that country. While
personal relations have their place, the hard men like Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jung Un are not
distracted by emotions. Trump thinks Putin is his friend. Putin sees Trump as an easy mark,
pliable and manipulable, demonstrated by his approach post-November 5.
Trump says he trusts that Putin wants peace and will honor his commitments, despite
massive contrary evidence. Notwithstanding considerable efforts. Zelensky has never escaped
the “perfect” phone call precipitating Trump’s first impeachment. Of course, that call turned on
Trump’s now-familiar extortionist threat to withhold security assistance to Ukraine if Zelensky
did not produce Hilary Clinton’s server and investigate other supposed anti-Trump activity in
Ukraine aimed at thwarting his 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns. The entirely personal
nature of Trump’s approach also manifests itself domestically. Trump is now reversing what
Biden did in Ukraine, just as, in his first term, he reflexively reversed Obama. Trump derided
Obama for not providing lethal military assistance to Ukraine, so he did just that, sending
Tomahawk cruise missiles and more.
Ronald Reagan knew what to do about nations that might commit unprovoked aggression
against US interests. Trump clearly does not. This does not reflect differences in strategy,
which Trump lacks. Instead, it’s another Trump reversal, this time of The Godfather’s famous
line, “it’s not business, it’s strictly personal.”
This article was first published in The Atlantic on March 11, 2025. Click here to read the original article.
T.S Eliot would not have minded Robert Kaplan expropriating the title of his most famous poem for his latest book, Waste Land. Kaplan’s focus on the decline of the West and the birth of modernism were among the poem’s themes(175), and his latest tour de force on the unhappy state of the world is decidedly pessimistic on many fronts, even while dwelling only occasionally on Donald Trump.
In this extended essay, Kaplan makes three broad points. First, he analogizes the current world, all of it, to Germany’s inter-war Weimar Republic. He argues that, as Weimar was in permanent crisis, so, analogously, the entire planet is now “an interconnected system of states in which no one really rules(14).” Of course, that has long been true, but extraordinarily dense and rapid communications capabilities now make “closeness(34)” inevitable in a way that prior history did not experience. And since “complexity leads to fragility(42),” instability and conflict are riskier and more pervasive than in bygone days when the earth’s enormous size prevented diverse conflicts from becoming global.
Second, Kaplan argues that America, China and Russia, the three great powers, are all in decline, although at varying rates and for widely different reasons. The United States, he writes, suffers from “decay in the culture of public life, especially the media…[A]s the media has become less serious, so have our leaders(93).” The most graphic contrast between recent Presidents, for example, is Dwight Eisenhower, general and war hero, compared to Trump, who represents “the epitome of self-centered, emotional impulses(49).”
Analogizing to the late Ottoman Empire, Kaplan calls contemporary Russia Europe’s sick man(81). He stresses that Russia’s decline “is of a different scale entirely(96),” and “on a far more advanced state of rot(101)” than the US, although both had their own “disastrous wars of choice(90)” in Ukraine and Iraq respectively. The good news for us is that Iraq was not nearly so important to America as Ukraine was to Russia. US decline is “subtle and qualitative,” while Russia’s civilizational slide is “fundamental(107).” Tracking America’s worsening political leadership, Kaplan contrasts China’s Deng Xiaoping, whose record remains underrated, with his successor Xi Jinping: “nothing if not a Leninist ideologue(113)” who has “returned China to the die-hard authoritarianism, bordering on totalitarianism,” of Mao Tse-tung(115).
This competition among great powers, even receding ones, may sound like most of pre- 20 th century history, but it sets the stage for Kaplan’s third point: his lengthy diagnosis of the West’s decline, starting with the originator of that phrase, Oswald Spengler. Kaplan sees global urbanization as “the primary change in geopolitics(129),” with cities as “the conservative’s worst nightmare(134).” Although we shouldn’t need a reminder, Kaplan provides it: technology and civilization are not the same thing(170).
Through both physical and communications proximity, crowd psychologies and “excitable public opinion(136),” create a kind of “mob(139),” that accelerates especially America’s decline: “It is the masses speaking through one voice that are the danger(138).” In the US, Kaplan distinguishes between the conflicting views of those living in cities versus those dwelling in what F. Scott Fitzgerald called “that vast obscurity…where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night(149).” All of this is compounded, as George Orwell depressingly writes in Nineteen Eighty-Four, because “History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present(169).”
Enormous consequences flow from Kaplan’s take, perhaps none more important for the United States than its place in the wider world. For someone who earlier wrote a book called The Revenge of Geography, it is telling that Kaplan’s thinking today concludes that “the finite earth is gradually losing the race against technology and population growth(89).” This ever- increasing “closeness” increases the importance of what once seemed distant: “Every place, every river and mountain range, will be strategic(34).” The cyber age means “the enemy is now only one click away rather than thousands of miles away(117).”
With so many in the United States now seeking escape from both history and geography, these should be chilling words, but probably are not. The isolationist impulse currently at full flood in political debate is increasingly less and less intelligible. Policies sensible in a world where enormous distances meant conflicts could be contained are today not merely outdated but dangerous. This shift has been underway for some time, of course. Neville Chamberlain was wrong for many reasons to describe Germany’s 1938 lust for Czechoslovakia as a “quarrel in a far-away country,” when it was already in Great Britain’s backyard. Vice President Vance’s recent condescending lecture( https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/world/europe/vance-europe- immigration-ukraine.html ) to Europeans in Munich referred to election controversies in what he labelled “remote Romania,” reprising Chamberlain’s glib, arrogant and ultimately debilitating lack of situational and strategic awareness.
Faced with major, nuclear-armed adversary powers, and numerous lesser threats along a broad spectrum, America’s grievances against its own allies must be taken in perspective against the broader menaces we face together. Complaints that allies are not carrying their fair share of the common-defense burden are accurate and have domestic political appeal, but mere complaining is not strategic thinking. The answer, in Kaplan’s “close” world is not that allies do more and we do less, which is Trump’s hazy view, but that everyone on “our side” does more, because the global threat level is high and rising.
Contemporary policy prescriptions are not Kaplan’s immediate objective, but his broader analysis inevitably provokes them. His seemingly inexhaustible capacity to analogize and extrapolate is compelling and helpful, even if some, like the Weimar analogy, don’t bear the load Kaplan imposes on them. A closer fit to today’s “closeness” might well be Europe’s post- Reformation religious conflicts, or Archduke Ferdinand’s 1914 assassination by a rabid Serbian nationalist that ignited a continent-wide conflagration, thereby literally laying the groundwork for Eliot’s poem.
Indeed, despite Waste Land’s pessimism, Kaplan’s conclusion is the only correct one: “we have no choice but to fight on, as the outcome is not given to any of us in advance(186).” And this is where Eliot’s enduring conservative line, “[t]hese fragments I have shored against my ruins(159),” remains inspiring.
This article was first published in the Wall Street Journal on March 4, 2025. Click here to read the original article.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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