[…]
The point was the deal.
The same was the case with the Palestinians. As Clinton, Bush and Obama all saw it, the only salient question regarding the Palestinians was whether or not Israel was willing to cut a deal with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). They considered PLO sponsorship and incitement of terror a mere distraction. The PLO’s partnership with Hamas was said to be a passing phase. PLO corruption and embezzlement of billions of dollars in U.S. and international aid dollars was just an irritant.
The only thing three successive administrations concerned themselves with regarding the Palestinians generally, and the PLO specifically, was whether or not they would say from time to time that they were willing to cut a deal – any deal – with Israel.
As far as all three administrations were concerned, the possibility of mediating a deal — “the deal” — between Israel and the PLO was the only U.S. Middle East policy that mattered. Everything else was secondary. The situation reached a level of absurdity where every issue was viewed as contingent on Israel agreeing to make a deal with the Palestinians.
For instance, in 2006, then-President Bush appointed former secretary of state James Baker and former congressman Lee Hamilton to present him with a strategy for dealing with the insurgency in Iraq. The two men said that the U.S. could safely withdraw its forces from Iraq if it did so while forcing Israel to cut a deal with the PLO.
Why Iran or Syria or their terror proxies in al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and other militias would stand down if Israel gave Jerusalem to PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas was never explained.
It was never explained because as everyone who was anyone in Washington agreed, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East wasn’t about securing the American people per se. It was about cutting “a deal.”
This, then, brings us to the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran nuclear deal, which Wendy Sherman also negotiated. As she did in 1994 with the North Koreans, Sherman negotiated a deal based on the notion that it didn’t matter what the deal said, but rather only that it was concluded.
U.S. foreign policy officials from the Clinton administration on down repeatedly argued that merely signing a deal would create a positive dynamic that would encourage rogue regimes – whether in Pyongyang or Ramallah or Tehran – to change their behavior and assessment of Washington and its allies.
The fact that this assumption has never been borne out by events — and indeed, has been repeatedly contradicted and proven wrong by events — never made an impression on the foreign policy “experts” who clung to the notion that process is more important than substance.
In this context, the Trump Doctrine is brilliant in its simplicity and straightforwardness.
The Trump Doctrine involves a simple concept: U.S. foreign policy must be grounded in reality rather than fantasy, and its aim is to achieve the only goal that matters: securing and enhancing the security of the American people.
It is a testament to President Trump’s iconoclasm and common sense that he has embraced reality after so many years of fantasy presidencies.
But his decision to prefer reality over theory is also borne of necessity. The bill has come due on his predecessors’ unhinged deals.
As President Trump has noted repeatedly, the U.S. reached the end of the road with North Korea. After Pyongyang tested intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the mainland of the U.S. last summer, it was clear there was nowhere to kick the can anymore.
With Iran using the status and wealth it received from Obama’s nuclear deal to realize its imperialist aspirations in the Middle East, while actively engaging in armed attacks against Israel and Saudi Arabia, maintaining faith with the nuclear deal that enabled Iran to bring the region to the brink of a massive war was no longer an option.
As for the PLO and Israel, the jig finally is up on that fairytale as well. With its 83-year-old, corrupt, virulently antisemitic, anti-American, terror-supporting leader Mahmoud Abbas on the verge of death, the Palestinian Authority is about to decompose altogether or transform into something else. And whatever may happen there, it is now inarguable that the terror group is a bit player, not a power broker.
No regional issue of concern to the U.S. will be ameliorated by appeasing the PLO.
As for Israel, due to the wreckage of weakened Arab allies on the one hand, and empowered enemies left by Trump’s predecessors on the other, the Trump administration cannot follow the old practice of treating Israel like a problem. The now-undeniable fact is that when Israel strikes Iranian installations in Syria and Iran’s proxies in Gaza, it is stabilizing the region, not destabilizing the region.
Another undeniable fact is that Israel is America’s most powerful and trustworthy ally in the Middle East. To the extent a deal between the PLO and Israel weakens Israel – and every deal that has been presented over the past 25 years, like the phony “peace process” itself, has weakened Israel – U.S. interests are harmed.
Many commentators have interpreted Pompeo’s list of twelve specific demands from Iran as an opening bid for future negotiations with Tehran.
But his own statements indicate that this is not the case. Pompeo rightly explained that all of his demands — from Iran ending and dismantling its nuclear program and ballistic missiles program, to ending its sponsorship of terror groups; from withdrawing its forces from Syria, to releasing all U.S. and foreign hostages it holds — are basic demands.
There are so many demands, Pompeo explained, because at a fundamental level, Iran is breaching the most basic norms of international behavior. Every single activity he demanded that Iran halt is an activity that undermines not only regional security, but also U.S. national security. As such, compelling Iranian compliance with the Trump administration’s demands is vital to the security of the American people.
The media echo chamber has made much of the fact that the North Korean regime is now making noises to the effect that it is unwilling to make a deal with the Trump administration. Insults against National Security Advisor John Bolton in the North Korean media are pointed to as proof that Trump’s “America First” foreign policy is undermining efforts to secure a deal with North Korea.
These commentaries miss the point. As Pompeo and Trump himself have explained, American foreign policy is no longer driven by a slavish devotion to Wendy Sherman-esque deals with enemies of America.
American foreign policy is now about making Americans safe in the real world.
And, thanks to the slavish devotion of the previous three administrations to agreements-at-all-cost, achieving the goal of protecting Americans has become urgent, dire, and no job for showboaters who want to be loved by Europe and MSNBC.
Caroline Glick is a world-renowned journalist and commentator on the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy, and the author of The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East. Read more at www.CarolineGlick.com.
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