What’s gone wrong? What midcourse corrections must the US make? Why is Israel worried?

Photo: AP images

Recent high-profile White House meetings between President Trump and the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey were intended to reshape the Middle East’s political and security landscape, but the plans they hatched are floundering or have fallen short of expectations.

What’s gone wrong? What midcourse corrections must the US make? Why is Israel worried?

Defining Normal for Saudi Arabia

Both the Trump administration and the Netanyahu government have set a goal of normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Saudi Arabia has hinted it shares that goal. The question is, how to get there?

Israel seems willing to swallow Trump’s proposed sale of F-35s to the Saudis and to live with the US upgrading Saudi Arabia to a major non-NATO ally — a status Israel attained in 1987 — as long as Saudi Arabia normalizes relations with Israel. That didn’t happen during Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit last week to Washington.

Trump didn’t spray perfume on MBS as he did the week prior when Syria’s Ahmed al-Shaara visited, but if he thought he could sweet-talk MBS or tempt him to join the Abraham Accords with a $148 billion military package, he thought wrong. MBS taught Trump a lesson about how Middle Eastern nations view the art of the deal, Arab negotiating style, where they appear to be accommodating, creating the illusion of commitment, while simultaneously maintaining their positions.

They did sign deals, although the US did not release the text of the agreements for a strategic defense pact or for US assistance in developing a peaceful nuclear energy program in the desert kingdom. It’s also unlikely that the Saudis will get F-35s to rival Israel’s fleet, considering how much Israeli proprietary technology is built into the Israeli F-35I-Adir jet.

What should have made news, but was underreported, was an item from Tactical Report, a Beirut-based online intelligence journal, saying that President Trump had suggested a three-way meeting in Riyadh between him, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), and Prime Minister Netanyahu to break the ice.

Trump’s gambit was a typical bold stroke that went unanswered for now. No one expects MBS to show up at the Knesset one day like Egypt’s Anwar Sadat did in 1977, before he made peace with Israel, but normalization requires the courage to meet face-to-face and not confine oneself to third-party mediators.

Getting Too Serious with Syria

Ahmed al-Shaara also spurned Trump’s attempts to corral Syria into the Abraham Accords. Like MBS, Al-Shaara stuck to his guns, demanding that Israel withdraw from nine outposts it established in Syria when the Assad regime collapsed last December. Holding this land enabled Israel to destroy much of Syria’s military infrastructure that posed a threat to Israel and allows the IDF to monitor hostile military activity.

Al-Shaara doesn’t stop there. He expects Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights in return for a peace treaty. Israel captured the strategic plateau in 1967, annexed it in 1981, and it’s now home to some 30,000 Jews. Trump officially recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan in 2019.

Al Shaara left D.C. claiming Trump supports his goals, but neither Trump nor anyone else in his administration has confirmed Al-Shaara’s take.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s expedition to the IDF outposts in Syria last week, clad in a helmet and flak jacket and accompanied by the IDF Chief of Staff, the foreign minister, and the Shin Bet head, was a show of Israeli displeasure and firmness. Israel demands the demilitarization of southeastern Syria from Damascus to the Jordanian border, to prevent arms smuggling to Hezbollah and the Palestinian Authority, and to protect that region’s pro-Israel Druze minority.

The US has interests in Syria: mainly to keep ISIS from reasserting itself and to reduce Iran’s influence, but it is placing its bets on the wrong horse. Trump, and his special envoy Tom Barrack, are enabling Turkey to execute a “hostile takeover” of Syria through proxies. It’s a high-risk, low-reward proposition, and is causing sleepless nights in Israel.

Trump also sees investment opportunities in rebuilding Syria, but he might be better off buying Bitcoin after its recent plunge. Syria is a mess. It may not be as bad as Gaza, but more than a third of its structures lie in ruins. It will take more than $200 billion to repair the damage. Trump’s ardor for al-Shaara as a young, tough, strongman is still baffling. Despite al-Shaara’s facade of strength, his grip on Syria is shaky.

With a growing number of Americans saying their only concerns are the economy and inflation, does the US really want to get in the middle of all this?

Better Take Turkey at Face Value

President Erdogan’s White House visit at the end of September may have slipped through the cracks, as it took place in the shadows of the UN General Assembly, but his remarks about Israel committing genocide in Gaza and his verbal support for Hamas still have repercussions.

Trump’s public embrace of Erdogan is concerning, although some of it is for show. Marc Pierini, a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe and former EU ambassador to Turkey, noted that despite the veneer of affability, their meeting failed to resolve the toughest issues between them. Turkey also wants F-35s. The Pentagon opposes the sale because Turkey possesses Russian-manufactured S-400 radar that could potentially spy on the F-35s and crack its top-secret design and technology.

Jonathan Spyer, editor of the Middle East Quarterly, expressed additional concerns in a piece he wrote for The Spectator. He noted that Trump still views Turkey as a player in the International Stabilization Force he is trying to assemble in Gaza. Israel views Turkey as an enemy and refuses to allow Turkish troops into Gaza, as Erdogan could deploy them to fulfill his regional ambitions. Spyer writes that earlier this year, Erdogan stated that Turkey’s ‘spiritual geography’ extends from Syria to Gaza, from Aleppo to Tabriz, from Mosul to Jerusalem, and that the Trump administration needs to pay attention.

“The view of Middle Eastern affairs diplomacy as a real estate deal so prevalent in Trump’s White House is programmed to regard such elements as politicized religion or nationalist revanchism as surely verbiage only, perhaps to be used to fire up the base, but hardly likely to motivate or direct behavior at the state level,” Spyer wrote.

He said that’s the same mistake Israel made before October 7, assuming that Hamas leaders in Gaza could be bought off with money and material inducements. “For now at least, in Israel, no one believes that anymore,” Spyer concluded. “Recent experience suggests that those who try to ignore this may eventually learn it through bitter experience.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1088)