Trump Owns the Middle East Wars Now
President Donald Trump’s most impressive accomplishment was also his first one: bringing calm to the Middle East. Before taking office, he pushed Israel and Hamas to accept a ceasefire deal that had been on the table since May 2024, including an Israeli-Palestinian prisoner exchange. With peace in Gaza, the Houthi forces in Yemen halted their attacks on foreign shipping, and the U.S. could end its own failed campaign there. Iran seemed ready to negotiate over other outstanding issues, such as its nuclear program.
Now, Trump is rapidly undoing those accomplishments. After Israel blocked foreign aid shipments into Gaza, the Houthi movement announced that it would begin attacking Israeli shipping again. Trump not only resumed U.S. attacks on Yemen over the weekend but also took the opportunity to threaten direct war with Iran, which backs the Houthi government. Early on Tuesday morning, Israel resumed its own war in Gaza, killing hundreds of Palestinians in air raids, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that further hostage negotiations will take place “only under fire.”
Turning a ceasefire into permanent peace was always going to be difficult, and both Israel and Hamas played hardball, especially as Trump’s plan to empty the Palestinian population loomed in the background. The ceasefire breaking down at exactly this time in exactly this way, however, was a U.S.-Israeli decision. The Israeli army launched the airstrikes in the middle of talks, and the Trump administration admitted that it was “consulted” by Israel beforehand.
The Iranian government, meanwhile, has hardened its stance around negotiations. Iranian leaders said in the beginning of Trump’s term that it was “not really a problem” for Iran to avoid pursuing nuclear weapons. But the Trump administration has been insisting that Iran has to give up some of its conventional weapons, too. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, in turn, said earlier this month that negotiating was pointless and would only “make the sanctions knot tighter.”Â
Trump’s America First mantra has always contained two contradictory urges. On one hand, there’s a feeling that America is wasting its resources on hopeless foreign causes, which can be avoided by trying to “solve problems over the telephone.” This view is represented by figures around Trump such as Vice President J.D. Vance and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff. On the other hand, there’s an intense desire to show strength and an intense fear of looking weak. This view is represented by Trump administration figures such as National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, who publicly wanted to escalate in Ukraine and re-invade Afghanistan, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a traditional neoconservative.
Waltz and Rubio seem to be feeling their oats with the latest Middle Eastern escalation. Rubio, wh
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