U.S. President Donald Trump touts the 2020 Abraham Accords as his foreign-policy achievement and criticizes former President Joe Biden for not expanding them. But so far in his second term, Trump is batting .000. He has not built on the accords beyond the largely symbolic case of the non-Middle Eastern country of Kazakhstan. And he squandered the clearest opportunity of all: finishing the Saudi deal that Biden left on the table. Trump entered office with maximum leverage over Riyadh. The Saudis desperately wanted a U.S. security guarantee, advanced arms and nuclear technology. Trump could have demanded normalization with Israel as the price of admission. Instead, he whiffed, giving away the leverage and choosing to sacrifice Israel for the promise of a trillion dollars in Saudi investments in the United States.
Riyadh has now moved on, distracted by domestic economic troubles and falling revenues. As the window narrows, the biggest prize in Arab-Israeli diplomacy remains unclaimed. And what about Trump’s other Gulf “friends”? Has he ever raised normalization with Qatar? Trump calls the emir “one of the great rulers of the world.” He praises Qatar as a “very good ally.” He applauds its role in hostage negotiations. He even handed Doha a security guarantee without the inconvenience of a treaty requiring Senate approval.
Yet no one in the White House seems willing to say aloud what makes Qatari normalization impossible: Qatar bankrolls Hamas, promotes radical Islam and traffics in antisemitism. Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and the real architect of the accords, surely knows that. Trump simply prefers not to mention it. And what about Kuwait? (Ed note: Wow, now that's a hard hitting article. Sounds like Psalm 83 is still very much in play today.) (Read More)
