contracted out to Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The new course is a
asco, he argues,
and has led directly to the current crisis.
Not so, responds Michael Doran. It
was President Jimmy Carter who aban-
doned Kissinger’s policy, inserting a
personal obsession with the Palestinian
question into the American position.
The successes o the peace process, such
as Israel’s treaties with Egypt and
Jordan, were sensible material bargains,
not quests for justice. Similar deals with
Syria and the Palestinians are highly
unlikely. Trump’s real crime is acknowl-
edging this, shattering long-held illusions.
Israeli power does make a two-state
solution impossible, agrees Youse
Munayyer—which is a good thing,
because no Palestinian Bantustan
achieved through the existing peace
process could ful
ll Palestinian national
aspirations. Instead, both peoples
should live in a single constitutional
democracy that would oer equal rights
to Jews and Palestinians alike.
Beyond the Arab-Israeli issue, things
get even more challenging. Robert
Malley and Maha Yahya sketch the
region’s unique strategic dynamics and
developmental challenges, respectively;
Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon
look at its most persistent headache,
Iran; and Sarah Yerkes reports on its
sole glimmer o hope, Tunisia.
These articles oer a clear window
onto the Middle East’s stark new land-
scape. Read them and weep.
—Gideon Rose, EditorT
he Trump administration’s
Middle East policies jumped into
the headlines this past summer,
as the region moved to the brink o war.
Since the situation is confused and
confusing, we’ve compiled a guide for
the perplexed.
The Middle East has a distinct history,
culture, and geopolitical logic, with local
powers locked in an eternally shifting
great game. Too weak to avoid temporary
domination by outsiders, they are never-
theless strong enough to resist full
absorption. As a result, grand schemes for
regional order inevitably go up in smoke,
the exasperated foreigners eventually
leave, and the game continues.
In the mid-twentieth century, the
United States took over from the United
Kingdom as the outside power o record.
By the 1970s, it had to deal with the
residue o the Six-Day War, in which
Israel captured territory from Egypt,
Jordan, and Syria. U.S. Secretary o State
Henry Kissinger used American diplo-
macy to facilitate the transfer o land for
peace, setting in motion decades o what
is now known as “the Middle East peace
process.” But by 2016, that process had
ground to a halt. Most incoming admin-
istrations would have tried to get it
going again. Instead, President Donald
Trump pulled the plug.
Martin Indyk explains how the
administration abandoned a hal century
o U.S. policy for a dream o hegemony
on the cheap—continued U.S. with-
drawal, with the containment o IranTRUMP’S MIDDLE EAST
03_Comment_div_Blues.indd 8 9/23/19 3:12 PM