Foreign Affairs - 11.2019 - 12.2019

Disaster in the Desert

November/December 2019 11

macy to reconcile Israel and its Arab

neighbors. In many respects, his e  orts

and those that followed were strikingly

successful, producing peace treaties

between Israel and Egypt and between

Israel and Jordan, as well as an interim

agreement with the Palestinians.

Progress stalled during the twenty-rst

century, however, as the second intifada

dashed hopes for Israeli-Palestinian

reconciliation, the Iraq war empowered a

revolutionary Iran, and the Arab Spring

destabilized the region and triggered the

rise o the Islamic State, or  ­ ­.

Whoever won the presidency in 2016,

therefore, would have faced a bleak

diplomatic landscape in the Middle

East. Any recent administration would

have responded to this situation by

going back to basics and painstakingly

trying to reconstruct the order Kis-

singer built, since it has, on balance,

served U.S. interests well. Instead, the

Trump administration decided to blow

up what was left.

This is not reckless mayhem or mere

domestic politics, goes the oŠcial line,

but creative destruction—demolition

necessary to clear the ground for a grand

new diplomatic structure opening soon.

The brochures look great; they always do.

But it is just another illusion.

Let’s make a deal: Melania Trump, Donald Trump, and King Salman in Riyadh, May 2017

UPI / ALAMY

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