{"id":32459,"date":"2025-06-24T12:43:57","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T12:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=32459"},"modified":"2025-06-24T12:43:57","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T12:43:57","slug":"trumps-fragile-peace-in-the-middle-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=32459","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s fragile peace in the Middle East"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description o3-type-body-base\">Your guide to what Trump\u2019s second term means for Washington, business and the world<\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=82ecd049-340d-49e4-9ca7-575b31d035ce&amp;newsletter-id=65b8fec772badb00166eafc6\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>\u201cThe 12 day war\u201d has a certain ring to it. By giving the conflict between Iran, Israel and the US that title, Donald Trump is doing two things. First, the US president is trying to draw a definitive line under the fighting. Second, he is suggesting that the past 12 days of warfare will be a reordering moment for the Middle East \u2014 similar to the six-day war of 1967, in which Israel defeated Egypt, Syria and Jordan.<\/p>\n<p>Will either of these claims stand the test of time? Within hours of Trump\u2019s announcement of the ceasefire, Israel had accused Iran of violating it \u2014 and vowed a forceful response. Trump, in turn, responded with a profanity-laced instruction to both parties to pull back. <\/p>\n<p>It could be that this is just a case of two fighters exchanging a last flurry of blows after the bell \u2014 and that the worst fighting is genuinely over. Alternatively, Trump\u2019s proclamation of \u201cPEACE\u201d may turn out to be wishful thinking \u2014 underlining once again that the US is not in control of events in the region.<\/p>\n<p>Although the ceasefire is clearly fragile, it is a plausible signal that the conflict is now winding down. Even so, that is more likely to mark a pause in hostilities between Israel and Iran \u2014 rather than the definitive new start that Trump is searching for.<\/p>\n<p>The Islamic Republic of Iran is clearly badly battered. But it is still intact for now. Rather than changing the Iranian leadership\u2019s worldview, the conflict will have confirmed its underlying assumptions \u2014 that Israel and the US are very dangerous enemies. <\/p>\n<p>As a result, the Iranian leadership will now look for ways to rebuild their military strength and domestic legitimacy. Vali Nasr, author of <em>Iran\u2019s Grand Strategy<\/em> argues that the regime is \u201cnot in a mindset to say we can\u2019t deal with the Israel threat, let\u2019s just make peace with it.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Rebuilding Iran\u2019s nuclear and ballistic missile programme \u2014 and its network of regional proxies \u2014 will be very difficult; but perhaps not impossible. And Iran now also has every incentive to look for new ways of striking back at Israel.<\/p>\n<p>In Nasr\u2019s view, the regime\u2019s \u201cgreatest vulnerability right now is the population\u201d. Efforts to rebuild a domestic support base are likely to concentrate on appeals to nationalism in the face of an external threat.<\/p>\n<p>Without regime change in Iran \u2014 or a definitive shift in mentality \u2014 Israel\u2019s apparent triumph in the 12-day war will be far from guaranteed. The Israelis have demonstrated extraordinary military and intelligence capabilities. But they have also shown that, in the last resort, they are still dependent on the US to come in and finish the job.<\/p>\n<p>Since the Islamic Republic is not definitively defeated, Israel and the US need to find alternative ways of securing the peace in the region.<\/p>\n<p>But, in the aftermath of the Hamas attack of October 7 2023, peacemaking has gone out of fashion in Israel. The Netanyahu government and most of its plausible successors seem instead committed to a national security strategy based on regional hegemony. That has been established for now. But, for a country of ten million people, in a region of several hundred million, it will always remain a tenuous achievement.<\/p>\n<p>Trump is clearly determined to go down in history as a peacemaker \u2014 and recently reiterated his view that he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The people around the president have long wanted to build upon the Abraham Accords, signed in Washington during Trump\u2019s first term, which saw Israel normalise relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan.<\/p>\n<p>But normalising relations between Israel and Iran \u2014 two countries that have just fought a war and that remain bitter enemies \u2014 will be incomparably harder. The Trump team is also short on diplomatic firepower. Neither Marco Rubio or Steve Witkoff \u2014 the US secretary of state and special envoy \u2014 look like modern Henry Kissingers.<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s evocation of the memory of the six-day war of 1967 is double-edged. Six years later in 1973, Israel was once again at war with Egypt and Syria.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/82ecd049-340d-49e4-9ca7-575b31d035ce\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what Trump\u2019s second term means for Washington,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":32460,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}