Ironically, the Middle East failures of the last two administrations readied the stage for President Trump’s success. The Iraq War launched by the Bush administration (with the support of Democrats like Joe Biden, of course) destroyed the Saddam Hussein regime that had kept a check on Iranian power. More than that, it destabilized Iraq, and ultimately Syria as well, in ways that created channels for wider Iranian influence. The Obama administration then exacerbated these conditions with the JCPOA “Iran Deal” that further loosened restraints on the Islamic Republic. Bush’s war and Obama’s idea of peace both built-up Iranian power.
The expanding reach of Tehran in turn changed strategic calculations for Gulf states like the Emirates. UAE joined Saudi Arabia in a bloody proxy war with Iran over Yemen. Now, as a more peaceful kind of balancing, UAE is strengthening its relationship with Israel, the heaviest counterweight to Iran. More choice of partners means more freedom in the tangled politics of the Persian Gulf, and UAE’s opening to Israel will also in the long run give the Emirates more room to maneuver with Saudi Arabia…
The collapse of the Israeli left over the past two decades has altered the terms of engagement with the Arab world as well: the prospect of any generous deal for the Palestinians appears negligible, and the possibility may have been a phantom of the liberal imagination all along. But while such a possibility was at least conceivable, it encouraged the Arabs to hold out. Today everyone knows the “Two-State Solution” is a mirage, and why let a mirage stand in the way of real strategic and economic interests?
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