Donald Trump seized opportunities while others succumbed to opportunism
Ever since Trump’s return to the presidency, he has been widely portrayed as a buffoon, whose erratic approach to world affairs would condemn the United States to ridicule, isolation and ultimate irrelevance.
Declining economically, deeply divided politically and with its core executive agencies, such as the State Department, shorn of their best minds, America was, we were repeatedly told, reduced to flapping and gasping on the world stage like a large, moribund fish writhing in agony on the deck of a trawler.
As the US withdrew from the scene, it was the sensitive Europeans, and “progressive” governments such as our own, with their faith in the “international community” and the “rules-based international order”, that would lay the basis, in the Middle East as elsewhere, for peace. And the crucial step, of course, was to recognise the non-existent state of Palestine – a move that would, for reasons shrouded in mystery, supposedly advance peace instead of promoting the very terrorism it was so plainly rewarding.
Trapped in idea clots that barely rise to the level of cliches, it is the proponents of those views, and not Trump, who have proven entirely irrelevant at best, harmful at worst. Rather, if there is now a chance of a respite for Gazans and Israelis alike, and for the release of the hostages from the savagery of Hamas and its partners in crime, it is for two reasons.
The first is the Israeli attack on Iran, followed by the flawlessly executed American bombing raid, which showcased both the US’s formidable military might and – every bit as importantly – Trump’s willingness to do as he says.
The effect on the Arab states was electric. Hesitant until then about placing effective pressure on Hamas, they were brought to their senses by that sheer show of force, and by Trump’s subsequent threat that Hamas, unless it accepted an agreement, would face Armageddon. It wasn’t the snivelling Europeans, Canadians or Australians who could credibly provide the leaders of the Arab states with security or, alternatively, seriously endanger their hold on power; it was the US, and the US alone.
And the price of getting the good side of that bargain was to ensure Trump got what he wanted.
But all that would have been futile had it not been for a second factor: Israel’s success on the field of battle, which ensured that both Hamas and the Arab states knew the Armageddon Trump threatened was a realistic possibility.
It is a foolish but widespread mistake to pin that success on technological superiority. No doubt, it has played a role. But what has really counted, and transformed that superiority into tangible results, is the courage, initiative and devotion to duty of the young men and women of the IDF who have put their lives on the line in the horrific conditions of dense urban warfare against a foe utterly contemptuous of the rules of war.
Clausewitz famously termed the qualities those young men and women displayed the “moral force” that though it “will not yield to academic wisdom”, would forever be the critical determinant of success in the moment of combat, “where every man, down to the individual soldier, is on his own”. When the conflict erupted, Yahya Sinwar believed that while “the Zionists had many weapons”, “the Jew” would never be able to “confront the Muslim face to face”. Now Sinwar too has met his fate.
What made those soldiers’ “moral force” all the greater was the shock effect on Israeli society of October 7. Confronted with the atrocities Hamas perpetrated on that day – and the Palestinian Authority’s staunch refusal, only reversed a few weeks ago, to condemn them – whatever trust Israelis might previously have placed in agreements with terrorists evaporated, probably forever.
Benjamin Netanyahu was consequently in a position to make sure Israel did not repeat the mistake it had made four times in Lebanon, of buckling to domestic and international pressure to withdraw before the Islamists’ ability to strike again had been severely degraded, if not destroyed.
And precisely because “the first duty of a government” is, as Winston Churchill put it in deriding the appeasers, “to keep its citizens safe”, Netanyahu was rightly willing to pay the price of being condemned by those Western leaders, such as our own, who do not have to live next to terrorists, so as to advance Israel’s long-term security.
The cost, both to Israelis and Palestinians, of the war Hamas unleashed has been absolutely devastating. Given that Hamas’s core strategy has always been to view the deaths of innocent civilians not as a tragedy but as an asset, which helps it galvanise into action the Western dupes who are its surest allies, that was unavoidable.
Echoing, and putting into practice Osama bin Laden’s taunt to the West that “We love death as you love life”, the Islamists felt no qualms about condemning their own people to destruction. Indeed, it was the Israelis alone who showed any practical concern for the civilians Hamas persistently prevented from fleeing the areas where the fighting was at its most intense.
Meanwhile, Hamas’s equally adamant refusal to free the hostages made the toll even greater than it needed to be.
Writing in the wake of the English Civil War, which caused proportionately more deaths than World War I, Thomas Hobbes argued that nothing more surely “instructs” human beings into an abiding love of peace than experiencing the “calamity of warre”, which “is the greatest evil that can happen in this life”. Whether that insight, which was amply borne out in Germany and Japan, will apply to the people of Gaza, who have for years been indoctrinated into hatred, is hard to say.
What is clear, however, is that had Barack Obama or Joe Biden been president, the prospects for peace would be far poorer than they now are. At least so far, Trump has not only displayed a realism that completely eluded his smug and sanctimonious predecessors; he has also demonstrated a dogged commitment to getting results and a willingness to seek opportunities, rather than succumb to opportunism, that puts them – and our own leaders – to shame.
Most of all, what Trump has shown is an understanding of the need to accompany promises with credible threats.
In a world where the notion of an “international community” is just pious hot air, and where the “rules-based order” all too often protects the ruler-breakers at the expense of the rule-keepers, thus encouraging the very barbarism it was intended to deter, nothing could be more consequential.
Doing all that has involved addressing intractable obstacles and taking great risks. If they bring the people of the Middle East closer to the peace they so desperately need, Donald Trump will have more than earned his Nobel prize.
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While the details of the peace deal between Israel and Hamas remain to be seen, as does the durability of any pause in the fighting, having come this far is an extraordinary achievement for Donald Trump and for the exercise of American power.