What Trump is doing in the Middle East
My friend and journalist / commentator Melanie Phillips wrote this article today and I think it embodies the confusion of many people about what Trump is doing in the Middle East.
https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/the-gold-plated-peacenik-in-the-white
I wrote an email in response which I thought I should share more broadly.
Hi Melanie, while I often agree with you, this article is a fundamental misunderstanding of both what the proper relationship between the US and Israel is and what Trump is doing.
Firstly, it is important to focus on reality - Trump has supplied Israel with everything it has ordered and paid for.
He has not stopped Israel doing anything and his tactics for getting hostages returned are effective.
Of course the US should be negotiating to get their citizen out of Gaza’s dungeons using every tool at their disposal, but not infringing Israel’s sovereignty. Every respectable country should be doing the same.
Houthis
Israel is a Great Power in ascendancy. It has decisively and strategically defeated all its enemies - some completely wiped out - and neutered the Iran octopus by cutting off all its tentacles. These are the greatest victories, at the lowest cost, in all the annals of warfare.
Its military prowess and societal strength combined with its strategic location, high fertility and high tech brilliance are unparalleled.
Israel does not need or want the US to fight for it. Zionism requires Israel to defend itself by itself.
Hence the US attacked the Houthis, not because Israel wanted this, but because the Houthis disrupted Freedom of Navigation and caused huge economic damage to many countries, but none to Israel. All the Anglo powers (US, UK, Australia, Canada) are highly dependent on free ocean trade. Israel is not.
While the US military is operating well below peak performance after years of Woke and bloat, it hit the Houthis hard enough to stop them attacking ships. Thus: Job Done.
Israel was able to cause the Houthis far more damage than the US in a single afternoon and turn the Houthi's asymmetrical warfare on its head. A few million $ of Israeli bombs cost Yemen tens of billions in economic damage. It also showed how the IDF is far more effective than the US Military.
India - Pakistan
I don’t think you understand what happened last week.
India inflicted a devastating defeat on Pakistan, destroying numerous critical military bases and almost decapitating, pager-style, the Pakistani military. Their nuclear facilities were hit and their drones failed to penetrate India’s multi-layered AD.
They were left naked and afraid. Trump did nothing other than receive the Pakistani surrender.
India also established a very important rule - all terrorist attacks will be considered an act of war by the sponsoring state and a massive response will be forthcoming.
Israel had started on this path with Iran but has not yet fully followed through. India has now led the way.
Iran’s entire global strategy of power projection via proxies is not only destroyed by Israel but invalidated by India.
Qatar
Qatar is literally a gas station masquerading as a country.
A few naval drones hitting key energy infrastructure would end them.
They backed Iran and Hamas and now their bets have failed and they are looking to change tack and invest elsewhere.
The plane and the billions investment are a desperate payoff to the US to avoid imminent execution - the fate that awaits Iran's Mullahs.
Qatar's Emir was the condemned prisoner offering the King his fortune for a chance to reform.
The plane was a great trick by Trump. Suddenly everyone is talking about Qatari influence payments. This exposure undermines their effectiveness.
Iran
Israel holds all the cards on Iran and the US must dance to its tune.
This is because Israel can hit Iran very hard and wipe out its nukes and Iran can’t respond effectively against Israel. Its long range missiles are faulty, ineffective and can’t penetrate Israel’s defence. Plus it has used much of its arsenal and can’t build more due to Israeli strikes and port explosion. Its proxies are finished. It is impotent against Israel.
But Iran CAN threaten US Gulf allies and US bases in Iraq & Syria with medium range missiles and these are not defended by a multi-layer shield like Israel. It can also disrupt the oil trade and cause prices to spike.
None of this matters to Israel. The Israeli economy is immune to the oil price and no Israeli politician ever lost an election because of prices at the pump.
If Israel decides to hit Iran the US MUST also hit Iran’s medium range missiles, navy assets etc to prevent these bad things (for the US) happening.
Syria
No question that Jolani is an ISIS terrorist.
But he is also a realist and acknowledges Israel’s vast military superiority and the failure of the terrorist model.
As a good Muslim he is adopting a long term Hudna.
This means peace with Syria is possible, with IDF retention of key captured ground (like Hermon) and recognition of Israeli protection of the Druse.
Land for Peace. We take their land in a just war and get peace (or at least long term Hudna).
Same formula in Lebanon.
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Wow. Fantastic work, going to be sharing this a lot!
Thanks.
These thoughts have been bubbling around for a while and Melanie's article both helped refine them and caused me to write them down.
I was seeing the same confusion in friends and other pro-Israel people on X.
Syria now cannot be trusted... Even if a peace is done, it will just give the Islamic terrorist jolani time to build up and army, get big equipment from turkey and then treat Israel... For how many dislike Assad he was not a jihadist, he didn't want to while out all non Muslim... Syria now is not else than a caliphate
Houti are just annoying, someone should wipe them out for good, iran can't back them up anymore
Iran is now weakened, Syria is lost, in Lebanon hezbollah got heavily weaken
No one is trusting Syria.
Any peace deal with Israel will severely limit what the Syrian military can have. Israel wiped out the 2nd most powerful military in the ME in 96 hours. Its not letting Syria get any heavy weaponry.
Turkey can't equip Syria with very much in any case. It produces far less range of defence products than Israel and of way lower quality.
Interesting perspective, good read.
That is wishful thinking. Let's just pick Turkey as an example. They aren't too far away.
Compared to them Israel is a glass cannon. They could just march Israel down, no matter how sophisticated Israel struck back.
I would also not underestimate Iran. Talking about Great Powers: Persia was one of the first. These are for the most part the same dudes. They just have madmen in power right now.
But anyways - I think you are probably right with most of the predictions.
Turkey would be swatted aside. Their armor is ancient and their air force if it came near Israel would be destroyed easily by our short range interceptors. If shooting down Hamas rockets and Houti missiles is commonplace, slow moving fighter jets are trivial.
Besides driving armor through Syria without air cover will not happen.
I don't doubt that, but that wasn't my point.
I also think this would be highly unlikely scenario.
A land invasion is not going to happen.
A Great Power can invade places, embargo ports... bully nations, basically.
I just picked Turkey as a nation, that is pretty closeby and there is no way, Israel could dominate them like (another random example) Great Britain could fuck with India, and China. Or how the Sowjets bullied the nations around them.
I think am not moving the goalpost here...
My point was about being a Great Power (in ascencion).
I play a lot of Victoria...
Your are confusing the term Great Power with Superpower or global empire (British Empire).
A Great Power is a nation that dominates its neighbourhood.
The IDF is far more powerful that the Turkish military.
The IDF has a far more powerful, better equipped and experienced Air Force, far better equipped and larger front line combat forces that have proven extremely effective in the most difficult environment - urban warfare.
Turkey does not have front line tanks and would be absolutely smashed in armoured warfare.
The only area where Turkey is substantially larger is in the Navy, but it is mostly quite old and would be quickly sunk by the IAF if Turkey brought it near Israel.
Note that the Turkish Army has really struggled against the poorly armed Kurds over the last decade while the IDF utterly wiped out the most powerful non-state group in the world (Hizbollah) with very low casualties on its side. Hiz was far more powerful and better armed and trained than any NATO army other than US and perhaps Turkey.
Notice that when Turkey tried to take over air bases in Syria a month or so ago the IAF just wiped out everything and Turkey backed down.
Iran has no tanks, no modern aircraft, no mobile artillery and basically has an army completely incapable of offensive operations. Static defence only.
Its missiles don't work and Israel's air defence is way too good.
Note that while Turkey and Iran have larger populations, their fertility is less than half Israel's and thus Israel has a lot more military age population than its overall population (10.2M) would suggest. Also most Israelis do serious military service while most Turks do not.
Willingness to fight for country in well over 90% in Israel and much lower in Turkey and Iran.
Thus even on raw numbers neither Turkey nor Iran have the combat power their populations might suggest.
At the height of the British Empire in 1805 when Nelson won the Battle of Trafalgar, the UK had only 11M people and lower effective fertility than Israel today.
Israel fields the most powerful military between the US and Russia & India. No European power or ME power is anywhere close.
Agree. Maybe not in every stat, but they also have a lot of veterans and general experience.
Now to go somewhere and invade a place is a whole different matter.
Yeah but GB had vassals, the ANZAC troops, the Gurkhas...
They had boots on the ground.
Israel dominates the airspace, no doubt.
And also the whole intelligence spy stuff.
At least in Victoria and Civ and such, that can only get you so far...
...anyways, I don't want to drag this out.
Your piece seems pretty pragmatic and applies to what's actually going on, while all I was commenting on was the great Power thing, because I play strategy games a lot :)
You can't trade land for peace, because the people who previously had that land will always want it back. If that formula worked, the Middle East would be peaceful right now.
You didn't read my post properly. Agree that trading land for peace does not work.
But its because giving away land is seen as weakness by Muslims and true peace between Muslims and others is impossible. Islam only allows temporary truces (Hudna) until the Muslims are strong enough to strike and win.
So what I am advocating is that Israel takes land that was historically Jewish in a just war - because we were attacked. And peace results because the Muslims know that Israel is too strong to beat at the moment.
That's the best that can be achieved.
That's just the status quo.
Great read. I hope you‘re right.
Why is Israel immune to the oil price? Strategic reserves?
There are a few reasons Israel is immune to the oil price:
The Israeli economy developed in the shadow of Arab boycotts and oil shortage. Pump prices has always been high and the economy developed in ways to not be hostage to the oil price. Israel's economy is mainly medium and high tech - high value, low weight items with generally low energy inputs. Mostly exported by internet or air, not sea - this is also why Houthi Red Sea blockade had immaterial impact on Israel.
Israel is now a net energy exporter. It has huge gas reserves and is a major gas exporter. It also has excellent solar energy potential.
Israel is small, so transport distances are short and the move to electric vehicles has been strong, making it even less reliant on oil than in the past. Electricity & gas in Israel is far cheaper than Europe.