What happened to Trump's Middle East plan?

Within Trump's policy on the Middle East there are three important steps that seem hard to reconcile with one another. All three steps relate both to Turkey and to Israel, and with the way these steps are entangled with one another, it is possible to say that the necessity has arisen to reread, anew and with a different eye, an entire set of approaches to international relations through the USA's plans in the Middle East.

Starting from the last, Trump's Syria policy, which has recently been criticized for making too many concessions to Turkey, is assessed to have wrecked in particular Israel's plans, which have continued for 60 years and are expected to mark the coming century.

Second, the Deal of the Century, the putting into effect of the well-known plan to normalize the Middle Eastern Arab peoples' relations with Israel and to have Jerusalem accepted as Israel's capital. The first step taken in line with this decision was the USA's announcement that it recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Frankly, not even Israel expected this much. By taking, with a sudden decision, the step that no US president had ever dared to take, Trump on the one hand delighted Israel and on the other drew the anger of all the Arab streets. What the next steps would be, though not fully clear, according to the picture that has emerged so far, was for the Arab states too to accept this plan. The support that the Arab heads of state, gathered in Bahrain on Kushner's initiative, gave this plan led to serious divisions and debates among themselves as well.

Trump's third step regarding the Middle East, or the stance he has displayed toward the situation that has emerged, is the wide area of protection he has opened for the Crown Prince over the Khashoggi murder. This protection can be explained, in his own words, by the large-scale material exchange he has been carrying on with Saudi Arabia, but undoubtedly the matter is also related to a debt of loyalty paid for the support the Crown Prince promised in the Deal of the Century, conducted under the coordination of his son-in-law Kushner. The weight of the price paid to the Crown Prince for Israel's sake can become a subject of criticism even by Jewish lobbies in American public opinion.

In sum, these three stances of Trump are far from pleasing Israel. While the last step taken regarding Turkey is assessed to have nullified the earlier steps as well, as for the Deal of the Century, things are not going at all as well as supposed. The normalizing steps promised on behalf of Arab countries are not being taken, and the Arab streets are reinforcing the stance that regards normalizing relations with Israel as the greatest betrayal.

In the November and December issue of Foreign Policy there is an article titled "Why Trump's Middle East Plan Can't Work" by Martin Indyk, who was also formerly the US ambassador to Israel and is the author of the book "Henry Kissinger and the Art of Middle East Agreement." While giving important information about the background of the Deal of the Century, which has made Trump a hero of Israel and the Zionist Jewish lobbies, Indyk also explains that the plan is far from reality and has no chance of working.

According to the information Indyk gives, the essence of the plan rests on an agreement between Kushner and MBS.

Although MBS generously promised to support this plan to the end, it has become clear over time that he did not have the power to deliver the support he promised. MBS had promised Kushner that Saudi Arabia would remain silent against Trump's decision to recognize Israel and that any voices that might arise on the Arab streets would be silenced within three months at most. At the same time, in 2017 he promised to seat the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas at the negotiating table on the terms Trump wanted, and in return offered him a 10 billion dollar bribe, but this offer was rejected by Abbas.

This calculation by MBS, who proceeded from the assumption that bribery would always be more effective than coercion toward Palestinians and the peoples of the Middle East, now produces a sense of great fiasco because it has underestimated more than it should the Palestinians' sensitivities about Jerusalem and their culture of resistance. Now the issue, even in this milieu, is what condition working in the Middle East under MBS's guidance has put the USA in. Bribery has not worked as a key opening the door to Jerusalem not only with the Palestinians but also with King Abdullah of Jordan. Even the threat of cutting off the aid he receives from the USA every year could not convince King Abdullah of Jordan to join the Deal of the Century plan.

Of course, the real matter that MBS could not calculate, and through this lack of calculation misled Trump, is that his own father, King Salman bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia, has strongly rejected this plan. According to Indyk, this was in fact not something that could not be calculated. Despite all his good relations with the USA, it would be excessively fanciful to expect any Saudi Arabian king to give up Jerusalem and the Palestinians entirely.

Through all these lines of policy, what kind of Middle Eastern political map of the USA is emerging, is there anyone who can see and show it? By which guides has the mighty USA been tripped up, to suffer such an amateurish disorder in its foreign policy?