Opinion | A Gaza ceasefire on the eve of Trump
By Tom Fowdy
With just days of the Biden administration left to go, a ceasefire has been agreed between Israel and Hamas over their war in the Gaza Strip. Fighting will formally pause on Sunday, although the devil remains in the details as to how such an agreement can be transferred into a permanent peace. The Gaza Strip lies in a state of devastation, overwhelmed by destruction, poverty, disease, and famine, a byproduct of Israel's very destructive campaign against it in retaliation to the events of Oct. 7, 2023, initiated by Hamas.
The timing is not a coincidence. There will be a change of Presidential administration. The Trump presidency will of course be as fanatically pro-Israel as any other administration would be, yet they have little interest in managing a destructive Middle East conflict. Likewise, the Biden administration sees clinching this deal now as another one of its "legacy moves", decisive foreign policy acts which come on the closing days of a presidency to lock in successors into a specific direction. It is, presumably on both sides, not seen as in the US national interest to continue this war.
On the contrary, however, the US is probably satisfied that its strategic gains have been maximized through its enabling of Israel's campaign. The fundamental argument put forward by the Biden administration is that Iran has been decisively weakened. Although Israel's goal of removing Hamas from power in Gaza has not been met, Benjamin Netanyahu nonetheless decapitated the leadership of Hezbollah in an extraordinary campaign and then seizing the opportunity in conjunction with Turkey the US worked to topple the Assad regime in Syria.
I can only concede from this that Iran's "axis of resistance" as it was called, was seriously set back, even as Israel has suffered severe reputational damage and global disdain for its acts. However, the West's willingness to permanently ignore this at the elite level means nothing will change in practice, even as it comes at the expense of undermining their own credibility and global rule of law. With the ceasefire in place, this will be kicked down the road and we should duly expect that Benjamin Netanyahu will never be held accountable for his actions.
Moving on from this, we should expect the United States under the Trump administration to take the following directions: First of all, without anticipation of direct war, he has placed strident Iran hawks in his cabinet such as Marco Rubio who will absolutely be seeking to escalate pressure on Tehran. Some of the most extreme NeoConservatives will be eying up regime change, and whether that's likely or not, it will absolutely be tempting enough for US sanctions to increasingly escalate. The US of course, does not want Iranian reproachment with the rest of the Middle East because its foreign policy strategy is fundamentally opposed to any region making peace with itself to the point that America is no longer mandated as a security guarantor, undermining its power projection.
Therefore, what will happen? The US will resume its campaign to push regional countries towards isolating Iran by recognizing Israel, and the chief target is Saudi Arabia. Now the Biden administration has already tried and largely failed, because of the war in Gaza, but the door is now open with the ceasefire, albeit Israel will be expected to make some credible concessions on a two-state solution (and there's little evidence to believe they would do so). This of course is a contradiction the Trump administration will fail to diplomatically straddle because it will be more prone to accepting Israel's expansionism either way. It is finally worth noting that the Biden administration also attempted to leverage defence and energy deals to try and lock Saudi Arabia into making Anti-China commitments and making it a "South Korea tier" US ally. However, this presumably failed because the Saudis see the importance of geopolitical balancing, but we should not assume they will not try again, and it nonetheless shows a blueprint of the vision the United States has for the region.
Their goal is to sustain their dominance over the Middle East, with Israel being the military centrepiece of their security order. The US has subsequently utilized a strategy going back over 50 years to remove or contain all regimes in the region that are hostile to them and to steer its security architecture in their favor while locking out rival powers. The events which were triggered by Oct. 7 have been painful for Israel, but Washington is ultimately pleased that it has helped advance that overriding grand strategy and weaken Iran, which is why this politically preferential ceasefire has come into place now.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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