Barely a month has passed on President Trump in the White House as 47th President of the US, yet the statements he makes and decisions he takes, especially those that concern American foreign policy, have raised eyebrows far and wide. In an attempt to make sense of his declarations and policies, we look to analysts and politicians for their viewpoints on how Mr Trump’s words and actions reverberate through a world suffering from conflicts and looking to world superpowers to avoid bloodbaths. However, judging by his statements and decisions, it seems President Trump is eager to fuel conflicts rather than contain them. Today I review this very issue which was the topic of an interview with American political scientist and international relations scholar John Mearsheimer. The interview was aired on 12 February on The Spectator’s podcast Americano presented by Freddy Gray. At 77, Professor Mearsheimer, is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. I own that I am an eager follower of Professor Mearsheimer’s political analysis, for his wisdom and clear vision on current events. In this interview, Professor Mearsheimer attempted to answer the question: “Does Trump’s foreign policy make any sense?” The episode covered Mr Trump’s stances concerning the Middle East, Ukraine, Iran and China. Today I present Professor Mearsheimer’s views on President Trump’s Middle East positions.
Freddy Gray: What are your broad-brush impressions of Trump’s foreign policy in his second term? Has it differed in any way to what you expected?
Professor Mearsheimer: “I think that basically what Trump is trying to do at this point in time is to sort of create chaos on all fronts, make a number of wild assertions, put forward policy ideas that are never going to be realised. I think the hope on his part is that out of all this chaos that he’s creating, he can come up with some sort of formidable grand strategy that solves all the big problems that the United States and the West face, and in the end fashion a coherent grand strategy that deals with these different problems. But at this point in time, what we really have is him making a lot of wild and crazy statements. The idea that Canada is going to become the 51st State, that we’re going to take back the Panama Canal, that we’re going to grab Greenland, that the United States is going to go into Gaza and ethnically cleanse the Palestinians, and then turn it into the Riviera of the Middle East, all these ideas are basically outlandish, and you would not expect a new president to start off by making a whole set of comments like that.”
Do you think that the Israelis have a point when they say that Trump is thinking out of the box? This is what Netanyahu says… Attempts to find some kind of compromise have always failed going back to 1948.
“You’re asking me is there a solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict?…The answer is no; there was no way you were going to solve this one, because the Israelis from the beginning have wanted all of Greater Israel. They were never interested in giving the Palestinians a State of their own; this is a myth that we purvey in the west, so that we can support Israel fully… The best that the Israelis were able to come up with was where they basically locked the Palestinians in Gaza in a gigantic openair prison, and they thought they could manage that problem. That looked like it worked up until October 7th. Israelis would like to cleanse Gaza, that’s been their policy goal since October 7th to cleanse Gaza, they want to get rid of all the Palestinians. The question is do you think this is a viable or an ethical solution?… I don’t think the Palestinians are going to leave… What’s the viable solution that Trump has? What does this thinking outside of the box add up to? Is what he is thinking logical? Is it viable? Is it morally correct? I don’t think it’s any of those things.”
What a lot of people are speculating is that what Trump was trying to do was pressure the neighbouring Arab States to come up with viable solutions of their own possibly rebuilding Gaza themselves, paying for it and possibly trying to look after some of the Palestinian people who have been displaced. Jordan seems to be rebuffing Trump a bit more forcefully at the moment, whereas Egypt has suggested that it would like to come up with a reconstruction plan for Gaza. So perhaps this is bluster from Trump that’s achieving leverage over those Arab States.
“I don’t believe that at all. It’s actually united the Arab States in the region; there’s universal agreement among the Arab and Islamic world that this is morally reprehensible, that this is the Palestinians’ land, that the United States and Israel have absolutely no right to push them out… The last thing Jordan wants is to create a huge enclave for more Palestinians inside its borders, and Egypt is thinking the same way… The question is whether or not the Jordanians and the Egyptians will cave. The Jordanians made it clear that that’s not going to happen, and Sisi cancelled his trip to Washington because he doesn’t want to be humiliated by Trump, and he wants to make it clear that he’s not going to go along either. So the Palestinians are not going to leave, the Egyptians are not going to take them, the Jordanians are not going to take them… Where does that leave us?”
Trump’s move has exposed a certain hypocrisy among the Arab States which is that there is an astronomical bill to fix Gaza which neighbouring States are not willing to pay. Yet they are willing to condemn Israel and the United States; they’re not willing to take part in any solutions Trump is pushing them into.
“Why should the neighbouring States pay for what Israel and the United States did in Gaza? The United States and Israel destroyed Gaza, the Israelis were executing a genocide… Trump sits there with Netanyahu and they talk about Gaza now being unliveable, and they talk about all the destruction in Gaza and the fact that the Palestinians cannot live there; it has been so thoroughly wrecked. The question is: Who wrecked Gaza? The answer is the Israelis… It’s the Israelis and the Americans who destroyed Gaza, not the Egyptians or the Jordanians.”
What exactly is the Israeli lobby?
“It’s a group of individuals and organisations in the United States that are profoundly committed to making sure that the United States supports Israel unconditionally. It’s very important to understand that the United States has a relationship with Israel that has no parallel in recorded history. The United States and Israel despite the fact they sometimes have different interests, this is not to deny that they sometimes have the same interest… In those cases, the lobby works overtime to make sure that the United States supports Israel unconditionally and that’s what the special relationship is all about. The lobby is, I believe, the most powerful lobby or interest group in the history of the United States, and it wields enormous influence, and if any president pursues a policy in the Middle East that the Israelis adamantly oppose, you can rest assured that the lobby will go to work on Israel’s behalf and push that American leader to support Israel.”
Even though President Trump has been in the White House for merely a month, the imprint of the Israeli lobby is quite evident when he brags that he will occupy Gaza to create “the Middle East Riviera”. All this is but aligning with the Israeli whims.
I will present in an upcoming editorial Mr Mearsheimer’s view on Trump’s irrational policies in other regions including Ukraine, Iran and China.
Watani International
21 February 2025
