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by Amir Taheri • March 4, 2018 at
5:00 am
- The first reason that
so many deal-makers have failed is that peace is never
negotiated and is always imposed by the side that wins a war.
There is not any instance in history, which is primarily a
narrative of countless wars, in which an outsider has imposed
peace on unwilling belligerents.
- The second reason is
that outside deal-makers have their interests and agendas which
make an already tangled web even more complicated. For example,
in the case of American deal-makers, how to win Jewish votes in
the US without antagonizing the Arabs who sell us oil and buy
our arms?
- The third reason is
that whenever a status quo is at least tolerable for both
belligerents, the desire for risking it in the hope of an
ill-defined peace is diminished. Many people in the world live
with a status quo they don't regard as ideal.
- There is one thing
that Trump the deal-maker could do. He could ask the Israelis
and the Palestinians to work on an agreement, each in their own
camp, on what they exactly want, and report to him.
(Image
source: White House)
Casting himself as the best friend Israel could hope
for, President Donald Trump is promising, some may say threatening,
to unveil his grand plan for a peace "deal" to end the
so-called "Middle East problem".
Trump has always fancied himself as a deal-maker; he
has even written a book on the subject. It is, therefore, no surprise
that he might want to put his skill to use on an issue which has
defied numerous deal-makers for six decades.
What are the chances of him succeeding? The short
answer is: nil!
This is no reflection on Trump's talent for
deal-making. The problem with the "Middle East problem" is
that those who tried to solve it never managed to define it and, as a
result, sacrificed the existential reality on the ground to the
essential abstraction of elusive ideals.
The current phase of the saga began in 1945 at the end
of the Second World War.
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