By Wayne Allensworth
In only a couple of weeks, I believe that President Donald Trump has exceeded the expectations of his supporters. On Inauguration Day, the barrage directed at “The Swamp” to dismantle the Deep State began, and it could not have come too soon. Watching Trump’s enemies screech about a “constitutional crisis” because an Elon Musk directed DOGE is turning over bureaucratic rocks and uncovering the very nasty worms beneath is amusing and gratifying. That will prompt more than a few fist pumps out in the heartland. It also shows why the Blob and its drones are panicky about the prospect of Tulsi Gabbard’s becoming Director of National Intelligence, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., taking over at Health and Human Services, or Kash Patel heading the FBI. The Blob has secrets to keep and believes itself and its pod people are the guardians of “our democracy” by right. The commoners have no business finding out what they were up to, such as USAID spending American tax dollars on DEI musicals in South America or promoting sexual deviancy in the Balkans. It was all part of the grand globalist plan, a plan the unanointed were not supposed to see, like Jeffery Epstein’s client list.
Thus, in a very short time Trump has taken on the aura of a larger-than-life folk hero, a political Paul Bunyan, a blustery 21st century Pecos Bill. The tidal wave of Internet memes mocking his enemies and celebrating the one-time reality TV star attests to that.
However, Trump’s “America First” program contains one obvious flaw: Its obsession with Israel, which now includes, he says, simply taking over the Gaza Strip:
America will never be entirely “first” or formulate a truly coherent, independent foreign policy as long as Capitol Hill and the White House remain, to paraphrase Pat Buchanan, Israeli occupied territory. American interests often go by the wayside when it comes to the Middle East, though Trump did apparently pressure the Israelis into a Gaza ceasefire. But at what price?
The notion that America is joined at the hip with Israel forever is an idea all too many Americans, including “America First” Trump supporters, have absorbed and seem incapable of examining objectively. Reasons abound, not the least of which is religious, at least among conservative evangelical Christians. But it is also an artifact of the Cold War and American dueling with the Soviets over influence there, and of the always prosperous Holocaust industry the Israeli lobby uses so effectively in guilt-tripping Americans who, if I remember correctly, fought against the Nazis in the “Good War.” Arab and Islamic terrorism, especially 9/11, make it difficult to cut through the understandable popular anger and hostility for the Muslim/Arab side of the Middle East conflict. Few are inclined to ponder just why the Muslim world is so hostile to the United States. It didn’t come out of nowhere, but precisely out of sacrificing discrete American interests to geopolitical maneuvering and globalist ideology.
Other reasons apart from Miriam Adelson’s campaign contributions explain the president’s preoccupation with the Middle East, not the least of which are his own Jewish family ties, including through his daughter, Ivanka. So Trump’s blind spot that prevents him from seeing the Israelis as normal partners in international politics, not as our forever responsibility, is personal and historical. Another hangover from the Cold War is an unfortunate sense of an American “greatness” that in MAGA form paradoxically recognizes some limits, but nevertheless lacks humility. Perhaps the most important statement in Trump’s inaugural address was his saying that America should stop wars — and not get into them in the first place. But stopping the war in Ukraine is one thing. America has no grand mission there, making it easier for Trump to pressure the combatants to talk. With the Middle East, it’s different. An American Greatness still predicated in part on a missionary sense, on “exceptionalism” and the idea of “progress,” as well as on great deeds, Moon landings and technological achievements, sophisticated weaponry and super computers, could easily be once again commandeered by the globalists.
Trump appears to believe he can forge a peace in the Middle East and that American power will overcome all obstacles. Lately, he has been lecturing the Arabs on terrorism, and apparently, judging by his recent remarks, believes that he can pressure them into taking in the Palestinians. Trump’s larger-than-life confidence goes off the rails, however, in his comments about the US essentially taking over the Gaza strip and rebuilding it, while dragooning the Arabs into a peace deal with Israel and scaring the Iranians. That, Mr. President, is a bridge — or two or 10 — too far. Direct US involvement in Gaza will entangle us more deeply in a region that has grown increasingly chaotic and hostile to the United States partly due to the hubris and aggressive American actions by the Bush 43, Obama, and Biden administrations. Acting as a mediator is one thing. But this is something else. Hubris is not solely the sin of globalists, and the parties primarily responsible for the situation in Gaza and the Palestinians are Israel and the Arab world. Perhaps some of the vast sums Trump wants Saudi Arabia to invest in the US could go to rebuilding Gaza.
By not demanding of Israelis what he is calling for from the Europeans — taking on more responsibility for their own defense and wellbeing — or reiterating that he does not intend for the United States to be taken advantage of by our erstwhile friends, Trump is setting himself up for what is potentially a colossal error. If his best laid plans go wrong and the United States, due to a high-profile presence in Gaza, is dragged headlong into a future conflict, all of Trump’s America First/MAGA agenda will be at risk.
War is the health of the Deep State. Conflict empowers the Swamp. The pod people may look like zombies just now, but don’t think they are out of this battle just yet. The Middle East is Trump’s and MAGA’s Achilles heel.
Chronicles contributor Wayne Allensworth is the author of The Russian Question: Nationalism, Modernization, and Post-Communist Russia, and a novel, Field of Blood. For thirty-two years, he worked as an analyst and Russia area expert in the US intelligence community.
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