The Trump Agenda After the NATO Summit: Back to Acrimonious, Illusive Ceasefires [1]
President Donald J. Trump, the current hegemon in US and world politics (plus), has returned to the home arena faced with the high-priority “big, beautiful” omnibus budget bill, the final senate “marathon” voting ongoing at the time of writing, leaving behind for now a satisfactory NATO summit, rich in fancy protocol and poor in substance (other than the European 5 % defense expenditure concession over 10 years). Leaving behind for now, also, the mountain of unresolved issues pertaining to Russia´s war of aggression against neighboring Ukraine, currently with no active US policy (“peace”) initiative in the cards, or so it seems. The ceasefire issue on this front, central to Trump´s early second mandate period, seems put on a back burner, pending clarification of all sorts of concerns with alternative ends and means as regards this particular tragedy over which a mist of uncertainty insists on hanging, for the time being.
So Donald Trump now has to refocus on the Middle East, notably on the tons of uncertainties over the Gaza tragedy, or disaster, and, obviously, on the Israel-Iran crisis, the former more than ever in dire need of a ceasefire, the latter – after the Israeli surprise attack and the strongly controversial US follow-up with B-2 and Tomahawk bombardments of Iran´s nuclear installations – with a US imposed ceasefire hanging in the balance of tense developments. Thus ceasefire is key to both crisis areas in current US/Trump policy making, while everyone with some experience realizes that ceasefire – this illusive stopgap and hoped-for step between war and peace – is easier said than done in the real world of conflict resolution – and conflict escalation.
Why is it so hard to have conflict/warring parties agree to a ceasefire, whether in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, Sudan, Israel-Iran, Myanmar, or elsewhere, even in cases where a strong third party has real leverage over both sides, with the power also to represent the international community´s humanitarian interest in a halt to the violence?
The reasons are manifold, as described in a vast literature of international relations and diplomacy, and war. The parties need to be equally and simultaneously interested in a cessation of hostilities, or powerfully so convinced by legitimate and leveraged third party. And then there are the inescapable links between the more limited (time and scope) ceasefire and the broader issues of durable peace and root causes of the conflict. How, the parties ask themselves, will a ceasefire, with such and such conditionalities and such and such time limits, affect our positions and interests on the issues of ending the war? Hence, any (limited) ceasefire negotiation will entail a complex range of devilish details, inevitably blurring the distinction between ceasefire negotiations and peace negotiations – as we saw in the protracted Yugoslav wars in the 90s, and we have seen in recent years in Ukraine, Sudan, Syria, Gaza and other sad places. No matter how (objectively) needed in humanitarian terms, ceasefire can never be a quick fix. It is a duel between patient diplomacy (regardless of third party) and war that rages on, meanwhile.
One could add here that contemporary difficulties greatly depend on the global degree of polarization that renders the UN Security Council, whose permanent members consist of the victors in WW2. In the best of worlds, hoped for in the immediate post-WW2 era, the UNSC was supposed to be vested with the power to declare a case of conflict or aggression as a threat to international security and hence to order the parties to the conflict or the aggressor to stop fighting, or else armed forces, representing the International Community, would be there to impose by force the ruling of the (united) UNSC. As we have seen, the best of worlds is no more, rendering ceasefire/peace discouragingly difficult.
The case of Iran-Israel (-USA)
The fragility of the ceasefire imposed by team Trump, after the extraordinary armed intervention by the US in the open conflict phase Iran-Israel that Israel initiated on June 13, is a product of its peculiarity, a ceasefire essentially imposed by not a third party in the classical sense but by a participant in the conflict that seeks to retain the role of arbiter. And this although the Israeli attack clearly ran counter to and interrupted US intentions to carry on the series of US-Iranian nuclear negotiations, 3 days before these negotiations were to have their 6th round in Oman. Extraordinarily, the US then, seeing the successes made by the IDF air force in the surprise campaign, decided to jump on the Israeli band wagon, hence the surprise – and militarily impressive, B-2/Tomahawk operation that stunned the world.
The US imposition of ceasefire reflected three momentary national interests, the Iranian need of relief and national/regime survival, the Israeli interest in limiting the political costs of its daring surprise attacks by re-displaying necessary obedience to signals by team Trump, and the US/Trump interest in being able credibly to present to the world that the intervention was indeed a necessary means to make the world safe from the “immediate threat” from Iranian nuclear acquisition, the world, not just Israel, and as a necessary means to restore meaningful negotiations with a view to totally eliminating the rapidly built-up Iranian stock of enriched uranium.
This means that the duration of the temporary ceasefire totally depends on whether and when the ceasefire can be utilized for the purpose of restoring the nuclear negotiations, and this in turn is linked to the critical questions pertaining to assessments of the effect achieved by the combined US and Israeli bombardment on Iran´s nuclear status. Have Iran´s nuclear installations been “obliterated” as Trump has claimed, or not as preliminarily assessed by early Pentagon and IAEA reporting. For Trump this matter is of vital importance, in his balancing act between automatic support for Netanyahu´s Israel and his urge to present himself as a peace maker, advertising the concept of “peace through strength”.
What to do if I, Trump, undertook the serious risk om sending B-2:s all the way from the US to targets in Iran, only to find that this drastic measure delayed Iran´s nuclear timetable by only some months? How will I discuss what to do with Netanyahu when he again arrives in the White House on July 7? New bombardments? And, in the current situation of uncertain turmoil and if resuming the negotiations (of sorts) is politically necessary in defense of the bombardments, what kind of negotiations with a seriously wounded Iran are now presentable as internationally credible and tolerable by Netanyahu´s Israel? If in spite of Iran´s serious losses and wounds – and Israel´s clear ambitions to kill military and scientific leaders and hence to play the “regime change” card – outright and unconditional Iranian surrender lacks viability and international credibility as a negotiating position? And if returning to the US/Witkoff pre-June 13 proposition is no longer acceptable to neither Israel nor Iran.
As long as these critical questions remain in a fog of uncertainty, the ceasefire will remain fragile, to say the least. Even if the Iranian regime has been physically deprived of any desire for the open conflict to be restarted.
Meanwhile, Iran´s Arab/Golf neighbors are nervously observing and hedging against alternative outcomes, obviously also with an eye on developments over Gaza.
The case of Israel-Gaza (Palestinians)
Here, the issue is not how to maintain a fragile ceasefire but how, finally, finally, to arrive at one, after the long, futile, efforts to reach a ceasefire as a step to broader peace, to the release of remaining Hamas hostages and to paving the way for humanitarian assistance to incredibly and increasingly suffering Palestinians. In brief, the basic reason for the constant illusiveness of a needed ceasefire has – ever since October 7 2023 – the incompatibility of the war objectives of the parties, Hamas and Israeli IDF respectively, the fact (even with the US shift from Biden to Trump) of largely unconditional US support for Israel, the extremist character of the Netanyahu-led Israeli coalition government, and the link between the specific Gaza question and the wider Palestinian issue, seemingly rendering impossible any attempt to separate more limited ceasefire issues from the “day after” matters.
Like in the Iran case it was the Israeli side that broke the attempted ceasefire introduced at an early stage of the Trump administration – and which led to the release of several but not all hostages, after which the Israelis – government and IDF – have carried out a protracted military campaign with the stated aim to crush Hamas militarily and thereby to set free remaining hostages, dead or alive. Meanwhile, the US has continued its military – and political – support for the controversial Israeli government, and Donald Trump – eager to curry favors with neighboring Arab states – surprised the world with his surprise proposition regarding the transfer of Gaza, after deportation of the Palestinians, to a US-run East Mediterranean Riviera.
But now, apparently, Trump is – again – making a serious push for a ceasefire in Gaza, so much so that Netanyahu has been issues signals that, yes, now, perhaps, is the time to have a ceasefire, not a permanent ceasefire as Hamas is insisting, now as before, but a temporary one, perhaps one of two months as proposed by Egyptian President Al Sisi, sufficient to satisfy Trump´s and other leaders´ built-up political need finally to do something both for suffering and starving Palestinians and for the remaining hostages and their families, but retaining every right for Israel to resume the war, should it perceive of a need, e.g., indications of Hamas regaining strength and status.
For all the enormous difficulties mounting, it seems clear that Donald trump (for all his other conflicting priorities at home and abroad) now feels that he has, finally, alongside the Iran troubles, to make a big push for some kind of ceasefire over Gaza – his image claims as peacemaker hanging in the balance.
Perhaps, if so, he has a big package in mind, for his team to accelerate and operationalize, a package that would include, as prerequisites for a lengthy but still temporary ceasefire, release of all hostages, dead or alive, release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, partial IDF withdrawal from Gaza territory, a deal with Egypt and Jordan and perhaps other states to receive a number of Gaza Palestinians, some steps of expansion of the Abraham Accords, and opening up of a massive UN-led humanitarian relief operation in Gaza, and…what else? Anybody´s guess, for now. There would still remain all the “day after” issues. But can Trump, meeting with Netanyahu on July 7, really convince his Israeli war lord colleague that now is long overdue for compromise, compromise with the mortal enemy for the larger sake of the hostages and a global alarm at what Israel´s onslaught on Palestinians in Gaza (and the West Bank) has done to the very image of Israel, a compromise that would entail acceptance of Hamas´ survival as an entity and as a threat, albeit seriously weakened? Can Netanyahu´s fragile and controversial coalition government possibly accept such a compromise, and can Bibi survive legally if he jeopardizes his platform politically? And how would a dramatization of ceasefire in Gaza affect the other big Middle East drama, Iran?
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In sum, the world has to buckle up for eventful developments with very, very uncertain outcomes in the next few months, perhaps weeks, in a Middle East region in dire need of stability. Donald Trump, having already deviated considerably from his presidential campaign pledges to not start nor stay part of “for ever” wars in far away lands, at least preferring to be (seen as) part of the solution rather that in ownership of the problem, now has to face really demanding challenges.