From Marco Rubio as secretary of state, to Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth as defence secretary, to Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel, and Steve Witkoff as Middle East envoy, the nominations are telling. Each has previously wedded himself not just to Israel, but also to the extremist narratives of religious Zionism represented in the country’s current government.
But while Rubio and Huckabee in particular have been pushing these narratives on the campaign trail for political reasons, all of them will now face a reality check when it comes to formulating and delivering a coherent Middle East policy.
For one, their unequivocal support for Israel’s unhinged government policy of military annihilation of the idea of resistance, will cause friction with Trump’s overarching objective to end all wars in the region.
The second and equally important point of friction is the reliance of Trump’s regional policy on the Gulf states. While the pro-Israel lobby will try to sell narratives to the Trump ideologues, the various Gulf lobbies have deep pockets that have already entangled business networks around Trump.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar have all built extensive relationships with the Trump ecosystem - all underwritten by lucrative investments. More so, Trump knows he will not need the pro-Israel lobby to get re-elected, as this will be his last term.
The Gulf lobbies, however, can provide lucrative avenues to retirement not just for Trump and his family, but also for many of those appointed by him into positions of power. And the interests of the Gulf states will not be easily reconcilable with the interests of Netanyahu’s Israel.
On Gaza, there is strong opposition to what Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last week referred to as “collective genocide” committed by Israel. The annexation of territory in Gaza and and the West Bank will not be acceptable to Washington’s Gulf partners, and likely presents a red line that Trump and his ideologues won’t dare to cross.
As someone intimately familiar with the Gulf - the “reality check” is just that it’s going to be more expensive to buy Saudi Arabia off for Israel. That’s literally it. As for Qatar, they can either tank relations with it or surrender to the fact that they can’t simply buy and subjugate eveyone to create a Potemkin peace where no Arabs can even speak to, speak in favor of or ise their influence to support other Arabs who are threatened by Israel.
The Gulf despots don’t give a shit about the Palestinians and in fact distrust them for being more democratically based. Like the Israelis, the last things absolute monarchs want are countries in the region where Arab leaders rule with democratic legitimacy. That only highlights the monarchs’ lack of legitimacy and was also the reason the Gulfies did everything they could to sabotage the Arab Spring.
The current Saudi Arabian and UAE despots do not. But it’s not necessarily true of the others. They are still religiously and ideologically inclined against Zionism, but they have no unity with one another, exist in a state of relatively precarity and are terrified of defying the US. Take Qatar for example, which could quite easily be annexed by Saudi Arabia were it not for over a century of collaboration with the Ottomans/British and then the US. No matter how quiet and safe these nations may seem from afar, in reality they run on backwards tribal powersharing systems, and have not been able to move past them. Thus they remain incredibly vulnerable to internal coups and threats from one another, which makes their relations with the West and the legitimacy therein guaranteed to be of pivotal importance.
Qatar in particular is exceptionally far-sighted in some regards, which is why it recognized and fueled the Arab Spring, incurring the wrath of its neighbors. It’s leadership are committed to the Palestinian issue. I know people who work in Al Jazeera for example - the newsrooms and site are full of Palestinians.
Recently I cynically assumed that they were helping the US and Israel by keeping the sham ceasefire talks going, trying to jockey for position as indispensable broker. But it was explained to me by a Palestinian involved that they were only doing it at Hamas’ request, and were trying to use the opportunity to alleviate conditions in Gaza as best they could. Neither Turkey and Egypt were trusted to do it at such a level.
I’ve gotten the feeling over the years that of all the statss in the Gulf, only Qatar (and to lesser extents, Kuwait and Oman) understand that change will come regardless, and that it’s better to help guide it than to sabotage it, degrading the region’s politics and laying groundwork for even more instability and eruptions. The outlook is very, very bleak and things will not evolve towards abolition of monarchies and some form popular rule until Saudi explodes internally.