Donald Trump's approach to the Middle East has been clear to all those who want to listen: Israel has a right to exist, Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, and the Abraham Accords process offers the best hope for a better future in the region.
It is a reflection on the inconsistencies and weaknesses in recent US policy that people wondered if he really meant it. Now they know.
For decades, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has made no secret of his hatred of the United States and his contempt for the existence of Israel.
For the Israelis, they remember the last time that someone threatened to wipe them off the face of the earth and 6 million Jews perished at the hands of Nazi Germany.
They will not let it happen again. They can come to only one conclusion when the people who make existential threats try to develop a nuclear weapon and the ballistic missile technology to deliver it (you don't bury a civil nuclear project a mile inside a mountain).
Donald Trump gave Iran an ultimatum. I'm terrified the regime chose doomsday – Liam Fox
Getty Images/Reuters
President Trump reached the same conclusion, and when Iran was in breach of its international verification obligations, he acted.
It was a clear and unequivocal response from the man who believed that the Iran nuclear agreement, JCPOA, was deeply flawed and withdrew the United States from it in 2018. Many of us agreed with him and said so at the time.
But what now? The strategy was brave and bold, and his anger at both Iran and Israel over claimed breaches of the ceasefire was palpable.
The President believes that with Iran’s nuclear programme severely damaged, at the very least, both sides now need to behave sensibly and constructively.
He believes that only by giving the young people of the region a chance to thrive and prosper, by breaking away from the historical chains that held back their parents and grandparents, can peace and stability be achieved.
As chairman of the Abraham Accords Prosperity Group, I naturally fully support this view. Where does Iran fit into this picture?
The net result of recent military activity is that there has been an almost complete isolation of Iran’s Supreme Leader, a weakening of Iran’s belligerent and violent proxies and a young generation who are not interested in their grandfathers’ revolution and who want the opportunity, prosperity and freedom that they can see on their mobile phones but are denied at home.
Those outside the circle of the ideological extremists in the regime or the self-interested hard-liners of the IRGC may finally be recognising that trying to work with their neighbours rather than trying to destabilise them and abandoning their international henchmen, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, or the Houthis, might offer better long-term prospects.
Certainly, Iran’s advanced warning of the attack on the US base at Al Udeid, Qatar, showed that while they felt the need to respond to the bombing of their nuclear facilities, it was designed to avoid any portrayal of escalation. It was a positive sign that President Trump recognised, acknowledged and acted upon quickly.
Of course, the brutal and oppressive Iranian regime, which has murdered thousands of its own citizens could merely be posturing and playing for time. That would not be unprecedented.
Questions also remain about the quantity and whereabouts of Iran’s enriched uranium and the potential of an undisclosed and undamaged research facility elsewhere in Iran. They may still be within reach of the bomb.
Equally, the ultra-hardliners in Jerusalem may want to see nothing else but Iran pulverised militarily and politically.
Huge risks remain and vigilance will be required but maybe, just maybe, there is a chink of light in a region which has just looked into the abyss and which can see that there must be a better way forward.
Most Read
