14 thoughts on “Dead in the Water: Trump Middle East Peace Plan and Pompeo’s Iran Plan B – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. Trump threatens China with sanctions, and now, China and the United States have begun negotiating the trade deficit.
    Trump threatened North Korea last summer, and now he’s scheduled to meet Kim Jong face to face.

    It’s called the ‘carrot and stick’ approach.

    1. @ Elena: Trump is the worst negotiator of any president in recent, or perhaps any memory. He gives away everything (viz. what he did with the Israelis) & asks for, and gets nothing in return. He talks a tough game and folds easily. Like a classic blustering bully who in his heart is really a coward. The same will hold true with China & North Korea. The N. Korea summit is endangered and may be (likely will be) cancelled.

      Trump is more like a wilted carrot and a broken stick approach.

      1. Trump is confronting China, global economic superpower, North Korea, a rogue nuclear nation, and Iran, a hyper- aggressive, regional superpower.

        How’s that cowardly?
        He’s bullying China, North Korea and Iran?

        1. @ Elena: Trump isn’t “confronting” anyone. He’s beating his chest like a silverback gorilla. Then when he thinks no one is looking he rolls over on his back and asks his adversary to scratch his tummy & otherwise flatter him. You clearly don’t understand Trump or much of anything else.

          Iran is certainly a far less “hyper-aggressive regional superpower” than Israel or the U.S.

          You are done in this thread.

  2. I have no idea what Trump’s plan is, but I have long advocated a solution to be imposed on BOTH sides. There are hints that this is what Trump has in mind.
    If the major powers and moderate Arab countries got together and IMPOSED a 2 state solution with defined borders and sharing Jerusalem, most Israelis (including every right wing person I know) would support it. It would have to involve repatriating Palestinian refugees in their host countries or in the newly formed Palestine.
    This would have to be shoved down their throats, understanding that this is the end of the road. Either sides would be subject to severe sanctions if they are the one to reject the plan.

    1. [comment deleted: the comment threads are not a grandstand or cheering gallery. We don’t score or count points for our side or the other.]

    2. @ DrS: Frankly, no one cares what you advocate. But if we want to impose a settlement it will look like this:

      1. Israel withdraws from 98% of West Bank retaining a few settlement blocs in return for land swaps
      2. East Jerusalem becomes capital of Palestine
      3. All Nakba expellees are offered option of returning to Israel, Palestine &/or receiving financial reparations from Israel.

      This will not have to be shoved down the Palestinian throats. But it will have to be shoved down the throats of Israel rejectionists.

      Any solution that offers no return to any Palestinian expellees will never be acceptable to any Palestinian. No Palestinian will care what sanctions you offer. They will reject it and refuse to participate.

  3. Having just returned from a conference in Iran, I can tell you that Iran doesn’t need the US. It can turn East toward Russia and China and is doing so already.It’s the US that is the idiotic bullyboy, thinking we can impose a ‘settlement on Iran” and… oh… yes… impose another one on the Palestinians who are being incrementally massacred by the genocidal state of Israel.

  4. The reasons for the sanctions on Iran are exactly the same as those on Iraq.

    The US wants to weaken Iran to the point that they are Defenseless and then the US will attack Iran.

    The US’s problem is that times have changed.

    Iran is Not Iraq and will be able to fight back if attacked. With Nukes (after development) if the US progresses it’s Sanctions.

    I wouldn’t want to be an American Soldier or Sailor anywhere in the Middle East within 3 years of the US imposing it’s planned sanctions. The US is too arrogant to realise the trap it is making for itself.

  5. ” Frankly, no one cares what you advocate”
    Can I say the same for your ideas?
    I’m expressing an opinion, which is exactly what you do

    As far Iran-
    Even with globalization, the US still carries tremendous economic weight, not only by virtue of its size, but its domination of the global financial system. This means that if it actually does inact draconian sanctions, Chinese, Russian and European companies will face the simple choice– do business with Iran or with the US.
    Think of it as BDS on steroids backed by the most powerful country in the world.
    Its pretty obvious what they’ll choose.
    I don’t see what the European countries can do to “protect” themselves from American sanctions, given how divided and weak the EU is.

    1. @DrS:

      Can I say the same for your ideas?

      No you can’t, because hundreds of thousands of readers come to this site because they DO care about my ideas.

      As for Iran, you vastly overestimate the power of the current U.S. administration to determine what will happen to Iran. As for our financial power, the world will quickly figure out ways to circumvent whatever controls we have over these financial matters.

      Nor is this in any way related to BDS as Iran, even with it’s less than stellar record, is s model student compared to Israel. In fact, one might say that Iran is learning at the feet of the master how to work and extend its power in the region.

      Trump will fail in his endeavor subdue Iran. It may not happen immediately (or it might). But fail he will, as have all his previous foreign policy endeavors.

  6. What do you think about this
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/opinion/hamas-netanyahu-and-mother-nature.html

    The thrust of his comments are correct, including about Bibi’s cowardice. But I draw your attention to

    “I appreciate the Gazans’ sense of injustice. Why should they pay with their ancestral homes for Jewish refugees who lost theirs in Germany or Iraq? The only answer is that history is full of such injustices and of refugees who have reconciled with them and moved on — not passed on their refugee status to their kids and their kids’ kids. It’s why so few Arabs, so few Europeans, so few anybody, rose to Hamas’s defense. People are fed up with it.”

    (By your yardstick lots more people care about what Tom Friedman has to say)

    1. @ DrS: Do try to read enough of this blog to understand what I think of someone before you proffer it as the Holy Grail of Mideast analysis. Tom Terrific Friedman is a fool and blowhard who likes to hear himself talk and hasn’t had a real original idea in decades.

      The passage you offer is equally tone deaf and irrelevant. It’s not for Tom Terrific living in his $6 million Bethesda mansion, married to a scion of a billion-dollar real estate fortune to tell Palestinians that they should give up on their patrimony. Let Tom offer his mansion as collateral on Palestinian aspirations and then perhaps he can talk. Till then, he’s a mouth, and that’s all he is.

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