Trump Emerges as the Principal Architect of Peace in the Middle East and Ukraine
There has been a scattered recognition that bringing the principal non-Arab Muslim powers — Turkey, Pakistan, and Indonesia, with a combined population of approximately 600 million people — may also be an achievement. Yet the fact that some violence sporadically continues in Gaza is presented as if it were a surprise and a negation of the drastic reduction of violence when the war was in full swing and a substantial number of hostages remained in the hands of the Hamas terrorists.
No serious observer imagined that the violence would end completely until after the second phase of Mr. Trump’s peace plan: The demilitarization and removal from control of any part of Gaza of the Hamas terrorist organization. Various Muslim powers expressed a willingness to help police Gaza but not to disarm Hamas.
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Every informed person knows that no one except Israel is going to remove Hamas. Phase 1 returned the hostages and took away Hamas’s bargaining power, and aligned Muslim opinion behind Israel’s right not to be permanently tormented by terrorists. We cannot be far from the point where Israel sends robots into the remaining Hamas tunnels with flamethrowers and explosives and flushes out or kills the remaining terrorists as they fester under the ground like murderous rodents.
No one except Iran will mourn Hamas, and the Arab powers will be just as pleased as Israel will to see the end of them. Even though the Arab leaders have been generally successful in ignoring their domestic public opinion, they are not prepared to disarm Hamas. They consider this to be Israel’s work and will stand by as Israel roots out and exterminates the Hamas terrorist apparatus once and for all. Then Gaza will be rebuilt as Mr. Trump has forecast, and there will be peace in Gaza.
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There was no talk by anyone of peace in Ukraine until Mr. Trump’s reelection a year ago. First he had to bully the Europeans and Canadians into paying a respectable amount for their own defense and not just freeloading off the United States. Then he was able to get his own isolationists off his back by selling the Europeans advanced weapons that they could give to the Ukrainians. The United States makes money and Ukraine has the weapons to force a satisfactory peace.
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A year ago, there was no pathway to peace in either of these wars. Most of the national political press is too biased and obtuse to notice what’s happening. There is no doubt that Mr. Trump is the principal architect of peace in both conflicts and will ultimately be recognized for it.