Why Trump’s Doctrine Is Working in the Middle East

The Western media is blind to what’s really been happening over the past decade in the Middle East. Many reporters remain stuck in the Bush era, during which the conflicts began in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The viewpoint that clouds the U.S. news media’s coverage of foreign policy issues related to the Middle East is the idea that if the United States doesn’t do it alone—or at least lead other nations into doing it—nothing will get done.

That certainly didn’t start with George W. Bush. That’s been the viewpoint of many presidents prior to him.

In fact, during the Cold War, both the United States and the USSR used the region as a proxy playing field, each side seeking to extend its own influence.

Trump’s Doctrine Is Radically Different

The doctrine introduced by President Donald Trump when it comes to his foreign policy is radically different from that of every president before him when it comes to the Middle East. This is especially true in the case of Barack Obama.

There were very real and compelling reasons for Trump to make his first official foreign trip as the newly inaugurated president of the United States to Saudi Arabia.

Trump demonstrated to the Saudis and their allies in the region that Trump’s presidency would indeed be radically different from Obama’s. For one thing, Trump was actually listening to them and hearing what they were saying.

If the nations surrounding Iran were able to police and secure their own region, then there wouldn’t be any reason for the United States or other outside foreign powers to keep stepping in to do it for them.

News Media Still Misses Real Point of Trump’s Saudi Trip

At the time of Trump’s Saudi trip, a news media still struggling to comprehend that this garish cartoon figure was now the U.S. president laughed uproariously at the absurd “photo ops” of the “sword dance” and the “globe ceremony.”

You know who isn’t laughing about that sword dance or globe ceremony these days? ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian Mullahs, the Houthis, Hezbollah, and every extremist terrorist group in that region.

So, to this day, the mainstream media still doesn’t grasp what was occurring right in front of them. Trump listens to the locals, whereas every previous president strode in and told them what to do.

Trump’s Approach to Iran

While Obama settled on a policy of appeasing Iran, and by extension, the power behind Iran, which is Russia, Trump from the beginning has pursued a diametrically opposite policy.

Getting the Iran deal done was Obama’s true north star for his presidency; almost every foreign policy move he made–or chose not to make–in his eight years in power was to avoid angering Iran’s leaders, Putin in Moscow, Kim in Pyongyang, Assad in Damascus, or Xi in Beijing.

There were others watching Obama early on. What they saw so greatly troubled them, they were finally moved to organize to tackle what had until then looked like an insurmountable problem. The result of that endeavor is the combined military might of more than a dozen countries who work in concert together to police and secure their own territories: The Gulf Cooperation Council.

After just one meeting with Obama in 2009, it was crystal clear to Saudi King Abdullah that this new U.S. president wasn’t going to help when it came to curtailing Iran’s activities in the region. In fact, Obama made it obvious he fully intended to boost Iran’s extra-national efforts with a huge infusion of cash and a lifting of sanctions.

So they did.

By the time Trump won the 2016 election, all was ready.

And then came the time for dancing.

Brian Cates is a writer based in South Texas and the author of “Nobody Asked For My Opinion … But Here It Is Anyway!”