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Trump's Middle East Trip or Correcting Obama's "Mistakes"

EPA/MICHAEL REYNOLDS

The accusations of the US President Donald Trump against Iran on sponsoring terrorism are unacceptable. Spokesperson of Iran's Foreign Ministry Bahram Ghasemi said this recently commenting on Trump’s statements in Saudi Arabia and Israel, particularly the ones referring to the urge to isolate Iran for sponsoring terrorism.

It should be noted that refusing cooperation with Iran, which was hardly enough realizable for the Obama administration, is not the only difference of Trump’s policy in the Middle East from the previous administration. The Obama administration, at least in the last years, was no longer prone to sponsoring policy towards Gulf Arab monarchies, particularly Saudi Arabia, ongoing for tens of years. Now, Trump tries to regain the US positions in this region encouraging anti-Iranian moods of the Gulf monarchies.

By the way, Israel is actively engaged in the anti-Iranian initiatives of the Gulf States, which are mediated by Trump. It is worth to note that during his first foreign trip, Trump left for Israel from Saudi Arabia, in spite of the fact that al-Riyadh has no diplomatic relations with Israel. According to the Israeli media Trump’s plane was the first one that traveled from Saudi Arabia to Israel, as there is no air connection between the two countries.

In general, there is an impression from Trump’s first foreign trip to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Palestine, and from the statements he made, that Israel and Saudi Arabia got certain guarantees from Washington on the issue of their enemy, Iran. This, in its turn, creates somehow positive background for restarting Israeli-Palestinian conflict settlement process.  During Obama administration, Washington’s relations with Israel became tense enough, because of the nuclear deal with Iran. As a result, the possibility of the American mediation in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations was almost nullified. Now, in all probability, after getting some guarantees on the issue of Iran, Israel declared about its willingness to negotiate and even did some economic concessions to Palestine on the eve of Trump’s visit. During the meeting with Trump, Palestinian leader Mahmmud Abbas also declares about their willingness to start immediate negotiations with Israel. One cannot exclude that al-Riyadh affected Palestinian position, and not only it: during his visit to Saudi Arabia, Trump had meetings with a number of leaders of the Islamic states, including also Egypt.

Thus, Trump makes another change in his Middle East policy, as compared the previous administration. Present us administration, does not want to direct re-start Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations, instead it intends to take a role of a coordinator in that.

However, we should note, that Trump has not published his precise strategy in the Middle East yet. For know only the parties are known with whom and against whom Washington is going to cooperate.


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