Trump's vision of the Middle East: Eleven things we have learned from "Fire and Fury"
Report of Areebullah and Dania Akkad
Donald Trump's foreign policy is described in Michael Wolf's "Fire and Fury" as "a mixture of nauseating ideas." The scandalous book is documented for the first nine months of the Trump administration, and was met with threats from the White House to resort to justice.
Donald Trump declined what he said in the book, saying it was "full of lies" and stuffed with "fabrications."
The following is a list of what we have learned from the book about Trump's vision of the Middle East and the internal battles that have at times defined its features, from Trump's decision to bomb a Syrian air base with missiles to how Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman turned the American man who arrived to the top.
1) Trump and Mohammed bin Salman are always rewarded
Wolf describes the synergy between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on the one hand and Trump and his family on the other. He sees that they feed on a common denominator: not knowing what to do:
"When Mohammed bin Salman presented himself to Jared Kouchner as his man in Saudi Arabia, it was like meeting a nice person on the first day of boarding school," says friend Kouchner.
As soon as Mohammed bin Salman pledged to Trump that he would bring some good news to them, he was invited to visit the White House, when Trump and Mohammed bin Salman made the most of it.
"It was a kind of offensive diplomacy," said Mohammed bin Salman, who used Trump's embrace as part of his power game in the kingdom, and although the White House in Trump was still denying it, he was allowed to move forward.
"In return, Mohammed bin Salman presented a basket of deals and announcements arranged to coincide with the president's visit to Saudi Arabia - and this was Trump's first trip abroad since becoming president.
2) Trump gives Mohammed bin Salman the green light to bully on Qatar
Trump is alleged to have given Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman the green light to bully Qatar and start a purge campaign against members of the ruling royal family and a group of Saudi businessmen. Wolf wrote:
"Trump's view was that Qatar provided financial support to terrorist groups - and showed no interest in the fact that the Saudis had a similar history. (The new justification used by the Saudis, Says that only some of the ruling Saudi family members have provided such support).
Weeks after his visit to Riyadh, Trump told his friends that he and his son-in-law Kouchner had engineered the rise of Mohammed bin Salman to power to become Saudi Crown Prince and heir to the Saudi throne.
3) The war between Bannon and Kouchner over peace talks
When his son-in-law handed over to the Middle East, Trump knew he was throwing him into the fray. Fox News anchor Tucker Carlsson may be surprised to say that the president did not give Kouchner any known.
Trump replied with a joke: "I know that."
"The president chose him because he was a Jew, and perhaps he wanted to reward him for his Jewishness, entrusted him with an impossible task for being a Jew, and he was motivated to believe that the Jews had extraordinary negotiating abilities. Trump said more than once that Henry Kissinger said Jared would be the new Henry Kissinger. This is a mixture of praise and stigmatization. "
Meanwhile, Bannon - who Wolf says Jared considered him anti-Semitic - did not hesitate to hint at the peace process. Pannon was in collusion with Sheldon Adelson, who was skeptical about Kouchner's motives and capabilities. Trump, however, still tells Kouchner that he always has to see Edgeson, creating a vicious cycle.
Kouchner was deeply puzzled by Pannon's quest for the title of "strongest on Israel," especially as Kouchner grew up as a committed Jew, Wolf says. For Kouchner, Bannon's right-wing defense of Israel, Trump's logic, has in one way or another become an anti-Semitic behavior directed against him personally.
4) Jerusalem on the first day
According to the book, former White House strategic adviser Steve Bannon told former Fox News executive Roger Ellis that Trump intended to move the embassy to Jerusalem on the first day. This came in the context of a frank talk at a dinner with Ellis later found out that the preacher was Wolf. That evening, Bannon explained Trump's vision of reshaping the Middle East as follows:
"Let the Jordan take the West Bank, let Egypt take Gaza, let them act with it or drown as they try, the Saudis are on the edge of the cliff, the Egyptians are on the edge of the cliff and they all die for fear of the Persians ... Yemen, Sinai, "Russia is so important ... Russia is so bad, they are bad people, but the world is full of bad people."
5) Turkey: Not sure about Trump
Early in the transition, Wolf wrote that a high-ranking Turkish official was "in real confusion" with a famous American businessman to ask him how to influence the White House during the Trump era.
The official asked whether it would be better for Turkey to seek to influence by pressing the US military presence in Turkey or by giving the president a privileged hotel location on the Bosphorus.
Despite numerous efforts, Turkey has struggled to persuade the United States to extradite Fathullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania and is alleged to have been behind the failed coup attempt.
6) The roots of Trump's hatred of Iran
Define Trump's anti-Ira speech