To understand just how disastrous the American president's international vision is for European security, you must look beyond the usual focus on the transatlantic relationship and consider the essential role played by the Middle East in his vision.
The sole ally of Donald Trump's United States is not the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and its members, nor the resilient Ukraine; it is, undoubtedly, Israel, under Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom the US president shares the same illiberal creed and disdain for multilateralism.
Indeed, the Middle East is where Trump dreams of achieving his greatest designs, by aligning the two three-way relationships that he and Vladimir Putin and have constructed: One with Netanyahu and the other with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. To this end, the American president has appointed Steve Witkoff, his business and golfing partner, as his special envoy on these two issues.
A solid and accomplished triangle
Trump's triangular relationship with the Russian president and the Israeli prime minister dates back to his first term in office. At that time, the American president repeatedly violated international law to the benefit of Netanyahu, from his December 2017 recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel (including its eastern part, which was occupied half a century earlier) to the March 2019 recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which are also occupied.
The Israeli prime minister, meanwhile, was at Putin's side for Russia's Victory Day parade on Moscow's Red Square, in May 2018. Netanyahu was effectively convinced that only the Russian presence in Syria could limit Iran's influence there. For Israeli leaders, the Assad family's dictatorship had long seemed to be a lesser evil, if only because it respected the ceasefire on the occupied Golan Heights.
Since then, Netanyahu has continued to accommodate Putin by refusing any military assistance to Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022, and by letting his "Christian Zionist" allies in the US Congress block US aid to Ukraine from October 2023 to April 2024.
You have 55.74% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.