While in the Middle East earlier this month to push for his plans for Middle East peace after the Gaza war, US President Donald Trump surprised the world by declaring that he wanted a peace deal with Iran.
Speaking to the Israeli Knesset, Trump made his impromptu offer to Iran to enter talks that could end decades of enmity between the Islamic Republic and Israel if an agreement came to pass.
“You know what would be great, if we could make a peace deal with them,” Trump told the unenthusiastic Knesset members. “Would you be happy with that?”
“I think they’re tired,” he added, trying to push his suggestion further.
Back in Washington, Trump claimed the turning point that paved the way for the Gaza peace earlier this month came in June when US B-2 bombers carried out what he called a “beautiful military operation” against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Trump’s overture to Iran, however, was attached with some preconditions – “to renounce terrorists, stop threatening their neighbours, quit funding their militant proxies, and finally recognise Israel’s right to exist.”
Trump travelled to Israel and later to Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt to push his 20-point peace plan, which he brokered for the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
Trump, now boasting about being the world’s peacemaker-in-chief, hastily arranged to celebrate the end of the war in Gaza and herald a supposed new era of peace in the Middle East.
But his peace gesture to Iran fell flat in both Tehran and Tel Aviv, which have remained as far apart as ever from ending their animosity.
In Israel, though Trump was cheered and feted for his diplomatic role in the Gaza peace plan, his gesture towards Iran was hardly music to the ears of politicians conditioned by a belief that Iran constitutes an existential threat.
Trump’s offering of an olive branch to Iran received an even colder reception in Tehran, with the government there dismissing the call as hypocrisy.
“How can one attack the residential areas and nuclear facilities of a country in the midst of political negotiations, kill more than 1,000 people, including innocent women and children, and then demand peace and friendship,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry asked in a statement.
Iran had earlier rebuffed Trump’s highly unorthodox invitation to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to attend the gathering in Sharm El-Sheikh, floating the possibility of the Islamic Republic backing his Gaza plan.
Nevertheless, the idea of recasting Iranian-US relations after a prolonged period of hostility seems to be worth significant discussion and careful analysis.
At first glance, Trump’s initiative seems in line with his high-stakes diplomacy and his self-described goal as a world peacemaker. Yet, despite the hype there are some geopolitical elements in play as well.
Enthusiasts may even see some historical comparisons, such as the US-China rapprochement in the 1970s. This détente, which ended a prolonged estrangement, was attributed to efforts to end the Vietnam War.
Protagonists believe that the prospect of finding a resolution to the conflict between Tehran and Washington remains possible if the two capitals throw their diplomatic efforts into full gear.
Some even see a rapprochement between Iran and Israel as feasible despite the long-standing hostility if a détente on a larger regional scale to fundamentally alter the context of the Middle East conflicts is achieved.
This argument builds on the fact that relations between Iran and Israel were good before they worsened following the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 and on ancient history when Jews and Persians had friendly relations.
At the time of the pro-West Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi, Iran was the second Islamic country to recognise Israel as a sovereign state in 1948 after Turkey. The newly formed state of Israel, requiring Western support to stay afloat, seemed then to find a natural partner in Iran.
Jewish-Persian history also dates from Biblical times, as the Hebrew Bible says the Persian King Cyrus the Great freed the Jews from captivity after his invasion of Babylon in 539 BCE.
However, today Trump’s push for Iran to join the Abraham Accords and normalise ties with Israel remains unlikely to go anywhere soon.
Suspicions in Tehran are running even higher than usual after Trump ordered an assault on Iran in June this year just as Iranian negotiators were preparing for a sixth round of talks with their US counterparts over Iran’s nuclear programme.
In the absence of a viable diplomatic path to end the deadlock over Iran’s nuclear programme, a more likely outcome of Iranian-US relations might be a resumption of military hostilities.
After Iran declared on Saturday that it was no longer bound by restrictions on its nuclear programme as a landmark 10-year deal between it and five world powers expired, a more deadly conflict between Israel and Iran may be unavoidable.
Israel’s position also remains fundamental. On Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that although the Iranian threat has been countered, Israel’s confrontation with Iran is far from over.
Last week, a former head of the Iran branch within Israel’s military intelligence told Eye for Iran that Israel remains focused on weakening or toppling the Islamic Republic, which makes escalation “almost inevitable.”
Another major obstacle to Trump’s overture is Iran’s internal politics, since a rapprochement with the US goes against the norm in the Islamic Republic, which is fundamentally anti-Israel and anti-American.
The price for ending nearly half a century of hostilities between Washington and Tehran would be enormous for the Islamic regime, which has always accused the United States of being responsible for Iran’s woes and of being an oppressive power.
In addition, a rapprochement between Iran and the Unites States and Israel could have serious implications for Shias across the Middle East, who fear that a united American-Israeli-Sunni front could be formed to curtail Shia influence in countries such as Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen.
To its detractors, the Trump gamble will not only mean Iran should give up all its regional ambitions but also abandon a uniform Shia bloc formed around sentiments of injustice long felt by Arab Shias.
Standing in the path of Trump’s vision of a peace triangle between the US, Israel, and Iran is also the Sunni axis led by Saudi Arabia, which aspires to see Iran and its Shia allies weakened in a post-Gaza war regional order.
In this context, Trump’s Iran peace initiative is seen by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states as running counter to the new Middle Eastern geopolitical environment created in the aftermath of the Gaza war and its regional aftershocks.
It is widely accepted that one of the key objectives of the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 was to disrupt a potential normalisation of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The oil-rich Kingdom did not join its Gulf neighbours the UAE and Bahrain in establishing relations with Israel in 2020 under Trump’s first administration, stating that Palestinian statehood goals should be addressed first.
The agreements, the so-called “Abraham Accords,” formalised economic, diplomatic, and security cooperation between Israel and these Arab countries and also aimed at containing Iran and its regional influence.
The potential normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia was derailed by the Gaza war and the flare-up of the Arab-Israeli conflict and its regional implications, especially in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, which are three pillars in Iran’s strategy.
Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states that wanted a solution to the war in Gaza will want to be part of a new equation in the Middle East that curbs Iran’s influence and its “Axis of Resistance,” and they will be increasingly concerned about the unpredictability of Trump’s policies.
Although these Sunni Arab nations have not voiced their concerns about Trump’s commitment in public, what has been alluded to and what can be inferred from the context raises serious doubts in them about Trump’s extending an olive branch to Iran.
The Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom disclosed on Friday that Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the Sunni axis, which also includes Bahrain, have warned the White House that the Trump Gaza plan is in danger of falling apart.
Quoting Arab and American sources, the paper said the three countries have complained about the “leniency” shown by the mediators (Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey) in brokering the Gaza ceasefire deal.
On the surface, these countries seem to be complaining about the terms and mechanism of the ceasefire framework, which according to the Israeli report centres around Hamas evading its obligations. However, in reality they are worried about Trump’s embrace of Iran.
As always, the US president seems to be playing the role of the “why not both kind of guy,” but his diplomatic gambit with Iran may prove to be a fantasy.
Short link: