Jim Lobe
The ‘Vandenberg Coalition‘ wants Trump to prioritize Israel and maintain Iran as enemynumber one.
A leading neoconservative for most of the last half century has released a comprehensiveseries of recommendations on Middle East policy for the new Trump administration nearly allof which are ideas that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party wouldhappily embrace.
The 16-page report, entitled “Deals of the Century: Solving the Middle East,” is published bythe Vandenberg Coalition, which was founded and chaired by Elliott Abrams, who has heldsenior foreign policy posts in every Republican administration since Ronald Reagan (exceptGeorge H.W. Bush’s), including as Special Envoy for Venezuela and later for Iran duringTrump’s first term.
Created shortly after former President Biden took office, the Coalition has acted as a latter-day Project for the New American Century, a letterhead organization that acted as a hub andplatform for pro-Likud neoconservatives, aggressive nationalists, and the Christian Right in mobilizing public support for the “Global War on Terror,” the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and themove away from a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, particularly under theGeorge W. Bush administration in which Abrams served as Special Assistant to the Presidentand Senior Director for Near East and North African Affairs, surviving a number of purges of leading neoconservatives in that administration after the Iraq occupation went south.
The new report predictably calls for the new administration to “use all elements of [U.S.] national power” to prevent Iran, “the greatest threat to American interests in the Middle East and the cause of most of the region’s security problems,” from acquiring a nuclear bomb. Itdescribes Israel as “our cornerstone ally in the region” to which Washington should provideall “the weapons it needs [to] help it win the war and prevent wider escalation.”
The recommendations also call for Washington to maintain its military presence in both Iraqand Syria, to suspend all aid to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) “until it demonstrates a willingness to oppose Hezbollah, accelerate U.S. arms sales and broaden intelligencecooperation with the UAE,” and enhance military and security cooperation with Saudi Arabiaprovided it “pivot[s] away from China and Russia.”
It also calls for the Saudis to “increase [its] foreign direct investment commitments in U.S industries,” and “cease public statements” critical of Israel and supportive of Iran. “…[En]hanced cooperation with Saudi Arabia,” the report insists, “should be contingent on theirbeing unequivocal about what side they are on.”
Washington should also designate Iraq’s Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) andrelated militias as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) and stop engaging with thempolitically, and work with Yemen’s Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council against theHouthis whose designation as an FTO by the Trump administration last week was applaudedin the report. On the new government in Syria, the report says that ongoing sanctions, whichhelped cripple the country’s economy, should not be lifted “unless the new governmentproves to be a responsible actor,” although it does not describe what that would mean in anydetail.
Aside from Iran’s status as Enemy Number One in the report, special scorn was reserved forQatar, which has played a central role in mediating between Israel and Hamas regarding thefate of Israelis held in Gaza and Palestinians detained in Israel. Similar contempt is reservedfor the Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas, for various U.N. agencies, notably“the nefariousness [sic] UNRWA,” which has worked with Palestinian refugees and theirfamilies across the Middle East for more than 70 years, and for senior UN human rightsofficials who deal with the Israel-Palestine conflict in particular. Washington “shouldimmediately cease all funding to UNRWA” and also to UNIFIL, the U.N. peacekeeping forcedeployed along the Lebanese-Israeli border unless its troops are given the authority anddemonstrate the will to confront Hezbollah forces in the area.
As for Qatar, it “has worked to undermine U.S. interests by cooperating with Iran andsheltering terrorist groups like Hamas,” according to the report. “With much better friendslike the Saudis, Washington no longer needs to tolerate destabilizing Qatari behavior,” andthus should move U.S. Central Command’s forward headquarters out of Qatar’s Al Udeid AirBase and revoke Doha’s “Major Non-Nato Ally status unless its behavior changes.” Thatstatus should be conferred on the UAE instead, according to the report, provided that it “reduce [its] reliance on Russian and Chinese vendors” of military equipment.
The report, which describes the politics of the Biden administration in the Middle East on more than one occasion as “appeasement,” mainly of Iran, reminds the reader that Trump declared only last month that “the Middle East is going to get solved,” a phrase thatundoubtedly inspired the report’s title: “Deals of the Century: Solving the Middle East.” While the report says it was the product of a “working group of Middle East experts,” nonames other than Abrams, Gabriel Scheinemann, and Daniel Samet, the latter twoneoconservatives from the Alexander Hamilton Society, appear in the report. Normally, reports by letterhead organizations list their contributors.
In presenting what it calls “key American interests in the Middle East,” the report puts“preventing Iran from developing n nuclear weapon at the top of the list” but also expressesalarm at Chinese Communist Party inroads in the region, noting that CCP is Washington’s“key global adversary.” In an echo of the Global War on Terror, Washington, it says, shouldalso “deny jihadi terrorists a safe haven,” a reference in part to the necessity its authors feel toretain U.S. forces in Syria and Iraq.
But “America’s alliance with Israel is central to U.S. interests in the region, given that it promotes American values within the Middle East and provides the first line of defenseagainst Iranian aggression.” Moreover, Washington should try to expand the Abraham Accords, and “the Palestinian question must not impede Israel’s normalization with Arab andMuslim countries or otherwise compromise its security.” Washington must “ensure Israel has the tools to defend itself.”
Yet another interest is to expand access of our allies and partners to the region’s energysupplies, according to the report.
To increase pressure on Iran, Washington should not only reinstate a Trump’s “ maximumpressure” campaign, but include within it convincing Britain, France, and Germany to“snapback sanctions” against Tehran at the U.N. Remarkably perhaps, it offers the possibilityof a new nuclear agreement that would “forbid Iranian uranium enrichment beyond the smallamounts need for a civilian nuclear program,” something that the 2015 JCPOA, which Trump withdrew from in 2018, actually accomplished before Trump, under the influence of neoconservatives like Abrams, withdrew from in 2018. If a deal can be reached, according tothe report, it should be dealt with as a treaty; that is, made subject to a 2/3 majority vote in theSenate.
With respect to the Palestinians in the wake of the last 15 months of war in Gaza, “Americanpolicy toward the Palestinians must prioritize the security of Israel and our Arab partners.” Washington “must impose standards for good governance. The U.S. should “allow an Arabtrusteeship to control Gaza after the war.” In words that must warm Netanyahu’s heart, thereport notes “the weakness and incompetence of the PA mean it cannot govern Gaza,” and“Israel will need to maintain security control to prevent Hamas from rebuilding but should not and does not wish to govern Gaza itself.”
Abrams has a long history with both Palestine and Gaza, notably during the Bush administration. After Hamas was an unexpected election victor over its rival Fatah in the 2006 elections – which were hailed as the freest and fairest elections in the Arab world at the time – Abrams and other senior officials encouraged the mounting of an armed coup against Hamas led by Fatah’s local leader and Abrams’ favorite Muhammad Dahlan which, in turn, sparked a brief civil war in the enclave in which Hamas emerged victorious and stronger than ever. After the fiasco, Dahlan moved to the UAE, and there has been much speculation that he stands to play a key role on behalf of the Emirates if the kind of “Arab trusteeship” alongsideIsraeli security forces is established as recommended by the report.
* Jim Lobe is a Contributing Editor of Responsible Statecraft. He formerly served as chief of the Washington bureau of Inter Press Service from 1980 to 1985 and again from 1989 to2015.
