What U.S. learned from Middle East crises

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]What?

[00:00:01]Have American policy makers learned from Middle East crisis [clears throat] past that we're missing or maybe not missing in this case. I mean, if you could sit down with the Trump administration right now and give them some advice, you know, what would the advice be in terms of navigating another quagmire in the Middle East?

[00:00:19]Which may or may not last a you know >> may or may not. may not last long.

[00:00:24]>> Right. I mean, I will say that one of the things I agreed with the Trump administration on and and actually Peter in the in the first Trump administration was you know, no more forever wars and preferably no more wars in the Middle East where we are on the ground trying to reshape things. There are things we absolutely have to defend against. You know, when with when when we have specific terrorist attacks, there are and I would have said defending freedom of navigation through the Straits of Hormuz is one. That's basic international law. Um but I I would have said stay out. It's really important that the region itself develop the power to stabilize the region and actually again, the first Trump administration concluded the Abraham Accords in which a number of of Arab countries including Morocco, UAE actually recognized Israel.

[00:01:17]That was really important and that was going in the right direction and I pray I'm afraid it's torpedoed now, but again, the idea is you need that region needs to not stop being the site of proxy wars on behalf of of multiple superpowers and the the divides with with Israel and Arab states and we were moving in that direction. I think this will not get us there.

[00:01:42]Did you want to add something? Yes, if I might thanks.

[00:01:45]We have to remember um why the Abraham Accords were not extended after the first Trump administration left office. The reason they were not extended even though Saudi Arabia had expressed its interest even though Saudi Arabia had let the Biden administration know that uh we need a deal with more sophisticated weapons. We need a civil nuclear program. We need some agreement um about defense and also we need concessions from the Israelis and Palestinians. But the reason that that progress toward expanding the Abraham Accords not continue is because on October 7th, 2023 Iran-backed Hamas committed a massacre in southern Israel. That massacre was designed to draw in Hamas from the West Bank, Hezbollah from the north in southern Lebanon, which it did, Syria, the Houthis in Yemen, which it which it also did. This was an Iranian operation.

[00:02:45]In other words, it isn't isn't it's not a figment of the Trump administration that Iran, whatever happened in 1953, today in real time is undermining stability in the Middle East.