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DIPLOMACY IN THE Middle East is a graveyard of Western ambitions. For many decades, American presidents have arrived with grand plans for peace, only to depart with little to show. Wooden envoys have shuttled between capitals, communiqués have been issued and forgotten, and “road maps” have led nowhere. It is all the more dazzling, then, that the war in Gaza has been paused not by a lifelong statesman but by a man who styles himself a dealmaker. The ceasefire agreed last week, which included a hostage release and a halt to fighting, is the first substantive breakthrough in the region in years. It was brokered by Donald Trump.
His achievement is all the more exceptional given the circumstances. The war had ground on for two years, with Hamas militants dug deep beneath Gaza and Israeli forces determined to root them out. Previous attempts at mediation, including by the Biden administration, had foundered on mutual mistrust. Neither side would move without guarantees from the other, and neither would trust those guarantees. Into this stalemate came Mr Trump and his team. They persuaded Egypt, Qatar and Turkey—all with ties to Hamas—to press the militants to accept a deal without a prior promise from Israel to stop its offensive. That alone signals real leverage.
How was it done? The answer is down to a cold-eyed reading of the region’s shifting balance of power. The Gaza war has weakened Iran’s proxies, Hamas and Hizbullah. The collapse of Assad’s rule gave way to an interim administration led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, struggling to impose authority. Gulf monarchies, rattled by security threats, have come to value calm over ideological solidarity. Mr Trump grasped this shift faster than many professional diplomats. He saw that Arab fatigue with the Palestinian cause, combined with a fear of wider instability, had created an opening for consensus. Rather than pushing for lofty ideals such as democracy promotion or full Palestinian statehood, he pivoted towards a grubbier realism: quiet borders, shared economic interests and the containment of militancy.
This approach flouts the conventions of statecraft. Mr Trump relies on personal relationships—with Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister; Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president; Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt’s; and the emir of Qatar. He uses blunt, public optimism to corner regional actors into co-operation. He mixes issues, tying a Gaza ceasefire to bigger goals such as Arab-Israeli normalisation and outreach to Iran. This disruptive style, often derided as amateurish, has produced tangible results because it unsettled a diplomatic status quo grown complacent. It signals a change from moral posturing to outcome-driven realism: a willingness to engage all actors, however unsavoury, in the service of stability.
The deal’s success depended less on idealistic peace frameworks than on Mr Trump’s ability to exploit pressure points. Hamas was militarily battered and diplomatically isolated. Israel was exhausted by years of mobilisation and global criticism. Arab governments were anxious to show domestic audiences they could stop the bloodshed. Mr Trump’s diplomacy thus aligned incentives rather than aspirations, getting each side to act out of self-interest, instead of goodwill. This realism has produced concrete human results: hostages freed, fighting halted and a path, however fragile, towards broader talks.
In the process, Mr Trump has revived America’s relevance in a region where its credibility had weakened after the retreat from Afghanistan and the muddle in Syria. By leading a summit in Egypt attended by nearly two dozen nations, he reasserted America’s centrality in regional diplomacy, something neither Russia nor China could match. His success has forced Arab leaders and Israel to acknowledge that Washington remains the indispensable power for Middle Eastern peace, however transactional its methods. The fact that Mr Trump managed to co-ordinate rivals—Turkey, Egypt, Qatar and Israel—within an American-led framework is rare in recent history.
What comes next? Mr Trump frames the ceasefire not as an end but as a “beginning to the end”: a foundation for rebuilding Gaza, stabilising the region and restarting normalisation. His bigger vision includes ending Hamas rule, establishing a neutral Palestinian administration and deploying an Arab-led multinational security force. These goals are ambitious and may prove unrealistic. The Middle East is littered with the ruins of past peace plans. Yet the very act of articulating them—and mustering support from Arab and Muslim states—marks a strategic re-engagement with a region many American presidents have preferred to avoid.
The risks are clear. Ceasefires can collapse; militant groups can regroup; regional alignments can shift. But few leaders have achieved even a temporary alignment of interests among Israel, Hamas’s backers and Arab states. Mr Trump’s willingness to gamble politically—to take personal ownership of an unpredictable process—contrasts with the cautious paralysis of his predecessors. Whether or not his wider peace vision holds, the ceasefire has already saved lives and reset diplomatic momentum in a war that had become grimly normalised.
Diplomatic courage is rare, especially on a no-win issue that most leaders avoid. Mr Trump seized a moment when exhaustion and geopolitical realignment made compromise possible. He has freed hostages, paused fighting and brought Arab and Israeli leaders to the same page, at least for now. He is attempting to rewrite a post-Oslo Middle East order, substituting personality-driven dealmaking for traditional diplomacy. Even if the plan eventually falters, Mr Trump has proved that unorthodox leadership can break diplomatic torpor. In a region of intractable conflicts, that is a rare feat indeed. ■