The Impossible Mission of Trump’s Engineering in the Middle East!

Samir Taqi

In a multipolar world, and according to the National Security Document of the Trump administration, the United States confronts critical and dangerous priorities to face its multiplying competitors.But it is clear that the Middle East is no longer among its priorities! Even though it remains vital for completing its stumbling map.

To achieve that, Washington lightens the weight of its physical presence in the region, and adopts the engineering of “remote management” of regional chaos, and the delegation of its warring allies, and the division of work, gains, and shares among them, far from the “illusion” of ending the destructive and “eternal” conflicts. Rather, Trump تصور keeps their fierce conflicts under the ceiling of its higher interests.

So it is “delegated stability,” from a distance, under the principle of “burden-sharing,” and the distribution of profits and blood among the allies. So that America remains holding technological, financial, and intelligence threads, with advanced capabilities, and intelligence and operational enablement, and the option of decisive intervention when necessary. To push its conflicting allies to the front. Therefore, Washington will reduce its direct weight, not because it has lost interest, but in order to distribute the cost and turn toward the more decisive theaters.

America has done that before! Nixon adopted in 1969 the “sharing of allies” in the direct strategic burden. And Britain did likewise with its withdrawal from “East of Suez” in the late sixties, after the longing for the past would not keep its empire alive.

Yes, after America itself became an exporter of oil, and its sensitivity to energy sources declined, the centrality of the Middle East declined! But despite the shift of great competition to technology and farther maritime supply chains, America remains interested in protecting Israel, preventing hostile powers from controlling the oil of the Arab Gulf, and ensuring the security of maritime navigation routes. What Trump wants is to leave his allies to manage their “eternal” wars among themselves without America having to intervene. So that the Arab Gulf states become more than merely a “security beneficiary,” but a security provider on the front lines: maritime patrols, deterrence of missiles, and strategic.

And while this engineering recalls the “two pillars” experience that relied on regional powers in the seventies to protect the Gulf; the pillars of its policy today are not built on oil alone, but on military and technical integration, on command-and-control networks, and on joint manufacturing contracts. This strategy redefines the region’s position as an arena for conflict and competition with international rivals, within the context of turning allied states into an economic platform that inserts nuclear energy, artificial intelligence, and defense technologies as fields of partnership, and supporting the ambition of the Arab Gulf states to become logistical and financial centers, employing their sovereign funds as instruments of influence. That is the word of the “regional investment deal” aimed at economic diversification, strengthening the industrial base, and industrial intelligence, semiconductors and alternative energy, as an alternative سند for the resilience of supply chains. So that money becomes at the heart of diplomacy after it had been attached to it.

Thus, technology in turn becomes a pressure card no less important than aircraft carriers. And export controls—especially in AI chips and advanced computing—are used as a negotiation tool around trust, compliance, and alignment.

And the regulatory حلقات reveal that the deployment of “artificial intelligence” platforms shows the nature of the new bargains between the Gulf states and the United States, so that major partnerships such as Microsoft in G42 confirm this idea by describing technical exchange as a test of trust and guarantees, not merely a silent commercial deal.

But alas!In our Middle East, the حساب of the fund does not match the حساب of the fund! For many devils lurk in the details of this imagined Trumpian tableau.For Trump’s engineering suffers from many holes because it assumes an ideal world ruled by absolute American dominance.

1. The first hole: that a multipolar world has replaced the Cold War world! Where the division of labor, roles, influence, and the قواعد of conflict among the الكبرى remains far from being settled among the الكبرى.

2. The second hole— the paradox of delegation: while Washington wants the regional partner to bear the burden, and to allow it to scrutinize all of its technical joints, and heavy oversight to verify compliance and constant coordination, it provides in return no strategic security guarantees to compensate for reliance on its international خصونها.

3. The third hole: the narrow spectrum of American diplomacy: such engineering requires intensive American engagement in the region, which is not secured with the “rapid transactions” diplomacy that Trump relies on, while regional and international priorities crowd one another in opposite directions.

4. The fourth hole: weak returns for regional allies: Washington requires that they bear the routine responsibility in deterrence and defense, while it retains the right to “focused and decisive measures” when its interests are touched. This creates an operational model dangerously on the region: short and sharp American strikes, but their rebound—missiles and drones, cyberattacks, or the disruption of straits—falls first and last on the front-line partners. And unlike the “Carter Doctrine” 1980 that tied Gulf security to America’s vital interests, the new doctrine does not promise a long war to protect energy flows, but prefers risk management through localized deterrence and alliances more reliant on الذات.

5. The fifth and most important hole: deep regional conflicts remain like embers under the soil, as Trump’s strategy ignores the depth of conflicts and the desperate competition among the four regional strategic pillars. While it refrains from establishing a long-term stability system. Thus conflicts remain and erupt very repeatedly in the context of crises of legitimacy, crises of rights, and conflicts over arenas, roles, and influence. And Trump would be deluded if he thought he could ضبط them with such a strategy.

And after it failed to build states, and to spread democracy by tanks in the region, the Arab Gulf states learned—by experience, not by lectures, and not by “medical intentions”—that America, always impulsive, quickly turns its back and moves on, while demanding from them more defense spending, and strategic integration in air, missile, and maritime defense, while they themselves remain exposed to various regional and international risks.

Indeed, the United States intervenes كثافة in the region’s relations with China and Russia, to ensure that sensitive strategic sectors remain outside the reach of its international rivals. For delegation needs supervision, supervision needs time, and time is the rarest resource in a capital that changes its priorities بسرعة الأزمة.

Despite these holes, and despite its anxious narrow margins, Trump gambles on re-mixing the regional engineering: one miscalculation at sea or in cyberspace raises enormously the cost of delegation for the states of the region.And alas, between Washington’s desire to withdraw from details and its need to control them, diplomacy almost becomes impossible! Article link https://www.annahar.com/articles/annahar-writers/275281/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%87%D9%85%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%AD%D9%8A%D9%84%D8%A9-%D9%84%D9%87%D9%86%D8%AF%D8%B3%D8%A9-%D8%AA%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%A8-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D8%B1%D9%82-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%88%D8%B3%D8%B7