US President Donald Trump’s approach to securing a Gaza deal is part of his larger approach to dealmaking, which seems to include announcing that a deal is accepted even before both sides are on the same page.
This keeps the sides at the table and boxes them in to a compromise. In essence, you make the deal first and then work on the details. One of the problems with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has usually been that it gets bogged down in many small discussions and no one is willing to have the courage to make the big choices needed.
Trump’s method of trying to get a “yes” from both sides to end the Israel-Hamas War is how he has handled other deals. He did the same thing during the 12-day Iran war, announcing a deal before it was complete. He basically told both sides to agree and said they had. This helps both sides save face and also get out of a conflict that could last longer.
Wars are often harder to end than they are to get into. Consider World War I. Both sides careened toward the war without any idea of how it would unfold. Both were optimistic, and the public was largely supportive.
However, once the horrors of the front became clear, most understood that this war had no real purpose. But although the war was obviously not going anywhere after the first several months, the sides spent years fighting with terrible casualties for no achievement.
Donald Trump's instinct was formed in 1980s America
In the end, a deal was signed. If the sides could have ended the fighting in the fall of 1914, they should have. However, there was no Trump in 1914 to come tell the sides that a deal was possible.
Instead, the US didn’t intervene until 1917, and then did so with vague ideas about freedom of navigation and democracy. The 14 Points presented by American president Woodrow Wilson after the war were largely looked on with disdain by the European powers.
What Trump understands instinctually about war is that once it’s clear there are diminishing returns, it’s better to get out of the sunk cost of war.
Wars should be won or they should not be pursued. They should have a strategy. This is something the US learned the hard way in Vietnam, a conflict that would have dominated more than a decade of Trump’s life.
Trump’s vision of America was formed in the 1980s, a time when America was grasping for what to do in a post-Vietnam era. The concept of making America great again was formed in the 1980s as an answer to the malaise of the post-Vietnam era.
Recall how much Trump was likely influenced by films about American MIAs and POWs left behind in Vietnam. It’s plausible that Trump’s devotion to the hostages in Gaza is related to the enduring trauma felt in the US about those missing in Vietnam. Trump is also attuned to the fact that most Israelis want an end to the war.
To get to “yes” on both sides, Trump reached into his toolbox of his concept of dealmaking and his own doctrine about big ideas and peace in the region, and has sought to produce a deal.
We are all familiar with the fact that merely saying there is a deal isn’t enough. “Peace in our time” is not always what it seems.
Therefore, it is key to the Trump doctrine that this deal will need to get most of the way to the end zone for it to be a success. Trump has pursued an “all-in” approach to the deal by putting out a number of statements on Friday, announcing that the deal was moving forward and asking Israel to end the bombing.
“Based on the statement just issued by Hamas, I believe they are ready for a lasting PEACE. Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza, so that we can get the Hostages out safely and quickly… this is about long sought PEACE in the Middle East,” Trump wrote.
Now we wait and see if his art of the deal will work.