Warsaw Meeting Total Failure for Trump, Netanyahu

What was apparently spotted by the media and experts was Washington’s failure to get on board its agenda a large number of world countries, mainly Europeans, and the more important fact was the poor or low-level representation of the invited countries. The unsuccessful attempt to persuade major allies to join the highly propagandistic anti-Iranian show pushed the Americans to change their theme, from an event to forge an anti-Iranian alliance to one discussing the regional peace. Even this naming did not succeed in building a global trust to make the world believe that the US is seeking real peace in the region.

Three main goals have driven such White House effort against Tehran. First, isolating Iran and building a coalition against the Islamic Republic mainly by bringing on board the Arab allies for the final aim of preparing the ground for the Arab version of NATO. The second goal was to publicize the Israeli-Arab secret contacts for finalization of diplomatic normalization. And the third goal, highly affected by success or failure of the first two goals, was to push forward efforts to put an end to the Palestinian cause, an initiative the US and Israeli media call “the deal of the century” and is reportedly up for unveiling within a short time. The key question here is how much did the Warsaw conference push Washington closer to its goals?

What we should take into account first is that the gathering came while the US was pursuing a policy of freeing itself from the regional commitments. The meeting was the first effort by Washington to form an Arab-Israeli alliance after Trump announced his plan to withdraw his forces from Syria. The plan to publicize the Arab-Israeli relations to form a new regional security order to fill the US vacuum and protect the Western interests first needs an Iranophobia-powered anti-Tehran consensus and second requires an end to the decades-long Arab-Israeli dispute over Palestine occupation.

With these factors in mind, now we can better analyze the meeting outcomes. In their addresses, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to paint Iran the main threat to the regional security. Pompeo claimed that peace and security were not achievable without confrontation with Iran. Netanyahu talked about how like-minded the participating countries were about Iran. The effort to display an anti-Iranian consensus was accompanied by Netanyahu’s boasting about his meetings with Oman’s Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah and Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir. He said that he has not seen in his life such a convergence with the Arabs, adding that a tremendous change was happening that harbingered arrival of “a new era” in the region.

But the meeting outcome contradicted the Israeli and American boasting of development of an anti-Iranian alliance. The major European countries and Turkey, the second power at NATO, did not show up, or come with poor representation at the meeting, displaying the deep gaps between the EU and the US over Washington’s Iran-related and other policies. An array of destabilizing moves by Trump administration, including withdrawal from Iran nuclear deal, supporting Saudi war on Yemen, siding with Mohammed bin Salman’s hardline measures, embassy transfer to al-Quds (Jerusalem) in violation of UN resolutions, and backing separatism in Syria and Iraq, are the sources of the EU-US division. Western fragmentation beside the Russia-Iran-Turkey meeting in the Russian resort city of Sochi to discuss peace in Syria and regional cooperation lead to the notion that not only Washington failed to form its regional alliance against Iran but also a new opposite coalition is rising, containing Moscow, Tehran, Ankara as key members and others like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Qatar, and Yemen, that will pose serious challenges to the US and Israeli regime in the future regional order.

Concerning the Israeli-Arab normalization, Netanyahu's meeting with some Arab diplomats was nothing new because before that Tel Aviv had clandestine contacts with some of the Persian Gulf Arab states like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain more than once, all given publicity by the regional and global media. This Warsaw bilateral meetings were far from encouraging the other Muslim and Arab countries to compromise the Palestinian cause for the good of ties with the Israeli regime. Killing Oslo Accords and Arab peace initiative along with humiliation of the Arabian states by making them pay for the US regional presence now draw condemnation not only from the Islamist politicians but also the Arab public who find their countries embodying submission and humiliation.

The US debacle in the first two goals automatically set up the foundation for a new fiasco, this time for the third goal. After all, all of the Palestinian groups, including Mahmoud Abbas who for years made compromises to Tel Aviv, boycotted the conference in an alert to the Arabs who eyed advocacy to the deal of the century. Hamas deemed the Omani FM meeting with Netanyahu a big “disgrace” for Muscat and a stab in the back of the Palestinian nation. In fact, the signs of Trump administration moves’ failure appeared a couple of months before the Warsaw summit. A couple of months ago, Saudi Arabia scaled down its pro-normalization efforts and the Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz emphasized on the Arab kingdom’s commitment to the efforts to see the formation of an independent Palestinian state with Eastern al-Quds as its capital. A collection of these issues encouraged the major Western media analysts, including the Washington Post’s, to talk about Pompeo and Netanyahu leaving Warsaw empty-handed.