Trump's Middle East plan is a fiction without Netanyahu
By Adele Rutherford · Reporting from Atlanta ·
President Donald Trump is attempting to play the role of the grand architect, and he is doing so with the same appetite for systemic overhaul that defined the Post-World War II Settlement.
# Trump’s Middle East Blueprint: The Architect and the Obstructionist
President Donald Trump plays the role of the grand architect, driven by the same urge to redraw maps that defined the Post-World War II Settlement. Axios reports the administration is designing a post-war strategy for the Middle East—a project Trump calls "something much bigger"—that leverages current chaos to build a permanent web of defense pacts. Trump wants to realign the region by blocking Tehran's missile reach, expanding the Abraham Accords, and securing a security pact with a Syria stripped of the Assad dynasty.
A blueprint is not a building, and the process is failing.
A New Order for the Levant
The plan works by building a regional wall against Tehran, winding down the fallout from October 7, and sealing a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Euronews says this mirrors the Post-World War II Settlement: a superpower uses the rubble of fallen regimes to impose a new order that prevents war through shared borders and joint commands.
This impulse surfaced in 2020 when the Abraham Accords sketched the first map. The U.S. then used its withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to clear the ground. This is the end point of a path that began with the Iraq War's attempt to reshape the region by force. Trump is now moving from disruptor to guarantor.
Can the Blueprint Survive Netanyahu?
The guarantor has a partner more interested in his own survival than in the architecture. Anadolu Agency reports that Benjamin Netanyahu’s officials are blocking the "Board of Peace," the U.S.-led group tasked with disarming Gaza and managing its transition. While the U.S. pushes for the second phase of a plan backed by UN Security Council Resolution 2803, Israeli security officials in the Southern Command refuse to cooperate.
The gap between the American vision and the ground is now a canyon. Haaretz reports the relationship between Trump and Netanyahu has turned bitter, with Israeli officials feeling betrayed. Netanyahu is eyeing the October 27 legislative elections; he plays a short-term game for parliamentary seats while Trump tries to build a long-term system.
Netanyahu argues that a technocratic Palestinian administration is a security risk he cannot gamble on before a vote. But history shows that regional alignment fails if the primary local partner treats the foundational rules as political liabilities.
If the U.S. guarantees a system that its lead ally refuses to implement, the guarantee is a lie. The plan will not survive the October elections because the partnership has devolved into mutual frustration. A security network built on obstruction is a postponement, not a settlement. Trump may push the strategy regardless of the vote, but a guarantor without a cooperative agent is just a spectator with a map.