Comment by xp84
5 months ago
No dispute that he’s talking a lot of nonsense, but don’t rule out that he is bluffing in a major way with all of this stuff in hopes it will help him to win various concessions. If they can be convinced that Trump genuinely might roll in on an Abrams, pave Gaza from one side to the other, and fill it with Trump casinos, he thinks, then the parties will be more open to making a deal that isn’t ludicrous but is still painful to both sides (as a compromise must be).
Note that I don’t believe it is a genius 4D chess move, or a particularly well executed version of the strategy. But just because his pronouncements are so ridiculous and impractical, and just plain offensive, and just because he’s an idiot, that still doesn’t mean it’s not a bluff.
We have a word for when Bob comes up to Alice with a gun and threatens to shoot her if she doesn't hand over her purse.
It isn't 'bluffing'.
We don't even have a word for what is happening with Gaza, and any illustrative analogy I can come up with would be cribbing the SAW movies.
Gaza has nothing with which to do a deal. So far as I can see, which admittedly isn't necessarily all that far, the only parties there that have any meaningfully influential levers to pull are Israel (whose current (unpopular) leader is welcoming this) and Egypt (who have the Suez canal).
(I don't think anyone outside the region is sufficiently motivated to care, though now I think about it I wonder if Iran could buy a nuke or ten from either Russia or North Korea? If so, or indeed if anyone else in the area can, they also become relevant).
> I don't think anyone outside the region is sufficiently motivated to care
All that supplying Hamas with weapons and Syria stuff, going back to backing Egypt in 20 century attacks on Israel, shows at least Russia cares
> if Iran could buy a nuke or ten from either Russia or North Korea
They could. Russia bought weapons from Iran (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahed_drones) so why no the other way around
Caveat for all of this: I'm guessing wildly on that and you shouldn't take this as deeper than armchair/pub talk.
> All that supplying Hamas with weapons and Syria stuff, going back to backing Egypt in 20 century attacks on Israel, shows at least Russia cares
Could be, but Russia is currently grinding itself to exhaustion on a fraction of the discretionary budget of NATO countries that are also going "hmm, we can't trust the US any more either, and need to build up our own stockpile…", so I don't see them as being strong enough to be relevant — except by selling nukes.
As for "why not": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferatio...
I rather suspect that violations of that particular treaty will be taken very very seriously, something along the lines of the White House saying: "We know Russia sold them to Iran, we're going going to count any Iranian use of them as if Russia used them itself. Tehran nukes our friends in Tel Aviv, means we nuke Moscow." (North Korea, being much smaller and acting like it's constantly under threat from everywhere, might not see any novel risk).
But perhaps that wouldn't be a problem, even for Russia — fait accompli has a way of changing things, and a nuclear armed Iran might make Israel call for international oversight and join the ICC even at the expense of throwing Netanyahu under the metaphorical bus.
Yeah, on this one I can only speculate on the real-life endgame Trump imagines he's going to negotiate using this bluff. Maybe he thinks the Arab countries like Jordan could be convinced to demand of Hamas that they stand down in general. Although I certainly don't see either that demand, nor compliance with it, happening.