The US liberal discourse on the administration of President Donald Trump says he is a moron who does not know what to do. That's what made the Democrats imagine that the last 27 months were just a nightmare, and it could be changed quickly as soon as the right person could keep Trump away from the White House.

But some foreign policy officials are not convinced by this imagination. Two Middle East specialists wrote an article in Politeco, Aaron David Miller and Richard Sokolsky. The two men made it clear that some Trump opponents fully understood that his policies were dangerous attempts to make a real change in US policy.

Miller has worked for the State Department for 24 years and has long advocated pressure on Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians. Mr Sokolsky was also a State Department employee. Like Miller, now president of the Wilson Research Center, he retired to a comfortable position at the Carnegie Endowment for Research. The two men warn that Trump's successor will not be able to change his handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and withdraw from Iran's nuclear deal.

They are right about the nature of these changes. Despite the scale of the changes that Trump has made on the scene in both cases, his opponents will not be able to restore the situation to what it was before Trump received power from his predecessor, Barack Obama. This makes the 2020 elections one of the most significant elections in the Middle East.

Of course, Trump's handling of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is unprecedented. Ever since Israel was formed, the United States has not recognized Israel's sovereignty over any part of Jerusalem or the city as the capital of Israel, as it was necessary to maintain the United States' status as an honest broker for conflict resolution. To pressure the Israelis to be more lenient in the negotiations.

The end of hope

These same assumptions have been the basis of US policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations since the Oslo Accords in 1992. The administrations in which Miller and Sokolsky worked had pressed Israel to make concessions in order to facilitate peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

But Trump turned all of this upside down. Miller and Sokolsky believe that recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and adopting an aggressive stance toward the Palestinian Authority has put an end to any hope of diplomatic progress. These changes, coupled with the recent recognition of Trump's administration of Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights, have made the United States stand in the public ranks of Israel and have been a signal to the Palestinians that their hopes for the establishment of their state have faded.

Miller and Sokolsky may be right that the peace plan developed by the president's adviser and his daughter-in-law, Garrid Kouchner, will not work. But the policies that they supported in the past not only failed in a miserable way, but reduced the possibility of peace.

Palestinians have long assumed that they do not need to make concessions, because sooner or later the West will abandon Israel. This illusion is reinforced by President Obama's belief that by creating "clarity" in the relationship between the United States and Israel, peace can be achieved. But the Palestinians have not taken advantage of Trump's efforts to bring diplomacy to their side, in addition to the outright hostility between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Palestinian Authority continued to believe that the international community would eventually force Israel to comply with its will, and that it feared it would look weak compared with the Hamas movement in Gaza.

isolation

Despite the experts' expectations, Trump's move toward Jerusalem, in addition to his more realistic approach to peace negotiations, did not undermine US influence in the region. On the contrary, a number of Arab countries urged the Palestinian Authority to negotiate rather than reject Kouchner's plan, The Palestinian Authority has rejected this advice. By strengthening US-Israeli relations, Trump showed the Palestinians that they would lose a lot because of their stubbornness. If they refused to offer it, they would find themselves more isolated.

Trump's willingness to undermine Iran's nuclear deal with the Obama administration is another example of replacing rational analysis with wishful thinking in the Middle East. Miller and Sokolsky describe Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo's list of Iranian targets as "extremist" and "unnecessary and provocative." But putting an end to Iran's support for terrorism, its quest to control the region, and its illegal production of missiles, Before abandoning the harsh sanctions policy in favor of a truce. In addition, the Iranian agreement left Tehran with its nuclear infrastructure as it is, and after a period of time during which the agreement expires, allowing Iran to eventually build the nuclear bomb.

Unlike Miller and Sokolsky, the goal of US diplomacy with Iran should never be to further friendly relations with the Islamic Republic. Iran must change its behavior. By imposing sanctions and trying to prevent the export of Iranian oil, Trump does not push the region into military conflict. On the contrary, he may have returned to the point of 2013, when Obama abandoned Western economic influence, in exchange for a temporary halt to Iran's pursuit of a nuclear bomb. But by strengthening Iran's power and making it richer, Obama makes it more dangerous. Trump's policies show success by weakening Iran.

If Iran and the Palestinians wait in the hope that the hurdles they face now can change, it is because Western politicians, including former Secretary of State John Kerry, have said they must wait until 2021 when Trump will step down as Democrat Obama.

This is possible, says Miller and Sokolsky, although it will never be easy. Despite Miller and Sokolsky's contempt for President Trump, they understand that measures such as moving the US embassy to Jerusalem and imposing sanctions on Iran are popular, and any Democratic president who wants to change Trump's moves will face the opposition.

Palestinians and Iranians can wait and work with reality until the 2020 elections. But if Trump is re-elected, they must face reality and adapt their policies if they want a state (in the case of the Palestinians) or end their isolation (in the case of Iran).

In both cases, Trump's contempt for both experts is ultimately justified. Changing his policies has strengthened America's position in the Middle East, but the continuity of these changes remains in the hands of voters.

Trump's move toward Jerusalem, in addition to his more realistic approach to peace negotiations, has not undermined Washington's influence in the region. On the contrary, Arab countries have urged the Palestinian Authority to negotiate.

Jonathan Tobin - Writer at National Review