The Guardian: American isolation puts the Middle East in the wind, with the dawn of the new decade

The Guardian said that the main rule that has remained entrenched in the Middle East throughout its recent history of throwing the United States its weight to protect its interests and allies in the region, has changed in the third year of President Donald Trump's first term.

The British newspaper added that this shift took place when a "secular and naive" president began seeing regional interests with a narrow perspective, noting that the impact of that view was eloquent.

In the article written by her Middle East correspondent, Martin Chulov, she added that America's allies, such as Saudi Arabia, "bought arms and favors from Washington, who were hoping for (their rescue) when the party was at it."

And that moment came for Riyadh - as Chulov says - last September, when a plane launched an attack from Iran that struck half of the kingdom's oil production capabilities, after a summer of Iranian objections to navigation in the Gulf.

Vulnerable
The writer claims that Saudi leaders thought that the United States would activate an "unofficial" defense treaty and deal a counter-attack to Iran on its behalf, but that Trump retreated and left the "embarrassed" kingdom exposed and vulnerable.

However, the Saudi response took a few days, as it sought reconciliation with Iran through the State of Iraq, which the writer considers Tehran's ally.

Less than a month later, Trump made a "surprising" decision to abandon the Kurdish forces that the US military is fighting alongside it against Islamic State. The move coincided with Turkey's preparedness to "invade the Kurdish north of Syria, abandoning an ally who has protected Europe and the United States for five arduous years from an enemy he could not fight in a conventional war."

The Saudi decision surprised Washington’s friends, but the “betrayal” of the Kurds really shocked them. Indeed, Israel, “a friend of the Kurds and a beneficiary of Trump in the region,” was severely quake as a result, Cholov said.

Foreign policy
If a US president manages to do something like this "just for a whim", is he turning against one of the main pillars of foreign policy as long as it has been the approach of every American leader for decades? The writer asks, then he answers himself in the negative.

Cholov added that Trump's coup against this policy would upset his mass base at home and eradicate his hopes for a second presidential term.

Trump's breakdown of his relations with some of his allies is "convinced" that there is no benefit for his country from the strategic connection with the broader Middle East, which led to the withdrawal of the United States from the region and created a vacuum that Russia quickly filled.

Visit Putin
The Guardian correspondent in this regard draws the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Riyadh, and the tours of his assistants in Beirut, Baghdad and Erbil, in addition to his effective protection of his country's interests in Damascus.

These developments have weakened America's friends and allies in every sense of the word. As for Iran, the regional country that Washington has been giving most of its attention to, it has drawn Trump's decisions to back down from the region.

The writer believes that the "maximum sanctions" imposed by the US President on Iran, despite the fact that it shows success in paralyzing its economy to force it to return to negotiations, have given Tehran room for regional maneuver.

According to the article, Iran is facing, in the meantime, a "three-dimensional threat" to its influence in light of the outbreak of anti-government protests at home, and those that strike both Iraq and Lebanon.

Chulov concludes his article by emphasizing that the risk of a security collapse in the region is "real and growing", and that it remains unclear until now whether Trump is ready to accept the consequences of the actions that the United States contributed to or not.