Trump: I’m calling Netanyahu ‘right now… to tell him not to retaliate’ for Iran’s missile attacks

For nearly a decade, Americans have been told that Donald Trump possesses a mysterious genius when it comes to foreign policy. Every contradiction is explained away as strategy. Every reversal is called flexibility. Every blunder is repackaged as three-dimensional chess. And nowhere is this mythology more dangerous than in the Middle East.

It is time to stop assuming Donald Trump knows what he is doing.

The assumption itself has become a substitute for evidence. When negotiations fail, supporters claim that failure was the plan. When allies are confused, they call it unpredictability. When adversaries gain leverage, they insist Trump is merely setting a trap. The pattern has become almost theological. The leader is presumed infallible, and therefore every outcome, no matter how embarrassing, is interpreted as proof of wisdom.

The Middle East, unfortunately, is not a reality television set. It is not a Manhattan real-estate negotiation. It is a region where weakness is detected instantly, where political theater has consequences, and where enemies study actions rather than campaign slogans. In such an........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)