Alastair Crooke
The strike on the Hamas negotiating team assembled in Doha marks the end to an entire era - and "a new reality" for Qatar.
The strike on the Hamas negotiating team assembled in Doha to discuss the 'Witkoff Gaza proposal' is not just another 'IDF operation' to be passed over silently (as with the de-capitation of almost the entire civilian cabinet in Yemen).
It marks rather, the end to an entire era - and "a new reality" for Qatar.
It's a landmark event. For decades, Qatar has played a very profitable game - supporting the radical An-Nusra jihadists in Syria as a lever against Iran, while maintaining American military bases and a strategic partnership with Washington. Doha presented itself as a mediator - dining with the jihadists whilst acting as a Mossad facilitator.
It was this multi-directional approach that gave Qatar the reputation of being the 'eternal beneficiary' in Middle Eastern crises and in Afghanistan. Even when Israel, Iran, or Saudi Arabia were under attack, Doha came out ahead. The Qataris calmly counted the profits from their gas and enjoyed the role of indispensable intermediaries.
Now this fairy tale is over: There will be no more 'safe zones'. Most tellingly, the U.S. (reported Israeli Channel 11) had approved the action about which Trump was then informed. Despite questioning the attack, Trump said he applauded any killing of Hamas members.
We should have seen this coming. The Doha attack was yet another Trump-Israel sneak attack - a pattern that began with the sneak strike on the Hizbullah leadership assembling to discuss a U.S. peace initiative - a methodology then was copied for the Iranian de-capitation operation of 13 June, just as Trump touted JCPOA talks with the Witkoff team commencing in the days ahead.
And now, with Trump's Gaza 'peace proposal' handed as bait to gather the Hamas leaders together in one place in Doha, Israel struck. Witkoff's Gaza plan looks a mockery; or else a deliberate feint. For Israel had already decided to end the Qatari role.
Israeli logic is fundamentally simple and cynical - regardless of how many American bases you have or how important your gas is to the global economy. The killing of Ismail Haniya in Tehran, the strikes on Syria and Lebanon, the operation in Qatar - all are links to one chain: Netanyahu (and a majority in Israel is behind him in this) methodically demonstrates that there are no forbidden territories; no rules of law; no Vienna Convention for him in the Middle East.
The support for Israel's genocide and ethnic cleansing; the failure to make any serious effort to prepare a political path for a settlement on Ukraine; the reliance instead on making war, whilst proclaiming peace - all these represent the essence of the Trump approach: An exercise of escalatory dominance, both at home and abroad.
The whole notion of Make America Great Again (MAGA) seems to rest on the calibrated use of belligerency, tariffs or military power to maintain a continuous potential for escalatory dominance over the longer term. Trump seems to think that achieving dominance at home and abroad to be the essence of MAGA. And that this can be achieved through calibrated domination - sold to his MAGA base by calling such threats bringing 'peace' or negotiating a 'ceasefire'.
The emphasis on escalatory dominance also has to do with the transformation of wars - in Trump's mind - into huge U.S. profit-making ventures. The notion of turning Gaza into a lucrative investment project underlines the close linkage between war and making money. Ditto for Ukraine which has become a boondoggle for the U.S. money laundromat.
Do not believe that the U.S. will not come back to any particular war, in due time. That is why the escalatory ladder is never fully relinquished or removed, for its continued leaning up against the outer wall of a conflict offers a return to some form of further escalation at a later time (i.e. in Ukraine).
All these signs have rung warning bells in Moscow. Trump's Anchorage Trip - from the Russian perspective - was to learn (if possible) how tight are the fetters that bind Trump; what is the extent of his latitude to act autonomously; what he wants; and what might he do next.
For the Russians, the visit demonstrated what the limitations are.
Yuri Ushakov, Putin's principle foreign policy adviser, has explained that in Tianjin at the SCO summit, there were discussions with all of Russia's strategic allies; it was understood that there had been a delay in sanctions pressure on Russia offered by Trump, but no implementation of any of the structures for continuing negotiations. No structures, no working groups, no further exchanges to prepare for the so-called trilateral meeting of Trump, Zelensky, and Putin. No preparation for an agenda; no preparation for terms.
That spoke to Trump's future intentions - no structures, no signals, no real commitment to peace. Instead, the Russians see a Trump regime that is dallying with the opposite - with European plans to re-arm Ukraine.
The joint aggression by Israel and the U.S. against Iran - and yesterday's strike on Qatar - are events of the same ideological substance, serving as confirmation of the predominant sway of 'Israel Firsters', and those in the circles around Trump - nursing ancient grudges against Russia from similar religious roots.
The predominance of this Israeli-centric policy has fractured Trump's MAGA base. It has - more widely - permanently impaired U.S. global soft power and diplomatic trustworthiness. Yet Trump, held fast in its grip, dare not let it go - to do so would risk its self-destruction.
Israel is carrying out a second Nakba (ethnic cleaning and genocide) in Gaza and the West Bank, with Jewish society remaining largely trapped in repression and denial - just as it was back in 1948. Israeli filmmaker Neta Shoshani's controversial documentary about the 1948 war was banned in Israel because it exposed many of the flaws in the ethos underlying the creation of the nascent State's identity.
Shoshani wrote recently about her film, "I suddenly realized that in the past two horrible years the whole matter of the Israeli ethos has been totally shattered":
"I grasped that an ethos has a great deal of power, that it contains society within certain boundaries. And even if those boundaries are breached - and they were certainly breached as early as 1948 - there was still something in society's moral codes that at least caused it to feel ashamed. So for decades that ethos safeguarded [Israeli] society and the army, compelling them to preserve certain limits".
"And when that ethos falls apart, it's really scary. From this perspective, the film was difficult to watch from the get-go, but after the last two years it's become unbearable"...
"If 1948 Was a War of Independence, the current war could be the one that ends Israel".
Shosani's warning that when a society's ethical boundaries are erased in a bout of bloodletting (as they were in 1948), this loss of ethos structure can imperil the legitimacy of the entire project - leading to self-destruction as the state traverses all human limits.
This dark insight - very pertinent to today - may precisely be one tentacle tying Trump unreservedly to Israel's ultimate survival. (Likely, there are unseen 'other strong fetters', too).
This comes at a time when the U.S. is moving further and further away from its 1992 Defence Planning Guidance (DPG) draft - known as the 'Wolfowitz Doctrine' which called for the U.S. to maintain unquestioned military superiority to prevent rivals from emerging and, if necessary, to act unilaterally to protect its interests and deter potential competitors.
The current draft National Defence Strategy is pivoting away from China, towards securing the homeland and the Western hemisphere. Troops will be brought back, initially to enforce the border. Will Schryver writes, "Elbridge Colby has apparently opened his eyes to the reality that it's too late to arrest China's dominance of the western Pacific. He already knew war against Russia was unthinkable. The only strategically meaningful option left is Iran".
Colby perhaps understands too, that any further U.S. military failure would fatally expose Trump's geostrategic bluster as bluff.
We may see then a new round of major geopolitical shifts as Trump abandons efforts to be 'perceived as a global peacemaker'. Trump himself probably doesn't know what he wants to do - and with many factions trying to elbow in to the vacant strategic space, he likely will turn to those Israeli war tactics which he so much admires.