OPINION:
Osama bin Laden once asserted, “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.”
How has the Iran war affected our stature among Arab nations?
Throughout European governments, President Trump is seen as a bully, a force to be reckoned with, but with an overbearing presence. To Russia and China, we are not quite supplicants but ever eager for a deal, whatever that means.
In the Arab world, the strong-horse/weak-horse metaphor is more powerful. One author traces it to the 14th-century scholar Ibn Khaldun. Nevertheless, it remains a basic concept in Arab thinking.
In the Arab mind, our image is the strong horse, but the character is highly variable.
We were the weak horse when, after the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, President Reagan withdrew from Lebanon. We were the strong horse in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when U.S. air and ground forces threw Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait.
We were the strong horse when, in 2001, we invaded Afghanistan, but we became the weak horse in 2011 when President Obama withdrew from Iraq.
In 2021, when President Biden abruptly withdrew our forces from Afghanistan, leaving tons of weapons and equipment stranded, not to mention hundreds of our allies, we became vastly weaker.
In a May 25 post on Truth Social, President Trump wrote that, as part of the emerging agreement with Iran to end the war, he expected Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt to join the Abraham Accords with Israel. He warned that failing to do so would demonstrate “bad intention” on their part.
Mr. Trump reiterated that statement in a Cabinet meeting, adding that those nations “owe us that.”
Yet the Arab countries, at least those mentioned by Mr. Trump, have not joined the Abraham Accords, nor do they seem to be inclined to do so. They perceive indecision in the White House, which is fatal to leadership.
My friends at the Middle East Media Research Institute provide invaluable translations of Middle East journalism. Most of it is unfriendly to the U.S.
According to MEMRI, the Saudis have restated that they would join the Abraham Accords only once there is a clear path to a Palestinian state. The Qatari reactions have been typical of the Hamas-friendly government. Qatari journalists have attacked Mr. Trump and Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, saying the men were guilty of malice and arrogant detachment from reality.
One journalist, according to MEMRI, called the accords a “satanic deal.”
The Egyptians, like the Saudis, failed to respond formally to Mr. Trump’s admonition. Yet the Egyptian press has condemned the idea of “normalization” with Israel, although the nation has a treaty with Israel. The Egyptians have said they would formally become parties to the accords only after the establishment of a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital.
The state presses in Oman and Kuwait also joined in condemning “normalization” with Israel.
So much for the idea that those nations think they “owe us” anything.
The Arab states are fearful that Iran will not only continue to attack them but, once nuclear-armed, also will simply take over their nations. It seems that, for the time being, we are regarded as the weak horse and the Iranians as the strong horse.
So what can we do to return to the strong-horse characterization?
We could return to the bombing campaign, which would please Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Yet Mr. Trump does not want to do that. We could, and probably will, continue the blockade of Iran to strangle its economy. Mr. Trump probably will not do that indefinitely, which means it will fail.
The small attacks after Iran downed a U.S. helicopter this week show some restraint on our side, but not Iran’s. When we launched minimal bombing raids, the Iranians struck several U.S. allies in the Gulf and Jordan. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed.
There is no third way out of this war. Were we to resume the bombing campaign, we might change the regime in Iran by air power alone. If the Tehran regime isn’t overthrown, it will rearm with nuclear weapons and all our efforts will have been for naught.
Regimes that stubbornly hold onto power can be routed out. As I recommended in these pages when Mr. Trump first came into his second term, he could order the CIA, by a secret presidential determination, to help overthrow the regime.
He has apparently not done so, but there may still be time for him to do so now.
We are faced with a simple choice between a new regime in Tehran that will not rearm with nuclear weapons and the current one that definitely will. It is long past time that we returned as the strong horse.
• Jed Babbin is a national security and foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Times and a contributing editor for The American Spectator.
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