Trump Checkmates Bibi’s Two War Drives—For Now

March 8—You might not think of President Donald Trump as a chess master, but the President and his foreign policy team, with his Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff leading, has pulled off a series of deft policy gambits on a par with the great chess masters, such as the American Bobby Fisher and his nemesis the Russian Boris Spassky, that have checkmated the Gaza war drive of the Butcher of Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin, “Bibi” Netanyahu, as well as his efforts to seek a wider regional war against Iran.

Gaza

Bibi has promised his racist lunatic coalition partner, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, that he plans to “open the gates of hell” on Hamas, fully re-engaging in that bloody war, with a likely enormous new death toll of innocent Palestinians. Blaming the lack of progress in securing a new round of hostage releases from Hamas, after Phase I of the ceasefire/hostage deal expired last weekend, Bibi has sabotaged all efforts to discuss Phase II. Trump responded by first prevailing on the Israelis to delay any military action for at least a week or more, to allow time to discuss a plan crafted by Witkoff to secure a new round of hostage releases and prisoner exchanges, while discussions on Phase II could be geared up. As Trump expected, Bibi immediately endorsed the Witkoff plan because he knew it was too vague for Hamas to accept.

Then, the President put out a couple of posts, seemingly backing Bibi’s new war, “opening the gates of hell,” were Hamas not to agree to release all the hostages immediately.

But what Bibi was not told was that Witkoff, working overtime for Trump, crafting a peace plan to end the war in Ukraine, had come up with a new plan, that would release 10 hostages immediately, extending the ceasefire in Gaza for two months, and restarting the humanitarian aid that Bibi had halted when Hamas rejected Witkoff’s initial plan, and then release the rest after Hamas and Israel worked out the full terms of Phase II of the American brokered peace deal that Witkoff and Trump had forced Bibi to sign off on last December. More importantly, Bibi was not told that Trump had authorized direct negotiations on this with Hamas officials—an unprecedented move in the last 40 years, as it has been the stated U.S. policy never to negotiate with terrorists.

The meetings, which took place in Doha with the support of Qatar, who has been as mediator in the negotiating process, are close to producing an agreement, as Trump reported yesterday, and has been confirmed by other sources. Trump has put Bibi in an incredibly tough position, as Bibi has said he would back Witkoff’s efforts to secure an agreement and endorsed Trump’s statements made this week to former hostages and their families who met with him in Washington, that his top immediate priority is to secure the return all of the hostages who were still alive. Trump also continues to say that the only way to return the hostages alive is through negotiation.

Writing in Haaretz March 6, analyst Amir Tibot says:"If the talks with Hamas are serious, and have gone beyond the release of the U.S. hostages toward the possibility of a larger deal, then Trump's late-night threat against Hamas, delivered with the usual bravado, should be seen as part of the negotiations. Trump is telling Hamas to think hard about the ramifications of not reaching a deal under the terms currently being discussed. He is swinging a heavy stick at the terror group, but by his very engagement with Hamas also holding out a carrot."

Bibi mouthed such words in support of Trump, but his actual policy is more war, which he wants to start again next week, leading ultimately to complete extermination of all Palestinians in Gaza. Sources say that by this weekend or early the coming week, American negotiators will have the outline of an agreement from Hamas on the new Witkoff plan and will be ready to force the Israelis to the negotiating table. So, Bibi and his war have been checkmated, at least for the immediate future.

Witkoff plans to return to Southwest Asia soon, heading for Cairo, where he is to lead the negotiations with Ukrainians to hammer out a deal to end NATO’s war against Russia. His task is also to force Bibi to agree to the two-month ceasefire extension, the return of at least ten living hostages, and the start of serious negotiations for Phase II. To get these concessions from Hamas, he will demand that Bibi order the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to leave the Philadelphi Corridor, on Gaza's southern border with Egypt, as they had agreed to under the terms of the deal they already signed. Netanyahu will be furious, but he knows that Witkoff has the full backing of Bibi's patron, Trump.

Iran

As the negotiations with Hamas were moving toward conclusion, Trump suddenly announced a gambit against another of Bibi’s war drives, this on a wider war against Iran, that he has sought approval for, but has been denied by Trump. The President declared his intention to negotiate a workable deal with Iran to end its nuclear weapons ambitions. He revealed a letter that he had sent to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in which he told the Iranian leader that he loves the people of Iran and wants them to have a great and peaceful future. Iran is a “great nation,” but it cannot have nuclear weapons. In the letter, Trump offered to sit down and work a deal that will make it worthwhile for Iran to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions.

As is typical with Trump, the offer to negotiate was couched in a threat: there are two ways to deal with this problem, either a "beautiful" ngeotiaited settlement, or militarily. My way, negotiations, is much easier. Trump said. The Iranians, also as is typical, said that they were not going to be bullied into talks, but did not fully reject the idea. Sources report that there is great support in the Iranian leadership for a new deal, especially if Trump guarantee its implementation.

Late last year, the Ayatollah had issued a fatwa (a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law given by an Islamic religious leader) saying that Iran cannot develop nuclear weapons or any weapons of mass destruction as they were against the teachings of the Quran. A source said that while the "wise guys" of Anglo-American intelligence circles had dismissed the fatwa statement as a cover for Iran’s real intent to become a nuclear power, Trump had taken it very seriously.

Told by Israeli sources that Bibi might plan to “go rogue,” and launch an attack on Iran without any White House approval, and then get the praise after he was successful, Trump decided to take the plunge and make an announcement now. “This was all prearranged,” said a source with White House connections. “The word has been sent to the Iranians through back channels that Trump wanted to bring Iran back in from the cold—a place they had resided in since the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover in Tehran, and subsequent 444-day hostage crisis. Trump also famously took the U.S. out of the 2015 Obama nuclear deal with Iran because he thought it would ultimately not work.

Trump’s idea is to end Iran’s position as a pariah state and bring it into his concept for a transformed region, where Arabs, Jews, and Persians work together and prosper. The bell cat for this idea will be what is done with post-war Gaza. Forget about “Trump Gaza," a source reported. "He likes the concept of removing the Palestinians from Gaza in order to more efficiently rebuild from the vast destruction and rubble. He put out that idea to shake things up, to get people to think big and not to rebuild the slum that existed there before Oct. 7, 2023. Wouldn’t it be great if the Iranians could contribute to that? That’s what Trump wants.

"But to get there, Trump has to secure the peace in Gaza, and to secure the peace, Hamas has to disappear as an organization. Here is where Iran could be quite helpful, since Hamas does not exist without Iranian funding. As part of the discussions on the nuclear deal, Trump wants to discuss the idea of Iran dismantling the "ring of fire" that it has built around Israel, to cause Israel to think twice about attacking Iran. That ring includes two nasty organizations, Hamas and Hezbollah, that Trump sees as obstacles to a stable peace in the region. They help create and sustain, on the Israeli side, killers like Netanyahu. So, Iran needs security guarantees and peace with Israel, which means it will not need Hamas and Hezbollah.”

This and other sources say that Trump has already talked to Russian President Vladimir Putin about Iran, and also, throiugh his emmissaries, to the Hamas leadership. Putin, they say, does not want Iran to become a nuclear weapons power, either, and also prefers that Iran get out of the business of sponsoring terrorism. The Russian leader may already be offering Trump some assistance on these matters. He recently summoned Hamas political leaders to Moscow, where they were reportedly told to accept the deal that Trump is working out.

“Strategically blind people say Trump is a meddler and provocateur who has no vision,” said the source. “But they underestimate him, just as they overestimate their ability to manipulate people and outcomes. Yes, he is a deal maker, but he is learning that there is a difference between business deals and deals that involve parties with longstanding prejudices and ideologies. He is learning, and this time he has some good people around to help him. Witkoff is gaining a lot of respect. He is tough, and takes no prisoners, but also listens to the other side. Most importantly, Witkoff has no interest in making a name for himself and is completely loyal to Trump.

The two of them have completely confounded Bibi, who finds himself checkmated, by people he considers his inferior. But it would be wrong to count the stymied and checkmated Bibi out, just yet. He has in the past, blocked the momentum towards peace, and he continues to escalate military intervention into the West Bank, with the full support of Smotrich and similar nutcases, Trump, said the source, knows that you need to give your adversary some space to work through opposition in their ranks to what must be the terms of a peace deal. Bibi offers no such Qatar. He is obsessed with his mission, which he perceives, comes directly fromGod, to elimiate the Palestinian threat to the Jewish state, by exterminating the Palestinians. In the end, Trump's real adversary in the peace process, is not Hamas, but Bibi. There cannot be any true peace, as long as he is in power in Israel."