The Minneapolis StarTribune is reporting this morning: BAGHDAD — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was in Baghdad on Monday, making his first official visit to the nation that Tehran once fought a bloody war against and later backed in the battle with the Islamic State group. StarTribune Story

New post on Joel C. Rosenberg’s Blog

Will Trump’s Mideast peace plan really be “dead on arrival”? Two reasons the critics may be wildly off the mark, especially because of Iran nuclear threat. My new column in The Jerusalem Post.

by joelcrosenberg

Trump-Arableaders2

(Washington, D.C.) — This morning, The Jerusalem Post published a new column of mine, “Will President Trump’s Mideast Peace Plan Really Be ‘Dead On Arrival’? Not If POTUS Makes It Easier For Gulf States To Move Towards Israel.”

Here are excerpts:

  • Soon after the April 9 elections, the White House is expected to unveil US President Donald Trump’s long-anticipated plan to advance peace in the Middle East. Critics aren’t waiting to read the actual text. They’ve already declared the effort doomed from the start. Yet such cynicism could very well prove wildly off the mark….
  • “Kushner’s Peace Plan Looks Dead on Arrival,” declared Politico.
  • “Kushner’s Peace Plan Is a Disaster Waiting to Happen,” insisted Foreign Policy magazine.
  • “Trump’s pursuit of his ultimate deal is almost certain to turn into the ultimate failure,” concluded Aaron David Miller, a former State Department official.
  • Palestinian leaders, meanwhile, have been publicly blasting the plan for months, while adamantly refusing to meet with administration officials.
  • Last July, Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, vowed the Trump plan would be “dead on arrival.”
  • Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said in November “the deal of the century is… the slap of the century” and “will not pass.”
  • Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, recently denounced the plan as “a ridiculous and doomed-to-fail attempt at normalizing Israeli crimes.”
  • Despite such a barrage of criticism, there are, however, two reasons why such conventional wisdom may prove entirely wrong….

[To read the rest of the column, please click here.]

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