By Amine Ayoub, JNS
The ultimate “deal” is not a symbolic treaty with terrorists; it is a robust and unified regional security architecture that makes Hamas irrelevant.
The Middle East thrives on chaos and recoils from clarity.
For decades, Washington favored polite, calculated ambiguity—a failed policy that pleased diplomats while solving nothing. This era of cautious management gave way to U.S. President Donald Trump’s disruptive “deal or else” approach—a transactional foreign policy that recognized a singular truth: The only path to stability is through a U.S.-backed, ironclad deterrence with a strong Israel as the essential pillar.
The Hamas-led massacre of 1,200 men, women and children in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023—a barbaric act of terror by Hamas and its Iranian sponsors—did more than shatter a fragile peace. It exposed the disastrous folly of substituting wishful thinking for the ruthless reality of ideological warfare.
Today, as the post-conflict landscape takes shape, people face a critical choice: return to the failed policy of managed decline or embrace the Trump doctrine of decisive partnership. Only this cooperative strategy, built on overwhelming strength, will ensure that Hamas can never again pose an existential threat.
For too long, American foreign policy operated under the debilitating illusion that “balance” was the key to peace. This meant consistently pressuring its democratic ally, Israel, to make concessions while naively expecting its radical enemies to magically moderate. This strategy failed catastrophically. Every Israeli concession was viewed by Hamas and Iran not as a step toward peace, but as a direct sign of weakness and an opening for further aggression.
Trump cut swiftly through this diplomatic fog. His administration correctly identified that the primary impediment to regional stability was the toxic influence of the Iranian regime and its network of violent proxies. By recognizing Jerusalem, moving the U.S. embassy there and successfully brokering the landmark Abraham Accords in 2020, during his first term in office, Trump did not terminate the peace process; he fundamentally resequenced it. He proved that pragmatic Arab states, facing shared threats and pursuing economic prosperity, were eager to normalize relations with Israel based on mutual security interests, bypassing entirely the perpetual veto power held by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
This revolutionary “outside-in” strategy infuriated the terrorist groups because it directly threatened their relevance. It was the first genuine challenge to their regional control. The scale of the Oct. 7 attack can be properly viewed as a desperate, premeditated attempt to tear down the nascent security architecture of the Abraham Accords and violently reclaim control over the regional narrative.
As the world debates “the day after,” the operative lesson must be clear: Hamas must be unequivocally dismantled, disarmed and permanently denied any role in governing the Gaza Strip. This outcome cannot be achieved with half-measures, nor can it be sustained without a unified, unambiguous U.S.-Israel front. It is precisely when the United States signals any lack of strategic alignment that Hamas gains its most valuable leverage, hoping that political pressure from Washington will ultimately rescue it from strategic destruction.
The durable “deal or else” approach demands that the United States operationalize its commitment to Israel through three strategic imperatives. First, Washington must function as Israel’s unwavering diplomatic shield at the United Nations and across the world stage. It must be made explicitly clear that the total elimination of Hamas’s military infrastructure is a shared and non-negotiable objective of both nations. Second, the United States must maintain Israel's Qualitative Military Edge, ensuring the continuous, uninterrupted flow of advanced military technology, missile-defense systems and real-time intelligence sharing. This is not mere support but a critical investment in American interests. Israel is Washington’s most reliable, technologically advanced partner in a Middle East dominated by hostile regimes.
The ultimate “deal” is not a symbolic peace treaty signed with terrorists. It is the establishment of a regional security architecture so robust and unified that Hamas is permanently neutralized, irrelevant, and unable to recruit or arm itself. This is the only path that serves the long-term national security interests of the United States. To waver on this now is to hand a devastating moral and strategic victory to the axis of terror led by Tehran.
Trump’s foreign policy was built on the premise that clarity, overwhelming strength and unwavering support for proven allies ultimately serve as the most effective form of deterrence. The horrific consequences of Oct. 7 show that when that deterrence is perceived to weaken, the cost is immediately paid in blood. A return to absolute, strategic and unquestioned U.S.-Israel cooperation is not merely a political preference, but the only achievable way to keep Hamas in check and set the foundation for any realistic, future peace.
