Ric Grenell: Only an 'Outsider' Like Trump Could Change the 'Calculus' for Mideast Peace

AP Photo/Alex Brandon
AP featured image
From left, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Donald Trump, Bahrain Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa and United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al-NahyanAbraham, stand on the Blue Room Balcony during the Abraham Accords signing ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
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While the Democrat Party and its liberal media lapdogs have all but ignored the historic Middle East peace deals brokered by the Trump administration, and signed during a Tuesday White House ceremony, former Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell said in an interview that only Donald Trump could have pulled them off.

As my colleague Brandon Morse reported Tuesday, Trump said “We’re here this afternoon to change the course of history,” during the signing of two separate deals; one between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, the other between Israel and Bahrain.

Trump added: “After decades of division and conflict, we mark the dawn of a new Middle East.”

Earlier in the Oval Office, Trump said “we’re very far down the road with about five additional countries.” He declined to name the countries involved, but later said it could be “five or six” countries.

So what’s going on? Why is “peace” now “suddenly” breaking out in the most dangerous region in the world; a region marked by decades of distrust, war, terrorism, and outright hatred?

In a word, Trump.

During an interview on Newsmax TV, Grenell told Spicer & Co. that only an outsider like Trump could change the “calculus” in the Middle East that could lead to the signing of historic deals between Israel and its Muslim neighbors, most of which at one time or another have vowed to “push Israel into the sea.”

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“Today a historical agreement would not happen if not for the fact Donald Trump is an outsider. If you play by the Washington, D.C., rules, you don’t get to this point because you listen to the Europeans on, say, the JCPOA Iran deal [aka Obama’s Iran nuclear deal].

“The Iran deal was really a bad deal for America.”

Grenell told host Sean Spicer that Trump’s decision to decertify the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was misrepresented by the American media. (Try to control your shock and amazement.)

“The Europeans complained, but many Arab governments cheered, and our media really missed that. They weren’t able to get that nuance. They just immediately went with the criticism of the Europeans.”

The Abraham Accords between Israel, Bahrain, and United Arab Emirates, Grenell said, showed that Mideast countries can step out of the “typical Washington, D.C., foreign policy establishment crowd.”

“These are the types of things that happen when an outsider brings a perspective like President Trump into the situation and changes the calculus for how we do foreign policy.

“I think we gotta cheer Donald Trump’s style. I think we’ve gotta say his style is making Americans safer and certainly making peace deals while he’s bringing our troops home.”

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One member of the “typical Washington, D.C., establishment crowd” who is not “cheering Donald Trump’s style” is Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Two Nobel Peace Prize nominations for the president aside, petty Pelosi, ever-cynical about all things Donald Trump — no doubt due to the early onset of stage IV Trump Derangement Syndrome — told CNN last week that Trump’s peace deals were nothing more than “distractions” from the impact of COVID-19.

“Good for him for having a distraction on a day when the numbers of people who are affected and the numbers of people who are dying from this virus only increases.”

Can you imagine waking up every morning, going to bed every night, that depraved and bitter? Me, neither.

Neither can Omar Ghobash, who serves as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) assistant minister for public and cultural diplomacy.

In response to a question from Fox News anchor Bret Baier about how much credit he gives Trump for the historic deals, Ghobash said:

“It is a truly remarkable achievement — even for us, citizens of the Arab world looking out. It is a remarkable achievement and it comes in a particular context which is incredibly important —we in the Emirates have been trying to push an agenda of communication, engagement, dialogue, tolerance. And this in the wake of the terror that ISIS wrought right across the region.

“And so, to find a U.S. Administration that takes us up on that and assists us in coming to peace with the Israelis, this is the first peace between an Arab state and the Israelis in 26 years. It’s a remarkable achievement in itself both for the administration and the American people, and for which I think we’re very grateful.”

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Nancy Pelosi unavailable for comment.

Clearly, America needs more Ric Grenells and fewer Nancy Pelosis.

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