Articles - Others - Date: 2025-07-30

By: Oraib Al Rantawi

From Gaza to Damascus, through Beirut and Tehran, Washington has not ceased the deceptive game it has become so adept at, especially since the return of Donald Trump to the White House. Its unfolding game is built on a policy of ‘open-ended outcomes’ concerning the myriad crises currently stretching from the Caspian to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its most vulgar tactics include political spin, contradictory statements, the abandonment of human rights and international law, reneging on agreements, and even torpedoing the initiatives that it has long boasted about proposing and endorsing.

In Gaza, the Biden and Trump administrations both reneged on agreements they initiated, only to return to an embrace of Israeli policy. There is still no conclusive vision on what Gaza and Palestine will look like after the war. We know what Washington doesn’t want, but it has yet to reveal what it does. Under Trump, it has never once uttered the phrase ‘two-state solution’. It took a stance against the New York conference, initiated by Saudi Arabia and France, referring to it as ‘unproductive’ while pressuring countries not to participate. It has criticized every government that has recognized or announced its intention to recognize a Palestinian state. Yet, despite all its condemnation, Washington has still not revealed what fate it intends for an entire people, who, like all peoples of the earth, have a right to self-determination and to build an independent state. There is a missing state in the region, not a surplus, nor are there superfluous populations, as argued within the framework of ultra-fascist and hardline religious Zionists.

In the ceasefire negotiations, Washington has never once acted as a fair or respectable mediator, instead being a more extreme party than Israel itself. Its latest ploy was withdrawing from the last round of negotiations, after it had consistently spread an air of optimism and heralded an imminent 'solution'. It blamed Hamas for the failure, a view not adopted by the two other Arab mediators. Then the U.S. president emerged brandishing threats and ultimatums, leaving Netanyahu to decide the next step, before his administration circled back to talk of significant progress (Marco Rubio) and getting the negotiations back on track (Steve Witkoff). What a deceitful pivot even before the ink dried on the decision to pull the U.S. delegation from Doha!

The ‘open-ended’ nature of the crisis in Gaza emboldens Israel to pursue its most expansionist ambitions. It intends to fully occupy the Gaza Strip and assert sovereignty over it, if it can. If not, it will aim to annex the security belt and parts of the North overlooking major settlements in the Gaza envelope. To let Netanyahu and his fascist clique run wild is at the core of the strategic vision for Gaza and the future of the Palestinian cause.

In Lebanon, the situation is not much different. The U.S. mediated the end of the war, chairs the Quintet Committee overseeing implementation, and today is the very party threatening Lebanon with hellfire if it does not yield to Israeli dictates. It is the one pushing for the resistance's disarmament, even if that leads to nationwide devastation. It refuses to offer any guarantees to Lebanon and evades every request to pressure Israel. Worse still, U.S. Special Envoy Tom Barrack has not hesitated to dash the Lebanese dream of a ‘permanent homeland,’ waving the threat of annexation by Syria under its new regime.

Deception is the name of the game that Barrack is playing in Beirut. He dishes out sweet promises, tells every party what it wants to hear, praises the responses of Lebanon's top three leaders to the U.S. proposal, then attacks them, proposing instead extremely tight timelines for disarmament. As for the legitimate and rightful demands of the Lebanese, there are no clear answers, only indefinite postponement, pending Israel's 'good faith' response. It is clear that to keep the compounding crisis in Lebanon open-ended is part of the U.S. strategy.

In Palestine, there is no promise of a Palestinian state. As for Lebanon, there are threats to dissolve the Lebanese state. Yet, among Palestinians and Lebanese alike, some still cling to illusions, betting on 'disputes' or 'disagreements' between Washington and Tel Aviv. Some even follow the Americans in playing the game of deception and pressuring their compatriots, without recognizing that they are next on the menu.

In Syria, Washington's sudden policy shifts from one extreme to the other have shocked even its closest allies and those most aligned with its strategy. Caution and reservations at the beginning gave way to openness, support, a lifting of sanctions, and betting on the new regime, only for the U.S. to revert to its old ways. It threatened to reimpose the Caesar Act sanctions and has resumed its game of pressure and extortion to expedite the process of making the regime adapt to the requirements of the Abraham Accords. Most pertinent of these is the acceptance of Israel’s occupation of both old and new strategic tracts of Syrian land.

Talk of Syria's unity and sovereignty was just another chapter in the game of deception, intended to sedate the new regime and its Arab and Turkish backers. Thus, the 'open-ended outcomes' strategy is also at work in Syria. Washington no longer objects to a federation of minorities. Alongside Tel Aviv, it is pushing to partition the three Southern governorates from the rest of Syria under false security pretexts. It's not unlikely that it will back the rise of minority enclaves on the coast and in the Northeast. Its sole concern in Syria is maintaining Israel's security, sating its expansionist appetite, and turning a useful Syria, stretching from Aleppo to Damascus via Hama and Homs, into a launchpad for thwarting Iran and preventing its expansion as well as strangling Hezbollah and preventing its recovery.

There is no U.S. vision for Syria post-Assad. The issue is wide open to any number of scenarios, awaiting the one most conducive to Israel's interests and the manifestation of its regional supremacy. Aside from that, there is no cost to sweet-talking Sharaa and his administration; that can always be reversed, perhaps in the blink of an eye. Managing the Syrian crisis, rather than solving it, and keeping its outcomes open-ended are the guiding principles of U.S. strategy toward Syria.

As for Iran, it was recently the stage for the biggest game of deception Washington has ever played, when it launched, along with Israel, the first and biggest wave of aerial and missile strikes against the country, just 48 hours before the sixth round of nuclear talks in Muscat. Today, Washington is playing the same tricks with the same tools. It is a lie when the U.S. President claims that Iran is 'begging' to talk. It is a lie when he denies intentions to achieve regime change. The only credible part of his reckless statements is the threat to attack Iran's strategic facilities again, as this is an established top Israeli interest that can only be achieved through regime change, as Netanyahu has repeatedly said.

There is no conclusive vision for Iran's future, only keeping outcomes open-ended, which may include resuming the war, supporting separatist groups, and partitioning Iran unless Tehran raises the white flag and jumps headlong onto the Abraham Accords train. That is pure fantasy, not even worthy of description, let alone of being considered a real possibility.

There are no U.S. solutions, or even visions of feasible solutions, for any of the region's major crises. Managing these crises under the doctrine of 'open-ended outcomes' is the prevailing U.S. approach for the foreseeable future. It requires repeated use of all tools of deception and trickery, and overreliance on the 'neighborhood thug' and all the havoc and devastation it can wreak with its military brawn, which is boosted and inflated with U.S. support.