Egypt, Turkey, and Israel have all fallen prey to delusions about US President Donald Trump, Steven A Cook writes for Salon. “It all seems rather strange given how Trump rode to power, winking at Islamophobes as well as anti-Semites and otherwise appealing to isolationists. If there was any sign during the long campaign about Trump’s approach to the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy more generally, it was retrenchment,” Cook writes, but “the Egyptians, for example, are convinced that the Trump administration will offer its unconditional support for El Sisi.” He adds that Trump’s world is purely transactional and wonders what Egypt’s currency is in this world. “The old Egyptian refrain about being a ‘force for stability in the region’ is getting old — and is no longer accurate. Besides, what does Trump care about the region other than ‘bombing the [expletive] out of [the self-proclaimed Islamic State]’?” Cook says it is unlikely that American power can put the Middle East back together, but “it can definitely make things worse.”

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