Trump administration reshapes Middle East strategy, sidelining Turkey

Peloni:  Trump policy on Turkey begins to take form, and as expressed by Rubio, it properly marginalizes Turkey in preference of Saudi Arabia.

By Robert Spencer | Feb 21, 2025

This is wise, in light of Saudi Arabia’s attempt to retreat from some of the harsher aspects of Wahhabi Islam, and Turkey’s Ottoman revanchism. Ultimately, however, none of these countries can be trusted to be reliable allies.

In 628, according to Islamic tradition, Muhammad had a vision in which he performed the pilgrimage to Mecca — a pagan custom that he very much wanted to make part of Islam, but had thus far been prevented by the Quraysh control of Mecca. But at this time he directed Muslims to prepare to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, and advanced upon the city with fifteen hundred men. The Quraysh met him outside the city, and the two sides concluded a ten-year truce (hudna), the treaty of Hudaybiyya.

Some leading Muslims were unhappy with the prospect of a truce. After all, they had recently broken a Quraysh siege of Medina and were now more powerful than ever. Were they going to bargain away their military might for the sake of being able to make the pilgrimage? According to Muhammad’s first biographer, Ibn Ishaq, a furious Umar went to Abu Bakr and said, “Is he not God’s apostle, and are we not Muslims, and are they not polytheists? Then why should we agree to what is demeaning to our religion?” The two of them went to Muhammad, who attempted to reassure them: “I am God’s slave and His apostle. I will not go against His commandment and He will not make me the loser.”

But it certainly didn’t seem as if the treaty was being concluded to the Muslims’ advantage. When the time came for the agreement to be written, Muhammad called for Ali and told him to write, “In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful.” But the Quraysh negotiator, Suhayl bin Amr, stopped him: “I do not recognize this; but write ‘In thy name, O Allah.’” Muhammad told Ali to write what Suhayl had directed.

But Suhayl was not finished. When Muhammad directed Ali to continue by writing, “This is what Muhammad, the apostle of God, has agreed with Suhayl bin Amr,” he protested again. “If I witnessed that you were God’s apostle,” Suhayl told Muhammad, “I would not have fought you. Write your own name and the name of your father.” Again the Prophet of Islam, to the increasing dismay of his followers, told Ali to write the document as Suhayl wished.

In the final form of the treaty, Muhammad shocked his men by agreeing to provisions that seemed disadvantageous to the Muslims: those fleeing the Quraysh and seeking refuge with the Muslims would be returned to the Quraysh, while those fleeing the Muslims and seeking refuge with the Quraysh would not be returned to the Muslims.

Yet soon Muhammad broke the treaty. A woman of the Quraysh, Umm Kulthum, joined the Muslims in Medina; her two brothers came to Muhammad, asking that they be returned “in accordance with the agreement between him and the Quraysh at Hudaybiya.” But Muhammad refused: Allah forbade it. He gave Muhammad a new revelation: “O you who have believed, when the believing women come to you as emigrants, examine them. Allah is most knowing as to their faith. And if you know them to be believers, then do not return them to the disbelievers…” (60:10).

In refusing to send Umm Kulthum back to the Quraysh, Muhammad broke the treaty. Although Muslim apologists have claimed throughout history that the Quraysh broke it first, this incident came before all those by the Quraysh that Muslims point to as treaty violations. The contemporary Muslim writer Yahiya Emerick asserts that Muhammad based his case on a bit of legal hair-splitting: the treaty stipulated that the Muslims would return to the Quraysh any man who came to them, not any woman. Even if that is true, Muhammad soon — as Emerick acknowledges — began to accept men from the Quraysh as well, thus definitively breaking the treaty.

The breaking of the treaty in this way would reinforce the principle that nothing was good except what was advantageous to Islam, and nothing evil except what hindered Islam. Once the treaty was formally discarded, Islamic jurists enunciated the principle that truces in general could only be concluded on a temporary basis of up to ten years, and that they could only be entered into for the purpose of allowing weakened Muslim forces to gather strength to fight again more effectively.

“Trump administration reshapes Middle East strategy, sidelining Turkey in security and trade plans,” Medya News, February 17, 2025:

The US is ramping up diplomatic and security engagements in the Middle East, deploying high-level diplomacy to reshape alliances, increasingly sidelining Turkey in the process.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has launched a regional tour leading high-level talks, prioritising Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states and overseeing the expansion of the India – Middle East – Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) and the Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Riyadh. Meanwhile, Turkey, once a key US partner in both security and mediation, finds itself excluded from the process.

Rubio’s agenda centres on three key areas – facilitating peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Saudi Arabia, a role previously held by Turkey, advancing the IMEC trade corridor, which bypasses Turkey in favour of Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egypt, and strengthening US-Israel ties, including discussions on security and Gaza’s reconstruction.

Despite Turkey’s strategic position as NATO’s only Middle East member, Rubio has not scheduled a visit to Ankara, a decision seen as a deliberate snub amid worsening US-Turkey relations.

Russia-Ukraine peace talks

Washington has increasingly turned to Saudi Arabia instead of Turkey as a preferred mediator in geopolitical conflicts. This shift became clear when the Russia-Ukraine peace talks were moved to Riyadh, with the US no longer relying on Turkey as a diplomatic facilitator….