Editorial

In the sweltering sands of the Middle East, where ancient grudges and modern missiles collide, President Donald Trump’s second-term diplomacy has emerged as a high-stakes poker game. Since his January 2025 inauguration, Trump has reshaped the region’s fault lines with a blend of bombast, backroom bargaining, and selective saber-rattling. His approach—transactional to its core—has delivered tangible wins: a fragile Gaza ceasefire, Gulf investment bonanzas, and tentative olive branches to Iran. Yet, as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) visits the White House this week, the question lingers: Is this a blueprint for enduring peace, or just another round of fleeting deals?

Trump’s Middle East playbook began with a flourish. Even before taking office, his team brokered the January 2025 Gaza hostage release and ceasefire, halting two years of carnage that claimed over 67,000 lives. By February, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the first foreign leader in the Oval Office, sealing U.S. commitments to Israel’s security amid the rubble of Hamas’s tunnels. Trump’s May Gulf tour—stopping in Riyadh, Doha, and Abu Dhabi—netted eye-popping pledges: $600 billion from Saudi Arabia, $1.4 trillion from the UAE, and Qatari mediation in lingering Gaza talks. These weren’t mere handshakes; they were quid pro quo masterpieces, trading F-35 jets and nuclear tech for economic lifelines to counter China’s Belt and Road sprawl.

The crown jewel arrived in October: the “Trump Peace Agreement,” a 20-point blueprint inked at a Sharm el-Sheikh summit with Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and Arab heavyweights. It commits to phased de-escalation, $750 billion in reconstruction (half from frozen Russian assets, a clever pivot), and a moratorium on settlements—coupled with Hamas’s disarmament and Israel’s withdrawal from post-2022 gains. Global acclaim followed: ASEAN ministers hailed it as a “historic first step,” while even former Vice President Kamala Harris called it “an important milestone.” Trump’s envoy, real estate scion Steve Witkoff, shuttled from Oman to Muscat, channeling his boss’s art-of-the-deal ethos to sideline hardliners on both sides.

Yet, Trump’s flair for the dramatic masks deeper fissures. Iran remains the wildcard. After Israeli strikes on Fordow in June—America’s first major hits on Tehran in decades—Trump opened five rounds of Oman talks, dangling sanctions relief for nuclear curbs. It’s “maximum pressure 2.0,” blending carrots (trade access) with sticks (THAAD deployments and joint drills with Israel). Progress is halting; Tehran tests red lines, but the two-month negotiation window Trump set has bought time, averting escalation.

The Yemen quagmire exposes the limits. Houthi drones still menace Red Sea shipping, undeterred by U.S. strikes, earning Trump’s policy a middling “C” in the Middle East Institute’s Q3 2025 report card. Syria and Lebanon offer glimmers—post-Assad Damascus eyes U.S. sanctions relief, while Beirut’s new leaders court American aid—but Trump’s personnel cuts at State and USAID hobble sustained engagement. MBS’s November 18 White House powwow crystallizes the high-wire act. Trump covets Saudi entry into the Abraham Accords, dangling defense pacts and AI collaborations. MBS, however, balked, insisting on a “credible path” to Palestinian statehood amid Gaza’s scars. It’s a rebuff to Trump’s Israel-first tilt, echoing Arab street fury over the war’s toll. On X, reactions range from praise for Saudi “pragmatism” to accusations of Trump’s “sociopathic” deal-making. One user quipped: “Trump’s diplomacy: Oil money for stealth fighters—shaking the military balance.”

Critics decry the shallowness. Transactionalism yields headlines but erodes trust; Trump’s “no lectures” mantra—proclaimed in Riyadh—ignores human rights, from Khashoggi’s ghost to Yemen’s famine. Europe frets over a U.S. pivot that sidelines multilateralism, while Beijing watches warily as Gulf trillions flow Westward. The Muslim Brotherhood terror tag Trump floats risks alienating Qatar and inflaming campuses, turning ideological foes into martyrs.

For all its flaws, Trump’s doctrine—regional solutions, economic incentives, calibrated force—has thawed a frozen conflict zone. Gaza’s guns are quiet; hostages home; investments surging. As he eyes a Nobel nod (echoed by Venezuelan laureate María Corina Machado), Trump proves diplomacy needn’t be dull. But true prosperity demands more than deals: It requires bridging divides, not just papering them. In a region weary of war, Trump’s gamble could redefine the map—or redraw battle lines.

When a child in 2025 Assam walks three kilometres to school only to find no drinking water, no toilet, and often no teacher, we are not witnessing a temporary glitch — we are staring at a systemic collapse. The latest data is staggering: 1,427 government schools in the state have neither potable water nor functional toilets, while an astonishing 27,842 teachers — nearly one in every seven — are chronically absent. These are not remote tribal hamlets alone; many are in the plains, barely an hour from Guwahati. The crisis is no longer hidden in spreadsheets; it is visible in the hollow eyes of children who drop out before Class VIII.

Successive governments have treated education as a residual obligation rather than a foundational duty. The BJP, in power since 2016, promised “Vikas” and “parivartan,” yet the teacher absence rate has actually worsened. Rogue elements within the system — from fake appointments to proxy teachers — have turned schools into personal fiefdoms. Political patronage protects the absentee culprits; transfers are punishments only on paper. Meanwhile, the education department’s inspection machinery is so toothless that headmasters openly admit they cannot mark a teacher absent without risking their own posting. The human cost is brutal. Girls, especially in rural and tea-garden areas, abandon school the moment menstruation arrives because there are no toilets and no privacy. Malnutrition compounds when children skip midday meals because the water to wash plates is muddy or non-existent. A generation is being condemned to illiteracy and bonded labour before it reaches adolescence.

Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s response — announcing biometric attendance and satellite mapping of schools — is welcome but laughably late. Technology alone cannot fix a rot that is fundamentally political. Real reform demands three non-negotiable steps: immediate termination of absent teachers after due process, fast-track filling of 40,000 vacant posts, and emergency allocation of ₹2,000 crore to provide water and toilets in the 1,427 worst-affected schools within 18 months. Anything less is betrayal.

Assam’s demographic dividend is slipping into a demographic disaster. If the state fails to educate its children today, tomorrow it will pay in unrest, poverty, and migration. The tears of a thirsty child in a Karbi Anglong classroom should shame every minister, MLA, and bureaucrat who draws a salary from the same exchequer. This is not a crisis requiring another committee; it is a moral emergency requiring political courage. The children of Assam have waited long enough.

• SAS Kirmani