In a New York Times article entitled "Trump Pressures Obama Over U.N. Resolution on Israeli Settlements," Peter Baker and Somini Sengupta write:
"President-elect Donald J. Trump thrust himself into one of the world’s most polarizing debates on Thursday by pressuring President Obama to veto a United Nations resolution critical of Israel, the newly elected leader’s most direct intervention in foreign policy during his transition to power.
Mr. Trump spoke out after Israeli officials contacted his team for help in blocking the draft resolution condemning settlement construction even as they lobbied its sponsor, Egypt. Within a couple of hours, Egypt withdrew the resolution, at least temporarily, and its president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, called Mr. Trump to discuss how 'to establish true peace in the Middle East,' according to an aide to the president-elect.
. . . .
Frustrated by two failed efforts to broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians during his tenure, Mr. Obama has been considering an effort to lay out an American framework during his final days in office. Palestinian leaders and their allies had hoped he would allow the anti-settlement resolution at the United Nations to pass as an expression of frustration at Israeli policies."
Sorry, Obama, but the Egyptians are unwilling to anger an unsuppressed unpredictable president-elect, and as Mark Moyar concluded in a New York Times op-ed entitled "The World Fears Trump’s America. That’s a Good Thing.":
"As the world’s most powerful country, and the only one whose leadership can safeguard the world order, the United States must care more about whether it commands international respect than whether it is loved by international elites. The incoming administration appears poised to return the United States to this precept after an eight-year drought. Americans and America’s allies should be relieved. America’s enemies are right to be afraid."
Or as Niccolo Machiavelli wrote some 500 years ago:
"It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both."
At least as regards the Middle East, Machiavelli was right.
