Joyce Heard

Failure is NOT an option, but IT IS already in progress... Senator @LindseyGrahamSC does not understand the cultural context at play in the Middle East. He called President Trump's proposal to "expand the Abraham Accords" as part of a negotiated settlement to the Iran conflict "brilliant." He said it would result in "the most significant change in the Middle East in thousands of years." He told Riyadh to be bold. At the same time, he warned that refusal would carry "severe repercussions" for future relationships. He said failure is not an option. That is the pitch. Here is why it does not survive contact with the regional realities that Trump advisors fail to understand. Bookmark this. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗲𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗲𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟬 When the Abraham Accords were first signed, Gaza was not under daily strikes. More than 70k + Palestinians were not dead. Netanyahu was domestically contained by coalition arithmetic and judicial-reform protests. The Arab and Muslim public did not yet view Netanyahu's government as a belligerent state. Five years later, every one of those conditions has reversed. The signal coming out of every major capital from Rabat to Jakarta is the same. The Israel of 2026 is not the Israel of 2020. It is not seen as a normalising partner. It is seen as a state actively conducting war in Gaza, occupying parts of southern Lebanon, holding territory in Syria, and operating with declared impunity across the region. No Arab government can sign a paper with THAT reality framing the photo op. It will not happen. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗱𝘀 𝗱𝗶𝗱 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗲 Six years after Abu Dhabi signed, the UAE did not get the stability that was promised. It got 2,800 incoming projectiles in five weeks, it had its Fujairah petroleum zone demolished, and its Habshan gas facility shutdown. Bahrain was hit. Saudi Aramco facilities were hit. Kuwait was hit. The accords did NOT produce any perceived real regional security. They produced regional exposure to retaliation aimed at Israel's allies. This is the data point that will disqualify the entire premise in every crisis management meeting at the ministerial level. The proposal Trump and Graham are calling 'brilliant' is the same proposal that, in its 2020 form, made the UAE the most-targeted country in the Iran war that followed. 𝗣𝗮𝗸𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗮 𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲, 𝗶𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗸𝗲𝗴 The Pakistani military establishment literally CANNOT survive being seen at the same table as the Netanyahu government. The street would force a constitutional crisis within weeks. The PTI base, the Jamaat-e-Islami constituency, and the broader public reaction in Karachi, Lahore, and Peshawar all converge on the same point. Normalisation with the current Netanyahu government is not a foreign policy choice for Islamabad. It is a known and calculated political detonation that they will not ignite. This is the political physics of Pakistan in 2026, not a forecast. Anyone in Washington briefing the President otherwise is selling a fantasy or is reading the wrong sentiment analysis. 𝗢𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗮𝗹 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘀 Custodianship of the Two Holy Mosques. The Saudi monarchy derives its religious legitimacy from this role. Public normalisation with an Israeli government conducting operations near Al-Aqsa is incompatible with that legitimacy no matter what Lindsay Graham says. Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) knows this and knows his people best. So does every cleric in Mecca and Medina. Iran's proxy network remains operational. The Mosaic Defense doctrine was not destroyed in the five-week air campaign. It was tested. Signing the Accords adds new states to Tehran's target list at the exact moment the IRGC has demonstrated it can reach them directly without any middlemen. Turkey is openly positioning Erdogan as the leader of Sunni Muslim opinion on Palestine. Any Saudi or Pakistani move toward normalisation hands Ankara that mantle permanently and directly. Riyadh will not cede the ideological centre of the Sunni world to an Ottoman revivalist and competitor for a piece of paper that does not provide any political points with their demographics. The 2020 deals were transactional. The UAE got F-35 commitments. Morocco got US recognition of Western Sahara sovereignty. Sudan got removal from the "State Sponsors of Terror" list. The 2026 proposal offers nothing equivalent. It asks for the largest political concession of a generation in exchange for the cessation of a war Washington started on behalf of a government that has been calling for war on Iran for decades. The 2026 information environment makes the original strategy impossible. The Accords assumed Arab governments could ride out short-term public discontent in exchange for long-term economic and security upside. Every household in the Gulf has been watching Gaza on TikTok, WhatsApp and Telegram for two and a half years. There is no riding it out. No real manageable way to frame it without losing credibility. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗮 𝗴𝗶𝗳𝘁 The Trump administration, alongside the Netanyahu government, started this war. The war wrecked regional economies, disrupted energy flows, damaged sovereign credit, shut down tourism corridors, and grounded commercial aviation across the Gulf for weeks. The architects of that devastation are now asking the victims of it to sign a document framed as a favour to them. Domestic US audiences might drink that kool-aid but the Middle Eastern audience will not touch it. This is not how peace is negotiated in that part of the world. This is how surrender is demanded. Arab leadership reads it exactly that way, or, face the missiles of Iran. Instead, they will likely be persuaded to sign peace deals directly with Iran to bypass Washington verses being seen aligning with Netanyahu's government. 𝗖𝗼𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗱𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗼𝗺𝗮𝗰𝘆 Graham's threat of "severe repercussions" for refusal converted what was being sold as historic diplomacy into a public ultimatum. You do not build a generational peace deal by threatening the parties you need at the table especially in the context of cultural norms in the Middle East. You build resentment not respect. You build alignment against the threat-issuer not with your camp. You hand every regional capital a reason to start hedging with Beijing, Moscow (and maybe even Tehran), harder than they already are. If the goal was to make Accords expansion impossible, Graham's intervention was perfectly designed for it. 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 When President Trump made the proposal in a call with regional leaders, the response was reported to be silence. MBS said nothing. Doha said nothing. Islamabad said nothing. The President himself joked into the dead air, asking if they were still on the line. That silence is the entire answer. Failure here is not unthinkable. It is already in progress. And it will not change because Lindsey Graham wishes it would. This is signal that the war will continue. I look beyond the headlines and make sense of the nuances. If this gave you signal worth keeping, like and consider following 🙏🙏 𝗦𝗜𝗚𝗡𝗔𝗟, 𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗡𝗢𝗜𝗦𝗘!! cc: @POTUS @JDVance

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