Normalization and Investment: The Two Pillars of the New US Policy in the Arab East
-Part Two-
(Translated)

Al-Rayah Newspaper - Issue 586 - 11/02/2026

By Ustadh Ahmad Al-Qasas*

America’s plan to transform ash-Sham into an investment zone requires a significant degree of stability, and therefore, the so-called “Arab-Israeli conflict” must be resolved. Since his previous term, Trump has rapidly pursued the so-called Abraham Accords, intended to end the conflict entirely, with countries in the region recognizing the occupying entity one after another. Now, only a few countries remain that have not recognized it, and even those that haven't officially done so have begun to treat it as if it were already recognized. For example, when meetings take place at the ministerial level between the new Syrian government and the occupying state, and they agree on trade, agricultural, intelligence, security, and other forms of cooperation, this constitutes a level of normalization that goes beyond simply exchanging ambassadors.

So, everyone is racing to achieve full normalization. The most dangerous aspect of this new normalization is its attempt to gain religious legitimacy. On one hand, the fatwas of ulema of governments are vying to justify normalization with the occupying Jewish entity and submission to American dictates. On the other hand, America, the Jewish entity, and the treacherous rulers are working to promote a new Abrahamic religion that unites all inhabitants of the region — Jews, Christians, Muslims, and those who have broken away from Islam — into one community, considering them all descendants of the father of the Prophets, Ibrahim (as). It is on this basis that the recent agreements signed during Trump's first term were dubbed the Abraham Accords. It was noteworthy that the visit of the Pope — the first American to reach the papacy, a position widely believed to have been influenced by Trump — was part of the push toward normalization, a visit whose theme was peace. It was also noteworthy that the Lebanese president grasped the message, and welcomed the Pope with a speech in which he mentioned Abrahamic religions three times. He boasted that Lebanon had made the Feast of the Annunciation “a national holiday for all Lebanese communities and for all our Abrahamic religions!” He also called for “peace, hope, and reconciliation among all the children of Abraham!” He said, “This gathering can unite around the successor of Peter, representing all the children of Abraham, with all their beliefs, sacred sites, and commonalities!” With this statement, he declared his adherence to the Abrahamic project. It was both painful and shameful that the Quran reciter, at the meeting between the leaders of the Lebanese religious communities and the Pope, chose verses containing the words “salaam (peace)” or “silm (peace),” to send a message that “we, too, want peace!”

The danger of today’s peace plans surpasses that of previous ones in that they do not merely speak of the need to end wars, destruction, and conflict. Instead, this peace is intended to be legitimized under the banner of all the region’s inhabitants living together as one people, all as “children of Abraham.” What makes this even more dangerous is that America, along with the occupying power, is preparing the region to transform into entities similar to the occupying Jewish entity, becoming a collection of small sectarian, religious, or ethnic entities. Alongside a Jewish entity, there would be a Christian entity, a Shia entity, a Druze entity, an Alawite entity, a Kurdish entity, a Sunni entity, and so on. These entities are bound together by an economic tie that America controls, through its grip on the various components of the regional economy: scientific minds, labor, financial capital, consumer markets, energy resources, communication and transportation networks, air and sea ports, and official institutions that legally grant contracts to American transnational investment companies, thus dominating the entire region’s economy. As for the current ruling authorities, and those that may emerge later with the possible formation of new entities, their primary concern will be preserving their sectarian and factional gains, guarding the nationalistic borders of bloodshed that are rapidly being established, vying for control of border areas, and polarizing the masses along sectarian and religious lines by instilling fear of other groups. They will resort to the American patron to mediate between them, as is currently the case, in addition to relying on the relative financial prosperity resulting from the job opportunities created by the reconstruction efforts, managed by the American master. America and its protégé, the occupying Jewish entity, hope that the Muslim majority, with its revolutionary and Jihad past, will turn its attention to the struggle for survival, improving its material standard of living, and taking its place in the reconstruction and development process, under the illusion of rebuilding the country, restoring its economic strength, and reclaiming its rightful place among nations. In reality, however, it is playing its assigned role within the American regional economic structure, of which the Jewish entity will be the favored member. They will be like the hen between Stalin’s feet, which rushed to pluck the grain he threw, after plucking out its feathers and drawing blood, and making it writhe in pain, as recounted in the famous story about him instructing the pillars of his power on how to subdue and domesticate peoples. This policy was expressed quite clearly by the US Special Envoy for Syria to Syria, the impudent ambassador Tom Barrack, in his answer to some journalists’ questions, on Friday 26 September 2025, ““There is no Middle East. We know that. There's tribes, there's villages, the nation state was created by the British and the French.. but, the Middle East doesn't work that way. It starts with the individual, family, village, then tribe, community, religion. Lastly, Nation. So, when I say it is an illusion to think that somehow we are going to get 27 different nations, that have a 110 different ethnic groups, to align with political concepts. What will they align with? Make my life and my children’s life better.”

This is the vision America desires for this region, the very heart of the Muslim World: ash-Sham, abodeto Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa and the seat of the Umayyad and Ayyubid Caliphates; Iraq, the base of the Abbasid and Seljuk Caliphates; and Egypt, the base of the Mamluks. The aim is to transform these regions into societies preoccupied only with the pursuit of a comfortable life, abandoning the concepts of Jihad, the ruling governance of Islamic Shariah Law, the authority of the jama’ah (community) of Muslims, and the unifying Khilafah (Caliphate). It is no coincidence that slogans like, “We have been killed, slaughtered, and displaced so many, we have suffered so much, and it is time for us to catch our breath and rest!” are being promoted. The truth is that America’s plan for the region does not want us to catch our breath. Instead, America seeks to open only one door for us: the door of living under its political, economic, security, and military dominance, in exchange for a meager existence. It embarked on this project by obligating the region’s regimes to military, security, and economic agreements, the latest of which was the Syrian state’s entry into the international coalition against “terrorism” and the joint American-“Israeli”-Syrian declaration on initiating security, intelligence, trade, and agricultural cooperation agreements.

* Member of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir