Trump Promised Peace for Gaza. The Documents Tell a Different Story.

The Gaza peace deal looks less like diplomacy and more like déjà vu.

I’ve been here before, in Baghdad, twenty years ago, in the post-war planning rooms, watching power struggles and greed take over. The playbook hasn’t changed.

When I wrote last month that Donald Trump might deserve credit for negotiating a ceasefire and bringing hostages home, I also warned that America’s real test would come next: rebuilding peace.

📎Trump Brought the Ceasefire. Can America Bring the Peace?

Today’s Politico exposé confirms what those of us who have lived this know too well: there was no real plan for peace, only a photo-op for the ceasefire.

Private documents obtained by the news outlet reveal that 67 slides presented at a two-day symposium for U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and members of the new Civilian Military Coordination Center in Israel expose the true nature of the “Gaza peace plan.” Inside the room were approximately 400 participants, including representatives from the Defense Department, the State Department, non-profit organizations, and private contractors such as RAND and the Blair Institute (the think tank helmed by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair). The materials paint a vivid picture of dysfunction, a peace process without a plan, a governance structure without a government, and a security force without troops.

One slide literally shows an arrow with a question mark linking Phase 1 (ceasefire and hostage release) to Phase 2 (Hamas disarmament and reconstruction).

That question mark is the strategy.

“Divorced from the peace deal is a plan of how to actually implement this peace deal,” one participant said. “Everyone is floating around at 40,000 feet and nobody is talking operations or tactics.”

If that line sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve heard it before, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Libya.

I’ve Seen This Movie Before

In 2003, I was there, in the reconstruction planning meetings for Iraq. I sat in rooms in the Pentagon, at CENTCOM, the State Department, the White House, hotel rooms in Doha, Kuwait, Camp Snoopy, and inside Camp Victory in Baghdad, as well as in the main headquarters in one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces—where idealism collided with reality, where bureaucrats debated governance models while the streets outside burned. I saw well-intentioned people overruled by politics and power grabs. I saw greed take root faster than democracy.

And I see the same red flags now.

The Trump administration’s “20-Point Peace Plan” is already collapsing under its contradictions. The documents reported by Politico show deep internal concern that the so-called International Stabilization Force, meant to secure Gaza, can’t be deployed. Countries don’t want to send troops. The “Board of Peace” is unstaffed. And the Palestinian Authority, rejected by Israel, sits sidelined.

Meanwhile, private firms are positioning themselves for reconstruction contracts before there’s even security on the ground. The “peace” process looks more like a pre-investment summit than a humanitarian mission.

The Mirage of American Reconstruction

The documents confirm what I wrote weeks ago: the United States has never built peace well because our systems aren’t designed for it.

• Short political horizons: Trump’s team took a victory lap after the ceasefire, but his own officials admit the hard work has barely begun.

• Siloed agencies: The State is weakened, the Defense is freelancing, and the civil-military apparatus is operating without clarity.

• Contracting over capacity: RAND, the Blair Institute, and private contractors are already shaping the next phase, not Gaza’s civil leaders.

• Security before sovereignty: Without local legitimacy, no peace lasts.

Sound familiar? It’s the same movie, different set.

The Question Mark Between Two Wars

The slides apparently label one section: “The Hard Work Begins Now: Implementing President Trump’s Plan.” But the slides propose no actual policies, just lists of obstacles, empty flowcharts, and one haunting graphic: a dotted line linking the ceasefire to the governance phase, with a question mark in the middle.

That question mark could be stamped across every failed U.S. reconstruction of the last two decades.

And the timing is cruel. While Gaza teeters on the edge of renewed chaos, Iraq, once America’s “democracy project”, is holding elections this week. Peaceful, yes. But hollow. The parliament still doesn’t control the country’s destiny; real power lives in the shadows, negotiated outside formal institutions. That’s what “nation-building” without legitimacy produces: the illusion of democracy, without the substance of it.

There’s a grim irony in how these cycles repeat. Every conflict spawns a new generation of “stabilization initiatives,” “civil-military coordination centers,” and “economic development boards.” Behind the jargon, the incentives remain the same: peace is just the next contract.

The documents make clear that the U.S. plans an international donor conference to raise funds for Gaza, but with no timetable, no troops, and no real mandate. In other words, the PowerPoints are ready before the peace is real.

What Comes Next

I said in October: wars end in headlines. Peace survives in institutions. Right now, Gaza has none.

If this feels like déjà vu, it’s because it is. The world is watching a replay of every American reconstruction gone wrong; only this time, the theater is smaller, the stakes are higher, and the question mark is still blinking between two phases of a plan that never made it past the slide deck.

I’ve been there. I’ve seen what happens when the cameras leave and the contractors arrive. Unless we learn from those lessons, Gaza will not be rebuilt. It will be branded until the subsequent collapse.

It’s Veterans Day. I’ve spent most of my life surrounded by those who serve—people who show up, do the hard work, and shoulder the cost of political failure. To them: thank you for your service, your integrity, and your resilience.

More soon,

Olivia