In the past year and a half since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the American media landscape has been encased in one narrative: this is a war for the soul of the Western world. NATO has rediscovered its importance, finding its footing once again as the global backstop against tyranny and as the world’s greatest defender of democracy.

Meanwhile, behind closed doors, that most supreme of NATO member states, the United States, is seeking to broker a peace deal between two countries that have not been at war for almost fifty years (Israel and Saudi Arabia), a deal that reports indicate may involve the United States signing a pact of mutual defense with the Gulf monarchy and perhaps even one with Israel as well. The United States would thus be obligated to militarily defend a state where democratic institutions do not exist, even in name.

The deal now in motion is part of a renewed push of the Abraham Accords, a series of foreign policy achievements brokered by the Trump administration in which Israel “made peace” with Arab nations, many of whom, like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, it had never actually been at war with. Israel touted the accords as a milestone in Jewish-Islamic relations, the “Abraham” in “Abraham Accords” referring to the fact that both faiths hold the prophet Abraham in high esteem. The UAE touted the accords as a milestone in protecting the Palestinians, as the deal was ostensibly done in order to stave off Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned annexation of the Jordan Valley of Palestine’s West Bank.