Washington’s decision to put US boots on the ground in Gaza to “monitor” a ceasefire is the oldest con in the American foreign policy playbook: the promise of a “limited” mission that always expands into a quagmire.
In the name of humanitarianism
The US owns the peace business, treating peace as one of its most profitable exports, at least rhetorically. This rhetoric of humanitarian intervention—once a Cold War instrument of regime change and later the moral cloak for invasions from Iraq to Libya—remains the backbone of Washington’s foreign policy. The business model is simple: wage war to make peace, destroy to “stabilize.” This model is quite evident here, drawing massive bipartisan support in the US. The Biden and Trump administrations first extended maximum support to Israel, allowing it to conduct a genocide. The US, if it wanted peace in the region, could have simply enforced it by forcing Israel to stop. The bare minimum it could have done would be to stop providing military support. That, of course, did not happen. The US, in simple words, owned Israel’s war. It now wants to own Israel’s peace as well.
Now, as reports confirm that at least 200 US troops are heading to Israel to “monitor” the Gaza ceasefire, the question writes itself: why US soldiers and not UN peacekeepers? The answer is as blunt as it is familiar: that is because Washington does not share the peace business with anyone else. The US insists on monopolizing the machinery of global order, reserving for itself the right to decide when and how peace begins, who deserves it, and under whose boots it will be enforced. The Gaza-focused deployment, then, is less about supervision and more about supervision’s oldest disguise: control. According to the US Vice President, the US Central Command will set up a “civil-military coordination center” in Israel for logistical and security assistance to help expedite humanitarian aid into Gaza. Basically, this centre will oversee deciding what goes in and what goes out of Gaza going forward. It will decide who is observing and who is violating the ceasefire. Any real or pseudo “disturbance” within Gaza—which is very much possible due to limited aid and the presence of multiple competing groups—observed by this centre will be an invitation for its “limited” mission to become unlimited. Last week, Trump made a blunt claim that provides a clear glimpse of what is to follow. He insisted that the US will “force” Hamas to disarm and demilitarize. If, however, the group resists, the US will use all means, including military force and violence.
Even where Hamas is not relevant, Trump said that even Gaza’s reconstruction is going to be “dangerous and difficult”—yet another justification for the US military’s prolonged deployment and active role in the peace and reconstruction business. More specifically, US control of reconstruction is meant to prevent any other external actors, such as China, from playing any role. Reconstruction of Gaza is less about rebuilding; it is mainly about being in control of the political, economic, and ideological order that follows the war. Any role for China, which can certainly help rebuild Gaza quite quickly and efficiently, would also mean a showcase of Chinese soft power. For the US, it would ultimately be a peace dividend built not on US military might but on Chinese money and engineering.
Peace for war
But is the US deployment really about peace and rebuilding, or about managing the next phase of occupation under a new banner? The so-called ceasefire has not resolved the question of Palestine; it has merely paused the violence. Israel’s long-standing claim to the entire territory of historic Palestine remains unfulfilled, as does its ideological project of a “Greater Israel” built on permanent control. For the Palestinians, the war may have razed their homes, but not their political will. They are not leaving, nor surrendering and consenting to life inside a fenced ruin renamed “peace.”
This unresolved clash of claims makes the ceasefire less a foundation than a fault line. The US deployment, by inserting itself as arbiter and enforcer, risks tipping that balance decisively toward Israel’s expansionist agenda. If Washington defines “stability” as the consolidation of Israeli control, then Palestinian resistance—whether through Hamas or beyond it—becomes inevitable. If not immediately, it will come back in the (near) future because of US-backed oppression. History suggests that where justice is deferred and occupation rebranded as security, peacekeepers become combatants, and ceasefires become preludes to the next war.
In the end, therefore, Washington’s promise to “stabilize” Gaza is less about ending war than managing its aftermath on its own terms. Peace, for the US, is a geopolitical instrument, i.e., a direct way to police borders, reward allies, and pre-empt rivals. Yet no amount of military coordination centers or “humanitarian” aid shipments can conceal a simple truth: there can be no stability built on subjugation. As long as the US defines peace as control and justice as unchallenged compliance, Gaza will not be pacified. Rather, it will remain the mirror in which America’s empire sees its own reflection. Those sitting in the power corridors of Washington and Jerusalem understand this reality. But that is exactly why they aim to remain in actual charge of the situation on the ground. They want to be fully ready to fight the next war. This time, however, the US forces will be more directly involved, thanks to the deployment for peace.
Salman Rafi Sheikh, research analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs
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