Trump’s new Board of Peace is necessary because the UN has failed again and again

President Trump’s remarks at Davos have caused a chorus of howls. Some of that howling is understandable. But some of it is makes as much sense as howling at the moon.

Take the “Board of Peace” proposal. Countries like France and Britain are refusing to sign up to the President’s initiative. They complain that there are countries on the Board they do not approve of. And that there is a risk that it could prove a rival organization to the United Nations.

It is true that the idea of Vladimir Putin or the dictator of Belarus being on the board is a worrying sign.

But if the Board can be a counter to the UN? Then good.

The Board of Peace was started in order to try to secure the situation in Gaza. And if the President succeeds in that then he deserves every accolade. He will have cracked one of the hardest conflicts in the world.

After all, Phase 2 of President Trump’s peace plan is now meant to be in process. That involves demilitarization of Gaza, new governance and reconstruction.

Yet Hamas still has a presence in Gaza. That “presence” means that the group are still killing, torturing and otherwise intimidating the citizens of Gaza. In order for peace to break out Hamas needs to be disarmed.

And that’s where the really big problem of the UN creeps in.

I’ve witnessed plenty of UN peacekeeping efforts for myself over the years. And they have a huge problem. Mainly the fact that the last thing most UN “peacekeeping” forces want to do is to fight.

Yet unless they are willing to fight then how can they keep the peace?

Some readers will remember how effective Dutch troops were in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. They stood aside as Serb forces massacred around 8,000 Bosnians.

More recently, take the situation in Southern Lebanon, which I reported from for the Post in 2024. For decades there has been a UN peacekeeping force in the south of Lebanon. Those troops were meant to be there to stop Hamas’ friends in Hezbollah from rearming their stockpile of missiles.

Did they do that? Did they hell. Over the years that the UN’s “peacekeeping force” was in southern Lebanon the Iranian proxy terror group stockpiled tens of thousands of long and short range missiles. And promptly started another war.

When I was there I saw the Hezbollah bases and tunnel entrances which had literally been created under the UN’s forces’ own eyes. The peacekeeping force’s bases and watch-towers had Hezbollah infrastructure mere yards from them. The UN’s “peacekeepers” had clearly said and done nothing.

The UN troops stationed in Lebanon when I was there were from Ireland and Sri Lanka. And as I said at the time to Post readers, find me an Irishman or Sri Lankan who is willing to lay down their lives in a confrontation with Hezbollah and I will try to find a bridge to sell you.

Of course they wouldn’t risk their lives. The average Irish or Sri Lankan soldier has zero interest in a confrontation with Hezbollah. So which troops would?

To date the answer in the region has each and every single time been the same: Israel and America.

But why should young Israeli and American soldiers have to be solely responsible for stopping anti-Western terrorist groups in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and any number of other places? Why shouldn’t the other countries whose security is at stake from these Ayatollah-funded terror groups also put their young peoples’ lives on the line?

Why shouldn’t Egypt — which used to control Gaza — have responsibility for security and be held to account for it? Why shouldn’t Qatar — which hosted and funded Hamas — now pay for the destruction they helped create?

The nervousness of some people about the “Board of Peace” centers on the fact that there are some distinctly shady actors who have been invited onto it. But if Trump can get these countries to actually pony up then it would be a very different matter.

Of course that will require a commitment of troops and funding which are not connected to terror. The Turkish and Qatari governments are too entwined with the region’s terror axis to be trusted with stationing troops. But they should be made to pay for it. And they and other countries can and should be made to help keep the peace in Gaza and help to rebuild it in other ways.

Through his recent interventions on the world stage Trump has shown that is capable of knitting together — not tearing apart — this country’s coalitions. By the admission of Mark Rutte — the NATO Secretary General — at Davos, if it had not been for Trump then there is no way that European countries would have fulfilled their military spending commitments.

If it had not been for Trump this country’s NATO allies would have continued to piggyback off American taxpayers and expect America to keep funding their security. By making some (often undiplomatic) threats to those allies Trump has made them take their own security seriously again.

Could the same thing now happen in the Middle East?

By appointing himself chairman of the Peace Board, President Trump has shown that he is committed to the peace plan that is in place. By inviting regional actors to join him he has shown that for once it will not be just Israel and America that are expected to police the Middle East.

But the main threats to Middle Eastern security remain the same. The terrorists still run the Islamic Revolutionary Government in Iran. The state of Qatar is still funding anti-Western propaganda and terrorist groups across the region. Even here at home in America.

But if anyone is in a position to tell them to cut it out and accept the new reality then President Trump is in the position to do so.

If he succeeds then you can expect those howls of alarm to turn to cheers.