Foreign desk: Don’s Mideast Gift to Joe

The foreign-policy establishment gripes about President Trump nonstop, notes Ray Takeyh at Foreign Policy, but “overlooked is the fact that the Trump administration has pursued a successful Middle East policy” — and will bequeath to its successors a more stable region with a smaller US footprint. “It succeeded precisely because it challenged entrenched assumptions”: above all, the once-undying Washington myth that a Palestinian state is the indispensable precondition to acceptance of Israel, now finally buried thanks to the Abraham Accords solidifying peace between the Jewish state and at least three Arab states. “Trump’s penchant toward disruption came in handy in a region that needed shaking up. He succeeded because only an iconoclastic president could have stabilized the Middle East.”

From the right: An Election Urban Legend

At National Review, Dan McLaughlin debunks the viral social-media myth that Joe Biden outperformed Hillary Clinton in only four US cities, all in swing states: Milwaukee, Detroit, Atlanta and Philadelphia. “The facts do not fit the story”: Look at the 36 biggest cities (outside deep-blue California and New York): “Biden improved his margin of victory compared to Hillary in 31 out of 36 urban counties — and Philadelphia was one of the five in which he didn’t.

This article was sourced from NYPost