As a Political Science student who studies peace-building in the Middle East, I want to start with something a scholar named Edward Said taught us: pay attention to the language first.

Not the bombs, not the speeches about “peace,” not the media event. The language. Because power rarely calls itself power. It often arrives as expert advice, as management, as a “solution” imposed on people who are portrayed as unable to govern themselves.

This is the core of what Said called Orientalism: a way of thinking that draws a hard line between “the West” and “the East” then uses that line to justify control. It is not only stereotypes—it is also policy: who is treated as rational, who is treated as dangerous, and who is treated as a “problem” that must be fixed.

The West presents itself as the standard

There is also a related idea called Eurocentrism: the West sees itself as advanced, mature, and reasonable, while seeing others as behind, childish, or underdeveloped.

This is not new. It appears clearly in the vision of Friedrich Hegel – German Philosopher: human progress starts in the East but is only completed in the West. That idea creates a hierarchy: West = completion and leadership; East/South = delay and dependency.

Trump’s Middle East policy fits inside this same old hierarchy. It is not something new. It is just a louder, less polite version of the same colonial thinking.

Trump’s Middle East policy fits inside this same old hierarchy. It is not something new. It is just a louder, less polite version of the same colonial thinking.

 From CIVILIZING people to MANAGING them

Said’s point is not just that the West misunderstands the East. His point is that Western power produces the East as an object: something to be studied, fixed, disciplined, and administered.

That is how Gaza and Palestine and even Iran are often discussed today: not as a people with rights and political agency, but as a file, a security issue, a humanitarian problem, a “post-war” project.  In this framing, Palestinians are not the authors of their future; they are treated as an obstacle inside someone else’s plan. 

That is how Gaza and Palestine and even Iran are often discussed today: not as a people with rights and political agency, but as a file, a security issue, a humanitarian problem, a “post-war” project. 

In this framing, Palestinians are not the authors of their future; they are treated as an obstacle inside someone else’s plan. 

The trusteeship instinct: “someone must run them”

One classic colonial habit is trusteeship: the idea that “they are not ready,” so someone else must manage them “for their own good”.

The words have changed. Today we hear terms like stability, governance, reconstruction, security coordination. But the structure stays the same: rule without consent, and “solutions” designed outside the society that must live under them.

This is why a lot of “peacebuilding” talk becomes dangerous: it can turn a liberation question into an administration question.

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Colonialism as deal-making: land, corridors, and “opportunities”

Trump’s style is transactional: everything is a deal and every crisis is an opportunity to negotiate.

This becomes colonial when land is treated like a business asset and rights are treated as you can bargain away. In this model, the region becomes: a map of business projects (energy routes, corridors, ports), a list of clients (who gets weapons, who gets sanctions, who gets protection), and a market of normalization (political surrender sold as “peace”).

This is not the old colonialism of formal rule. It is colonial control through contracts, security systems, and financial pressure—while calling it “development”.

The Gaza test: who gets to decide?

If you want to know what kind of colonialism is being applied, ask one question:

Not who funds. Not who negotiates. Not who “guarantees security”.

Who decides the political future of the people who actually live there?

Any plan that removes Palestinian self-determination or any plan that treats Gaza as a managed zone or an external project, for sure belongs to the colonial tradition, even if it repeats the word “peace”.

Watching the Language: Trump’s Colonial Script for Iran 

 Trump’s Truth Social post is a textbook example of the language Edward Said warned us about. When Trump writes that “a whole civilization will die tonight” and then celebrates “Complete and Total Regime Change”; he is not describing Iran—he is repackaging it as an object the West can break and remake. 

In one breath, he reduces millions of people to a single abstract label (civilization), and in the next he turns their political future into a Western-managed project, as if history itself is waiting for Washington’s permission.

This is Eurocentrism in action: the West casting itself as the mature center of reason and salvation, while presenting others as corrupted, failed, and in need of “smarter” rulers. Even the closing line: “God Bless the Great People of Iran!”, fits the old colonial script: the people are good, the system is evil, and the outsider claims moral authority to intervene.

In Said’s terms, this is Orientalism without the mask: language that prepares the public to accept domination by turning sovereignty into a “problem”, and by treating “regime change” not as violence, but as a “wonderful” outcome.

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What makes Trump’s version different?

Trump does not hide power behind polite language. He sells it like a product.

But the structure is the same as older empires: The West sets the rules; the region is expected to comply; resistance is treated as irrational or violent. That is Eurocentrism in practice: The West is “reason,” others are “disorder.”

So, the “new colonialism” is old – just more shameless.

So, the “new colonialism” is old – just more shameless.

Trump’s approach functions like a modern colonialism because it: turns peoples into problems to be managed, turns rights into bargaining chips, treats land as a business portfolio, and seeks stability through control instead of justice.

That is why Said still matters: when a power claims the authority to define who you are, it also claims the authority to decide what should happen to you. The first colonial border is drawn in language and before it is enforced on the ground.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

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