a day ago
Alaska summit wasn't about Ukraine
'When elephants collide, the grass suffers.' But the grass also suffers when elephants whisper.
The recent Alaska meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin ended with no ceasefire in Ukraine, despite weeks of hype. That failure was the headline, but it masked the real story. The summit was not about Ukraine; it was about carving up influence, dividing corridors and replaying a century-old script that the Arab world knows too well.
The Corridor Behind the Curtain
If Ukraine were the real agenda, Alaska would have produced at least a road map for de-escalation. Instead, the unspoken focus was the South Caucasus. The US is advancing the Zangezur corridor, cutting across Armenia to link Azerbaijan with Türkiye and onward to Central Asia. For Ankara and Baku, it's a geopolitical victory; for Iran, it feels like encirclement; for Russia, it signals a slow squeeze on its influence.
For Washington, the corridor is a chance to redraw Eurasia's map without firing a shot. For Moscow, tolerating Western-backed routes may be a price worth paying if it gets space to freeze Ukraine on its own terms. Alaska, therefore, was about bargaining over maps, not about saving lives.
Sykes–Picot in a New Disguise
The Middle East has seen this play before. The Sykes–Picot Agreement of 1916 divided Ottoman Arab lands between Britain and France, planting borders that still bleed. The Yalta Conference of 1945 carved Europe into Western and Soviet zones, condemning Eastern Europe to decades behind the Iron Curtain. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 secretly split Eastern Europe between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, erasing nations from the map overnight.
Each case followed the same pattern: great powers publicly spoke of peace, while privately negotiating partitions. Those absent at the table paid the price. Alaska feels like a modern Sykes-Picot this time not with ink on colonial maps, but with corridors, pipelines and digital arteries.
Palestine: The Grass Beneath the Bargain
Nowhere is the cost clearer than in Palestine. As Palestinians endure genocide, their survival is not at the centre of Alaska's chessboard. Both Washington and Moscow deploy Palestine as rhetoric, not as policy. The Israeli Occupation continues its genocidal campaign with tacit US protection; Russia frames itself as anti-Western but offers no tangible support.
Just as Palestine was sidelined in the Sykes-Picot carve-up, it risks being sidelined again in today's global bargains. Unless Arab and Islamic states hardwire enforcement, through humanitarian corridors, sanctions on war crimes, and legal pursuit in the ICJ and ICC, Palestine will remain the perennial victim of great-power 'understandings.'
Lessons for the Islamic and Arab World
The Alaska summit carries three urgent lessons:
1. Corridors are the new borders. Whether Zangezur or Belt and Road, control over connectivity is control over power. The Arab world must invest in shaping, not just using, trade and energy corridors.
2. Never trust transactional peace. Yalta left Eastern Europe trapped; Sykes-Picot fractured the South West Asia North Africa region (SWANA). Alaska warns that Arab and Islamic states could see their resources and sovereignty treated as bargaining chips.
3. Make Palestine non-negotiable. Empty statements no longer suffice. Pair diplomacy with leverage: Gulf-backed humanitarian supply lines, targeted sanctions against inciters of genocide and Arab-led legal coalitions. Justice for Palestine must become the price of admission in any wider deal.
Drawing Our Own Lines
Alaska was not about Ukraine any more than Sykes-Picot was about Arab independence. Both were about outsiders scripting the future of others. A century ago, Sykes-Picot drew borders that ignored the will of the people. Today, corridors and resource routes risk becoming the new colonial ink.
The Islamic and Arab world cannot allow history to repeat itself. Either we accept being 'the grass' under the feet of colliding elephants, or we become the gardeners, planting our own routes, setting our own rules and ensuring that Palestine is not erased from the map by silence.
Alaska is a warning: If we do not draw our own lines, others will draw them for us.
Khalid Al Huraibi, The writer is an innovator and an insights storyteller
