Nearly 3,000 years ago, the Old Testament predicted the coming of the “Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6)
And on the 9th day of October 2025, President Donald J. Trump came close to suggesting he might have been who Isaiah had in mind.
“The whole world has come together, but the Middle East has come together for the first time in 3,000 years,” he told the New York Post.
Perhaps, then, a good time for a history lesson which—hold your breath—may not quite confirm the quality of Trump’s prophetic vision but has some intriguing parallels.
To begin at the beginning: Around the start of the 1st millennium BCE (or about 3,000 years ago), a period of great turmoil occurred in the Middle East, with the Egyptian and Hittite Empires struggling to hold onto power in a region where Assyrian King Tiglath-Pileser I was fighting back after the collapse of the Bronze Age.
The warrior king was feared by his own people almost as much as his enemies. He would bring elephants and bulls back from his wars to delight and frighten his citizens. He used ritual human sacrifice to keep order and lived by the dictum, “Let them hate, as long as they fear.”
Under his leadership, Assyria became the dominant military power in Mesopotamia (in what is now northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey), expanding into Syria and Anatolia—modern-day Turkey—and extending its reach across the Mediterranean.
Historians do not describe the period as peaceful. There was fighting on every front. Failing regimes do not give up easily.
Trump may see something of himself in the Assyrian warlord. After all, until he became the peacemaker of seven wars and counting, the president was more interested in expanding into Greenland and Canada.
More likely, when he says to anybody who will listen that he is bringing peace to the Middle East after 3,000 years, he is more histrionic than historical.
There is a very long history of pain in the Middle East between the Israelis and Palestinians, but this war in Gaza dates back two years to that terrible day in October 2023. The modern Israeli state was only established out of British Mandatory Palestine in 1948.
Based on archaeological evidence, the Jewish link indeed dates back 3,000 years to when Jerusalem became the capital of Israel under King David. You cannot understate the complicated emotions and atrocities inflicted in a long history of enmity among the Middle East’s peoples.
So yes, Trump has made a significant breakthrough, maybe a historic one. We shall know in the days to come.
But please God, will he please stop bragging?
This is not to diminish the importance of peace to the region, nor the American president’s achievement. Trump appears to have found a path his predecessors never dared to take. He may have paid more attention during history class than I give him credit for. King Tiglath-Pileser I also understood the bully power of strength.
But even when he is on the brink of a genuine achievement—and while the deal has yet to be finalized, there appears to be a very real chance the hostages will be freed by Hamas early next week—the president simply cannot resist blowing his own Trump.
He was, to some degree, a successful property developer and a well-known TV personality, even if his character in The Apprentice was more caricature than chief executive.
But even now, that’s not enough for Trump. He needs to boast that he created the New York skyline, that he was one of the most successful personalities in the history of television.
He can’t help selling the Middle East peace deal like it’s an infomercial. Solve two wars and throw in a third for free.
Trump tells the world every day that he is the best president ever; he won the last election by a landslide and was robbed of the one before. He builds the greatest hotels, the best golf courses. Nobody sells wine or steaks or watches or water like he does. He even peddles the holiest Bibles.
He’s as slippery as a snake oil salesman with the truth, and he has learned through experience that nobody really cares if you say it loudly and often enough.
If he were going down with the Titanic, he’d be saying it was the most enormous iceberg in history.
For his entire adult life, Trump has been trying to prove to the Manhattan establishment that they were wrong to shun the loudmouth from Queens with the slicked-back hair and the ready wallet. It is so under his skin that he very occasionally lets you see the pain.
Those flickers of casual cruelty. The very personal digs. At his Cabinet meeting on Thursday, he found it necessary to say Nancy Pelosi wasn’t looking good. She’s 85. He mentions “Sleepy” Joe Biden, who is battling cancer.
Trump works politically because of his authenticity. His anger is real and deep. And his authentic grievance is class-based. He knows he will never be accepted. Not even as a twice-elected President of the United States.
And so he shows off like that fourth-grade kid we all knew who was so desperate for attention that everyone teased him.
Trump couldn’t quite compute on Thursday that he received positive press for his efforts with Gaza. It was because his strategy of delivering Hamas an ultimatum paid off. And he does seem genuinely concerned for the hostages and their families. He did not need to tell us he had done the best deal since civilization began. Or in the past 3,000 years. In fact, he did not even need to announce the deal when he did: a few hours delay would have made it more concrete.
But he can’t help himself. He is the scorpion who stings himself halfway across the river because that’s what he does.
Hopefully, he will get this one over the line. And maybe he will be remembered in 3,000 years for the right reasons.
The Bible says that the “Prince of Peace” Isaiah prophesied would take 1,000 years to come to Earth.
As for the second coming? As much as Trump tells us differently, we’re still waiting…
The post Opinion: The Real Reason Trump Can’t Stop Bragging About Ending ‘3,000-Year’ War appeared first on The Daily Beast.
