Predictable claptrap is being uttered about Trump and the Middle East. How can the Muslim world deal with a man who is an Islamophobe? For that is indeed what Trump is. He is a disgrace to his country and to his people – who, heavens above, elected the chap.

But here’s a mollifying thought. US prestige in the region has fallen so low, the Arab world’s belief (and quite possibly the Israeli belief) in American power so shattered by Washington’s stupidity and ineptness, that I rather suspect little attention will be paid to Donald Trump.

I’m not quite sure when respect for American governance began to collapse. It was certainly at its height when Eisenhower told the British, French and Israelis to get out of the Suez Canal in 1956. Maybe Ronald Reagan mixing up his cue cards and taking his presidency into the early stages of Alzheimer’s had a larger effect than we thought. I did once meet a Norwegian diplomat who sat down to talk to Reagan about Israel and Palestine and found the old boy quoting from a paper on the US economy. Bill Clinton’s Middle East “peace” couldn’t have helped.

I guess it was George W Bush, who decided to attack Afghanistan even though no Afghan had ever attacked the United States, and who created a Shia Muslim state in Iraq out of a Sunni Muslim state – much to Saudi Arabia’s disgust – who did more harm than most US presidents to date. The Saudis (from whom came 15 of the 19 killers involved in 9/11) launched their war on Yemen with scarcely a whiff of concern from Washington.

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And Obama seems to have goofed every time in the Middle East. His “handshake” to Islam in Cairo, his Nobel Prize (for public speaking), his “red line” in Syria – which disappeared in the sand the moment he was rescued by the Russkis – is best forgotten. It’s Vladimir Putin’s Sukhois and Migs that are setting the pace in the terrible Syrian war. And amid lands where human rights count not a jot for most of the regional dictators, there’s been hardly a whimper about the Kremlin. Putin was even taken to the opera in Cairo by Field Marshal President al-Sisi.

And that’s the point. Putin talks and acts. Actually, in translation at least, he’s not terribly eloquent, more businessman than politician. Trump talks. But can he act? Cast aside the odd relationship which Trump thinks he has with Putin. It’s Trump who is going to need a translation of Putin’s words, not the other way round. In fact, the Arabs and Israelis, I think, will be spending far more time during the Trump presidency listening to Putin. For the fact is that the Americans have proved themselves as unreliable and fickle in the Middle East as Britain was in the 1930s.

Even America’s blitz on Isis didn’t really get under way until Putin sent his own fighter-bombers to Syria – at which point, many Arabs were asking why Washington hadn’t managed to destroy the cult. Go back to the Arab revolutions – or “spring”, as the Americans pathetically called it – and you see Obama and his hapless Secretary of State (yes, Hillary) goofing again, failing to realise that this massive public awakening in the Arab world was real and that the dictators were going to go (most of them, at least). In Cairo in 2011, about the only decision taken by Obama was to evacuate US citizens from the Egyptian capital.

Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Show all 14 1 /14 Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Isis: "Some of the candidates, they went in and didn’t know the air conditioner didn’t work and sweated like dogs, and they didn’t know the room was too big because they didn’t have anybody there. How are they going to beat ISIS?" Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On immigration: "I will build a great wall — and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me —and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Free Trade: "Free trade is terrible. Free trade can be wonderful if you have smart people. But we have stupid people." PAUL J. RICHARDS | AFP | Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Mexicans: "When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists." Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On China: "I just sold an apartment for $15 million to somebody from China. Am I supposed to dislike them?... I love China. The biggest bank in the world is from China. You know where their United States headquarters is located? In this building, in Trump Tower." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On work: "If you're interested in 'balancing' work and pleasure, stop trying to balance them. Instead make your work more pleasurable." AP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On success: "What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate." Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On life: "Everything in life is luck." AFP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On ambition: "You have to think anyway, so why not think big?" Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On his opponents: "Bush is totally in favour of Common Core. I don't see how he can possibly get the nomination. He's weak on immigration. He's in favour of Common Core. How the hell can you vote for this guy? You just can't do it." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Obamacare: "You have to be hit by a tractor, literally, a tractor, to use it, because the deductibles are so high. It's virtually useless. And remember the $5 billion web site?... I have so many web sites, I have them all over the place. I hire people, they do a web site. It costs me $3." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Barack Obama: "Obama is going to be out playing golf. He might be on one of my courses. I would invite him. I have the best courses in the world. I have one right next to the White House." PA Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On himself: "Love him or hate him, Trump is a man who is certain about what he wants and sets out to get it, no holds barred. Women find his power almost as much of a turn-on as his money." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On America: "The American Dream is dead. But if I get elected president I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before and we will make America great again." GETTY

It is easy to say that the Arabs are appalled that an Islamophobe has won the White House. But did they think Obama or any of his predecessors – Democrat or Republican – had any special concern for Islam? US foreign policy in the Middle East has been a spectacular series of wars and air raids and retreats. Russian policy – in the Yemen war during Nasser’s age and in Afghanistan – has been destructive enough, but the post-Soviet state seemed to have curled its claws until Putin moved his men into Syria.