President Donald Trump, who said he wanted to end Middle East wars, is stumbling toward a dangerous new entanglement with his talk of expelling Palestinians from Gaza and seizing the territory for the United States.

Concerns about the jaw-dropping proposal were so swift and sharp on Wednesday that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt rushed to clarify that Trump didn’t plan to pay for that project or send in U.S. troops. If that’s true - and no other country in the region appears ready to offer financial or military support - then the proposal is the foreign policy equivalent of an empty suit.

Reaction to Trump’s Gaza scheme rumbled like thunder across the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates issued quick statements rejecting it. Jordanian sources told me that small protests have already begun there. The Gaza bombshell is also creating worries about domestic protests or worse in the United States.

For a Middle East that is just recovering from the trauma of 15 months of war, Trump’s suggestion of a U.S. takeover of Gaza was incendiary. The leaders of Egypt and Jordan, the two nations Trump mentioned as relocation sites when he first floated the idea 10 days ago, have been summoned to meet Trump in Washington next week. They’re afraid of him, as most of the world seems to be after two weeks of threats and action. But they’re even more worried about the danger of internal unrest that could follow an expulsion of Palestinians into their territory.

“This will cause major disruption in Egypt and Jordan,” warned an intelligence official who has worked for decades in the region. He stressed that this instability could blow back on Israel, creating a violent new uprising in the West Bank and on Israel’s border. “Why would you export Hamas to countries that are crucial to Israel’s security?” the perplexed official asked.

Trump’s takeover proposal burst on the region with little warning, shocking even Israeli intelligence and security officials. But looking back, there have been signs for months that the plan had taken root in the mind of the former real estate developer.

A year ago, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law who now runs a multibillion-dollar investment fund supported by Saudi Arabia, said in an online Harvard forum that “Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable.” He explained: “From Israel’s perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up,” though he discussed moving Palestinians into Israel’s Negev desert rather than Jordan or Egypt. Then in September, Trump mentioned the relocation idea in a meeting with a gulf leader who was visiting him at Mar-a-Lago, according to an Arab source familiar with the meeting.

Jordan, which might be most destabilized by the relocation proposal because of its large Palestinian population, was searching for information Wednesday. Officials at the State Department and National Security Council couldn’t offer clarification. CIA officials overseas didn’t get any early warning, either.

Trump’s capricious proposal is the latest example of an administration that, in its pell-mell desire for disruption, seems oblivious to the implications for national security. CIA officers around the world were offered buyouts Tuesday as part of what Director John Ratcliffe said was an effort to slim the workforce and “infuse the agency with renewed energy.”

What impact these unfocused job cuts will have on agency operations - at a time of rising global insecurity - seems to be an afterthought. Replacing officers who have valuable, hard-to-acquire skills such as fluency in Russian, Chinese or Arabic won’t be easy. CIA veterans fear the agency’s disorientation will increase with the appointment of Trump loyalist Michael Ellis as Ratcliffe’s deputy. He has little intelligence experience.

The scythe of Trump’s disruption and revenge is cutting across the national security landscape. FBI agents who normally monitor terrorism and counterintelligence are instead spending their time probing those involved in the investigation of the Jan. 6, 2001, storming of the Capitol. FBI agents are looking for jobs, former officials told me. Officers at the National Security Agency, who produce perhaps the country’s most sensitive and important intelligence, have also received buyout letters.

Trump’s Middle East policies seem to wobble day by day. He brags often about how he defeated the Islamic State, for example. But he indicated last week that he was considering pulling from Syria the U.S. Special Operations forces that are trying to prevent a resurgence of the terrorist group there, saying: “Syria is its own mess. … They don’t need us involved.”

David Ignatius is a Washington Post columnist.