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Trump’s new trial in the Middle East

31 January 2025

 

This package also includes: Trump 2.0 targets technology

Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency on 20 January 2025 is anticipated to have profound impacts on the Middle East, focused on two key areas: US relations with Iran, and the interrelationship between the US, Israel and other regional actors.

Nevertheless, while the broad thrust of Trump’s goals in the Middle East is clear, the way he is likely to go about achieving them is hard to anticipate, with the mercurial president liable to shift his approach on a whim.

Iranian relations

The US’ relations with Iran, where Trump’s position appears to have softened in recent months, is a case in point.

While Trump was initially expected to reinstate a “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions against Iran, he has lately made a series of nuanced statements. In October, he said: “I would like to see Iran be very successful. The only thing is, they can’t have a nuclear weapon.”

Although the US president has previously hinted at leveraging threats of force against Iran to compel it to restrain its nuclear and military capabilities, he has also hinted at avoiding a military approach and conspicuously sidelined US neoconservatives with harder stances on Iran within his administration.

A softer stance would also fall more in line with Trump’s historic aversion to US military entanglement, as well as his preference for negotiation and deal-making.

The region is furthermore in a different place than it was in Trump’s first term. Back then, he was supported by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but now those same Gulf allies have moderated their oppositional stances towards Iran and turned towards a more cooperative, business-oriented path forward.

There is no way to predict exactly how US relations with Iran are likely to play out over the course of Trump’s second term, but there could be significant room for manoeuvre for an Iranian government willing to put out the right signals and give the US president the symbolic wins he craves.

Israel agenda

One inevitable constant of US relations in the region is Washington’s largely unconditional backing for Israel, and Trump’s administration is expected to reaffirm his support for Israel.

The president’s first term was a triumph for pro-Israel policymakers in Washington, with Trump breaching long-standing US holding patterns of diplomatic ambiguity by recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and normalising the Israeli occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights.

Trump also oversaw the signing of the Abraham Accords that normalised Israeli relations with the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco, with the expectation that this diplomatic progress would continue.

Before the onset of the latest war in Gaza in late 2023, Washington had reportedly been on the cusp of finalising a normalisation agreement with Saudi Arabia. The threat of this pending deal with Riyadh was one of the key triggers for Palestinian militant groups in Gaza to attack Israel on 7 October.

With the inauguration of Trump, there is every indication that the US administration intends to pick up where the deal with Saudi Arabia left off, as well as to potentially shift US policy in other key areas as well, such as its stance on the legitimacy of Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank.

In terms of brokering an agreement with Riyadh, Washington may encounter friction. After October 2023, the Saudi negotiations team indicated that it was keen to proceed with a deal with the US, while leaving the matter of relations with Israel aside, but this may not be to Washington’s taste.

Saudi Arabia’s official position on normalisation has since hardened considerably, with Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal Bin Farhan Al-Saud repeatedly stating this past year that there can be no normalisation without the realisation of Palestinian statehood. 

This firm position on Palestinian statehood could he hard for Riyadh to pull back from given the current geopolitical tensions in the region. There are nevertheless signs that the Trump administration is still eager to pursue renewed negotiations on the matter of normalisation with Saudi Arabia.

For the moment, the most pressing question for the region is whether Trump will continue to pressure Israel to abide by the terms of the ceasefire in Gaza, as well as its commitment to withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon.

The president has laid partial claim to the Gaza ceasefire and expressed his hope that it will proceed to fruition in its second and third phases. 

He has also affirmed Israel’s need to withdraw from southern Lebanon – yet there the timeline has already slipped, raising the possibility that Trump, like Biden, could be soft on implementation.

There is no way to predict exactly how US relations with Iran are likely to play out

Transactional approach

More ominously, on 27 January, Trump mooted the possibility of “cleaning out” the population in Gaza by relocating 1.5 million Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan. Cairo and Amman have promptly dismissed the notion amid a storm of criticism over the unprincipled proposal.

The idea’s very suggestion by Trump points to a deeply transactional approach that jars with standing precepts of the Geneva Convention’s and international humanitarian law – which could cause problems down the road.

Looking ahead, the tenor of Trump’s engagement with the region in his second term is likely to be determined by his immediate reactions to these fast-moving geopolitical events. The Middle East presents major challenges that he will have to come to terms with in his first few months in office. 

Trump 2.0 targets technology

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John Bambridge

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