Could a Trump Doctrine Repair America’s Middle East Policy?

Arguing that the past sixteen years of U.S. conduct toward the Middle East have facilitated the dangerous empowerment of Iran to the detriment of America and its allies, Michael Doran hopes that the president’s visit to Saudi Arabia and Israel this week will signal the beginning of a more effective approach to the region:

We still don’t know the full details of Donald Trump’s approach to the Middle East, but his hard-nosed ethos and willingness to question foreign-policy dogmas offer an opportunity, in principle, to dispel several fallacies that led to these strategic blunders. . . .

[I]t is false that our support for our longtime friends is a cause of instability, and that by distancing ourselves from them while reaching out to our enemies we can make the world a safer place. (It’s an even worse fallacy to imagine that we can create a Middle East without enemies.) And it’s just as wrong to assume we can cleverly pull Russia away from Iran in Syria. The tensions between them are insignificant compared with their shared interest in propping up the Bashar al-Assad regime and eroding American influence.

[Further], the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not the center of gravity in the Middle East, nor is it ripe for solution. President Obama, like President Bush before him, put a lot of effort into resolving the Israel-Palestinian conflict—a worthy but useless undertaking that diverted them further from addressing Iran’s regional ascent and, later, Russia’s. . . .

But recognizing mistakes is just the first step. The next requires rejecting the temptation, to which President Obama succumbed, of defining the defeat of Islamic State as the pre-eminent strategic goal. If President Trump destroys the group, but fails at the same time to build a stabilizing regional coalition, his victory will be very short-lived. The next Islamic State will rise from the rubble, and Russia and Iran will exploit the ensuing chaos.

Read more at New York Times

More about: Donald Trump, Iran, ISIS, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Middle East, U.S. Foreign policy

When It Comes to Iran, Israel Risks Repeating the Mistakes of 1973 and 2023

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.

Read more at Hudson Institute

More about: Gaza War 2023, Iran nuclear program, Israeli Security, Yom Kippur War