President Trump will be traveling to the Middle East at a time of great progress, given the terrible defeat Iran has suffered over the past eighteen months at the hands of exactly the regional alliance Trump is seeking now to further strengthen. Nevertheless, more work is needed on the three most pressing remaining Iran-related issues, Syria, the nuclear negotiations, and Gaza, for the visit to achieve strategic success.
The Big Picture
The Middle East today, with the defeat of Iran and its proxies in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, with other proxies in Iraq and Yemen under significant pressure, and much of Iran’s own deterrent power in tatters, is at a turning point analogous to 1973-74 and 1991. This is all the result of the Israeli-American coalition beginning on October 7, 2023, joined and supported by various other regional actors. Securing, deepening, and extending this victory must be the most important mission for the entire region, and if done will open the door to real, durable stability in the middle east for the first time since before the second world war. But such an approach is easier to write than to execute, and success depends on understandings among the key leaders, effective, knowledgeable bureaucrats to execute the formers’ guidance, and systematic planning. But in particular it requires tackling specific obstacles to long-term success.
The situation now is fairly stable with Lebanon, Iraq, and, if the recent ceasefire holds, Yemen. There is a laundry list the US and Israel must do to lock in victory in Lebanon and keep the Houthis from another serious outburst, and the US has more work to do to limit Iranian influence over Iraq, with its tremendous hydrocarbon reserves. But given these fronts’ current trajectories in the Iran-regional confrontation, none appear currently to require urgent new decisions.
The Three Critical Fronts
In contrast, three critical fronts need immediate action: Syria; the Iranian nuclear program; and Gaza. Of the three, Syria is perhaps most urgent, and most unstable. There is less consensus among Americans, Israelis, and other partners on the way forward on Syria, and it faces two immediate challenges: the catastrophic effects of the current US economic sanctions; and possible clashes between Israel and the al-Sharaa government, which could pull Türkiye into a very serious state-state confrontation, weakening the regional partnership against Iranian expansion.
Whatever the logic of the American and Israeli positions on Syria, they suffer from a basic flaw even before getting into details: Washington and Jerusalem are isolated. The rest of the Arab world (with some notable shadings), Europe, Türkiye, the UN and various NGOs all have accepted al-Sharaa as an undeniably imperfect, but still best possible interlocutor, and the necessity of a unified, strong Syria as a bulwark against the country’s return to mass violence and collapse, as in 2011-2024, with the accompanying Iranian, terrorist, refugee and drug threats to neighboring countries and beyond. The hard lesson of that period is that any policy towards Syria, good, bad, or indifferent, has little hope of success if not broadly supported by the international community.
While there is some alignment between the US and Israeli positions on Syria, there are also differences, manifest in the April Oval Office discussion of Syria and Türkiye between President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu. Both countries are concerned about the relationship between the various minorities and Damascus, but the emphasis is different. The US is motivated first by fear of a Sunni religious extremist government overrunning the various minorities, and even the more secular Sunni Arabs, with resulting violence, instability, and new refugee flows. The brief but horrific killings of Alawite Syrians by forces associated with Damascus in March illustrate the fears, but al-Sharaa’s deft response to those killings suggest he at least is open to negotiate.
The single biggest US worry, however, the fate of its Kurdish anti-ISIS Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) allies, has so far been relatively well managed (including through US military forces encouragement), with an agreement between al-Sharaa and SDF initiating an integration process. That is likely to take years, with difficult decisions such as local political autonomy, ties to the international PKK terrorist movement, future of the common fight against ISIS, and the role of the large SDF forces in the new Syrian Army. Nonetheless several tactical agreements from Aleppo and Manbij to Tishrin Dam point to willingness of both sides to compromise.
The Israeli concern for the Druze along the Golan Heights up towards Damascus clearly, and understandably, flows from both domestic considerations of Israel’s Druze population as well as determination to never allow a hostile force on Israel’s borders again. But Israel appears to have a possibly more ambitious agenda, beyond protecting its border and supporting a minority group. Israelis worry that al-Sharaa could be a wolf in sheep’s clothing, with his terrorist roots still alive. Even more seriously, Israelis cite possible great power competition with Ankara. As David Makovsky and Simone Saidmehr wrote in Foreign Affairs on May 6, the two states may be on a collision course in Syria.
To be sure, there are real problems between the two countries, and particularly between the two leaders, centered on treatment of the Gaza population and more recently Syria, but they are of an entirely different dimension than those between Iran and Israel. Thus, the real frictions could be managed, and Turkish officials have stressed that Jerusalem’s and Ankara’s core security interests in Syria largely overlap. Moreover, on at least this issue Erdoğan has been uncharacteristically calm and statesmanlike. But the perception in Israel of at least Erdoğan’s Türkiye as an expansionist Islamic state appears widely held. It is also in many respects incorrect. Türkiye is a relatively rich G-20 state with a modern economy, and with deep demographic, historical, trade, diplomatic and cultural ties to Europe arguably stronger than those to the Middle East. Given this, it is almost inconceivable that the population, still significantly secular compared to Arab states, would embrace a hegemonic campaign analogous to Iran’s in the Arab world and against Israel.
But as long as Israelis think differently, there is a danger that Israel could pursue policies that resemble its ill-fated Lebanon experience, with the Syrian Druze, already divided between Jerusalem and Damascus, playing the role of the South Lebanon Army, and Türkiye responding strongly. This danger is compounded by the at least partial alignment of Washington and Jerusalem. US policy, already at odds with its European and Arab allies on Syria, is further hampered by an alleged bipolar split within the administration. The official position is that sanctions will be relaxed, and diplomatic relations strengthened, as Damascus proves itself as a partner on various mainly security-related issues, laid out in an eight-point letter passed to the Syrian government. This policy is not on the surface unreasonable, even as it differs from that of most other states, and exacts a very serious price through leveraging sanctions designed against Assad now against not just the government but the people. Moreover, there is much reporting that some in the administration are instrumentalizing these US demands (demands have the charm, when one wants, of never being sufficiently met) for the express purpose of keeping Syria weak and disunited, out of fear that al-Sharaa, dragging his heels, could turn out to be a bad bet.
Despite Trump’s Oval Office challenge to Prime Minister Erdoğan over Syria, much of current American policy, at least its effects on the ground, thus appears de facto aligned with the apparent Israeli goal of a weak, disunited state. This all calls for Washington, Ankara and Jerusalem to coordinate their approaches on al-Sharaa (with whom the Turks have good but not uncomplicated relations), and find common ground with the rest of the international community while pressing him to act quickly on US asks. That common ground certainly could start with reductions of US sanctions: transactional (step-by-step relief for Syrian performance); temporary (six month waivers rather than termination); and transparent (aid on to destinations that can be monitored).
The second major front is the Iran nuclear talks. While the specifics are still hidden in a fog of contradictory administration statements and a cloud of Iranian disinformation, by all accounts the Trump team will push for a better agreement than the JCPOA Trump pulled out of in 2018. That means either no, or severely restricted, enrichment, and if the latter, then no termination date to enrichment limits, as well as inclusion of the weaponization and missile files, which in 2015 were largely ignored by passing them to UN instrumentalities.
But the key difference this time is the status of Iran’s option to press for fissile material or even a nuclear weapon. That was a real option influencing negotiations in 2015, but is far less so today, and thus weakens Teheran’s hand significantly. The dynamic behind the 2015 Iranian fissile material/weapon option was that the downsides to acting militarily against Iran if pursuing such capabilities seemed stronger than the downsides of allowing Iran to become a nuclear weapons state. Now, such a state was never desirable, and thus the JCPOA effort, but the thinking was, North Korea, India, Pakistan and allegedly Israel have had nuclear weapons for decades, along with dangerous borders, but no one has used such a weapon. On the other hand, military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities were seen as high risk, given Iran’s air defenses and its retaliatory capability with its own missiles and those of proxies, especially Hezbollah.
This has all changed. After October 7 and two massive Iranian missile barrages, Israel as a matter of national survival must accept that Iran would use nuclear weapons against it. That consideration dramatically changes the cost benefit analysis of using force to halt or eliminate the program; particularly as the risks attendant to military action have been greatly reduced with the proven effectiveness of Israeli missile defenses, erosion of Iran’s own defenses and long range missiles, and elimination of its Lebanon and Syria retaliatory platforms.
Iranians including the Supreme Leader appear from their guarded statements to be aware of this (and the related reality that in the above military situation a preemptive American strike is less risky and thus more feasible). If team Trump in partnership with Israel can exploit this new situation, a much better, much more stable outcome than the JCPOA is possible.
The third major front is Gaza. The Trump team with its priorities of (American) hostage return, integration of Israel into the Arab world, and on the margins humanitarian concerns, has repeatedly gotten crosswise with the Netanyahu government on Gaza. But while that government has made its share of mistakes with Gaza and the larger Palestinian issue, it operates under a strategic imperative that Washington and most of the outside world sometimes misses: an end to the Gaza war and Israeli military withdrawal with Hamas, however degraded, still exercising monopoly of force and governance, is an existential defeat for Israel.
If as seems likely Hamas will not surrender or accept some permanent subordinate status (models abound from Republika Srpska in the Dayton Accords to the West Bank today), then Israel will have to launch a massive offensive to truly destroy Hamas. But it will also have to be creative on a “day after” that does not foresee another October 7 and on a different policy towards the Palestinians generally.
Regional Integration Propelling Durable Stability
Finally, the US and partners are simultaneously working in the general context of the Abraham Accords to deepen military and political cooperation between Arab states, Israel, the US, and then, if the political conflict between Jerusalem and Ankara over Gaza and Syria can be calmed, Türkiye, all acting in unison against Iran and terrorist groups such as ISIS. This larger strategic alliance will facilitate locking in Iran’s defeat, especially on the three major fronts above, and success with them will in turn propel regional integration. The result will be a real chance for peace, led and largely managed by regional states, with the US able to focus on China and other threats.
