November 12, 2024

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Regional Conflagration Will Confront Next Trump Administration

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

Since the first Trump administration ended in early 2021, the region has polarized significantly, positioning Israel, backed by the United States and aligned with several Arab states, against Iran and its Axis of Resistance partners that seek to render Israel weak and non-viable. The polarization of the region, as well as an array of other factors, produced the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and its subsequent widening into regional warfare.

In its remaining three months in office, the outgoing Biden administration will strive to achieve the regional de-escalation that has eluded it to date. But most of the region’s leaders are assessing the implications of Trump’s election for the issues of paramount concern to their countries. Whereas some regional leaders might seek to settle their respective conflicts before the January 2025 inauguration of Trump, others, particularly Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, might see benefit in delaying any compromises until Trump takes office. In all likelihood, Trump might return to office in January 2025 with a brutal war in Gaza still raging and Israel still pressing an offensive against Lebanese Hezbollah.

During his campaign and since, President-elect Trump has argued for and claimed to be able to quickly bring about an end to the region’s conflicts, particularly the war in Gaza. However, to do so, many experts expect he will likely seek to rely on his previous alliances with Netanyahu and leaders of the Arab Gulf states. Yet, some U.S. allies in the Gulf have diverged, to an extent, from the goals and policies they pursued during Trump’s first presidency, rendering their commitment to full cooperation with the second Trump administration uncertain. Gulf leaders perceive that Trump’s energy policy - unfettered increases in U.S. fossil fuel production and exportation - might affect the global oil market to the disadvantage of the Gulf oil exporters. The Gulf states, in part as a reaction to what they considered a reluctance by the first Trump administration to confront aggression by Iran and its allies, have in recent years sought to de-escalate with Tehran. Gulf leaders expressed resentment and surprise that the Trump administration did not respond to the Iranian drone attack on Abqaiq in Saudi Arabia in 2019 or take steps to actively defend Saudi Arabia and the UAE from frequent missile attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi movement in Yemen.

Perhaps more significantly, the October 7 Hamas attack has returned the Palestinian-Israeli dispute to the center of regional politics. That issue was largely downplayed and ignored not only by the United States but by most Arab leaders as well during the first Trump Administration. The Hamas assault has compelled Gulf and other Arab allies of the United States to insist that Israel accept the eventual formation of an independent Palestinian state. An unconditionally pro-Netanyahu U.S. policy will likely preclude the Gulf states from cooperating on a post-war stabilization plan for the Gaza Strip, should a Hamas-Israel ceasefire agreement be reached. Yet, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar have contributed significant humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. Frustrated at Hamas’ refusal to agree to even a brief ceasefire and release of a small number of Israeli hostages, Qatar announced on Saturday it would suspend its efforts to mediate an Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage release, amid reports – which Qatar termed “inaccurate” – that it had acceded to a U.S. request to close the Hamas office in Doha.

To the dismay of Arab leaders, the President-elect shows no signs he will press Netanyahu or other Israeli leaders to soften what appears to be their objection to living side-by-side with a Palestinian state. In a late October phone call, Trump reportedly told the Israeli leader, “do what you have to do to defend yourself.“ Trump also reportedly echoed many of Netanyahu’s core objections to the involvement of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) in post-war Gaza, saying, according to associates, “that very much there has to be changed with the corrupt Palestinian state (referring to the PA).” During his initial term, Trump tasked son-in-law Jared Kushner to develop a plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, ultimately unveiling a proposal that was widely seen as favoring Israel and was dismissed by Arab leaders. He also recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war. Settlement-building in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, seen as an obstacle to Palestinian statehood, surged under his presidency. Far-right members of Netanyahu's inner circle, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, have openly called for Israel to annex the West Bank.

The differences between Trump and Arab leaders on a Palestinian state are likely to also frustrate efforts by the second Trump administration to expand the 2020 “Abraham Accords” by promoting normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Trump, as has President Biden, sees a “grand bargain” linking Saudi-Israel normalization to a binding U.S. security commitment to the Kingdom as a means of outflanking Iran and its Axis of Resistance partners. However, Saudi leaders have linked normalization to substantial progress toward a Palestinian state, likely stalling any Trump effort to expand the Abraham Accords. Just recently, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) came out and called what is happening in Gaza a genocide and reiterated the call for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Even if more significant regional geostrategic issues loom in Trump’s second term, Trump aides are hoping the Israel-Hezbollah conflict might be resolved - or at least de-escalated - before the January inauguration. The Israel-Lebanon front raises broader questions about Trump’s policy toward Iran and the Axis of Resistance writ large. Trump's policy toward Iran is likely to become a major issue not only because of Tehran’s support for regional non-state armed actors such as Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen but also because of Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and its efforts to assassinate dissidents and former officials on U.S. soil.

Hezbollah is Iran’s closest regional ally, and it has been the most powerful member of the Iran-led Axis of Resistance. Iran has pledged to continue to supply the group with weaponry capable of causing significant damage inside Israel. The potential for the Lebanon front to spark broader conflict was illustrated in late September: the Israeli air strike on Beirut that killed Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah on September 27 sparked another major Iranian missile attack on Israel on October 1 – the second such attack Tehran has conducted in 2024.

If fighting between Israel and Hezbollah continues beyond the U.S. presidential inauguration, the Trump administration is sure to defer to Netanyahu to decide the terms on which Israel will accept a Lebanon ceasefire. U.S. officials currently believe they are close to achieving a ceasefire that would implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701, ensuring that Hezbollah could not threaten Israeli border towns. However, Israeli leaders appear intent on preventing Hezbollah from re-arming, a policy that includes repeated strikes on installations in Syria that Iran uses to arm the group. Israeli actions against Iran and Hezbollah have the potential, at any time, to produce another round of Iran-Israel conflict – as was the case in April 2024.

Clashes between Israel and Iran always carry the potential to escalate to the point where U.S. forces might be attacked or come into conflict with Iranian forces. Although President-elect Trump has repeatedly argued against engaging in warfare in the Middle East, it is also top of mind for Iranian leaders that it was President Trump who, in January 2020, ordered the U.S. drone strike in Baghdad that killed the revered leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps -Qods Force (IRGC-QF) Qasem Soleimani. The potential for armed conflict involving Israel, Hezbollah, and Iran - and the possibility such warfare will drag U.S. forces into the fray – is certain to consume Trump administration policymakers after they take up their positions in January.