Second Trump and the New Middle East

When Donald Trump lost the 2020 U.S. presidential election to Joe Biden, many columnists at The Washington Post agreed with the statement that “democracy corrects the errors of public opinion,” referring to Trump’s victory in 2016. Likely, they were deeply disappointed when Trump returned and won the 2024 election. Most probably, they did not reassess their positions; they are liberals with an ideological vision of the American interior, globalization, and international relations that differs from Trump and his supporters. This can be seen as a clear division within American society.

However, during the four months Trump has been back in the White House, it appears that there is a second Trump who is somewhat different from his first term. After winning the presidency again and securing Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress, he is now more ideologically confrontational toward the Democratic Party, which tends to lump liberals and leftists together. He is more radical in rejecting economic globalization and more committed to economic nationalism, resulting in measures such as tariffs, restrictions on immigration, and rejection of international and regional trade agreements that Democrats like Barack Obama and Biden had aggressively pursued. He is also more resolute in advocating for U.S. non-intervention abroad. Over the past four months, he has demonstrated much of his old hostility, whether through the tariffs he imposed on European goods or his insistence on increasing European contributions to NATO’s military budget, as well as his divergence from Europeans on the Ukraine issue.

Regarding this issue, there was a strong unity under Biden between Washington and European partners against the Russians. Those who study American history view Trumpism as a return to the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which emphasized an isolationist stance from the problems of the Old World (Europe) and the rest of the world. The United States entered both world wars despite significant resistance from a powerful domestic isolationist movement, which was strongly opposed to involvement. Even when successive presidents after the Cold War shifted toward military, political, and economic intervention worldwide, there was not as intense internal resistance to the wars of Bush Sr., Bush Jr., and Bill Clinton.

While Obama’s victory in 2008 reflected the disillusionment with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the financial-economic crisis, Trump’s victory in 2016 signaled the emergence of a new right-wing, isolationist ideology reminiscent of the Monroe Doctrine and opponents of U.S. involvement in the two world wars—such as Republican Senator Robert Taft, who opposed U.S. entry into World War II, as well as joining the United Nations, NATO, and the Korean War. His loss in the 1952 Republican presidential primary to Dwight Eisenhower was seen as an expression of the defeat of non-interventionist tendencies within the American right. Trump’s victory appears to signal a return to that stance.

Here, we see that Trump’s military non-interventionism is strongly reflected in the Ukrainian issue through various signals he has recently sent to Russian President Vladimir Putin. These include pressures on President Volodymyr Zelensky to make concessions regarding Ukrainian territories, which alarmed Europeans and frustrated the Russians, who showed rigidity in the recent Istanbul negotiations. Trump’s non-intervention stance also manifested in his tendency to avoid military engagement by pressuring India and Pakistan during their recent confrontation, in an effort to prevent it from escalating into a nuclear war between the two neighbors.

However, this non-interventionist approach is accompanied by a tendency to wage a trade war against China. The bipartisan consensus to counter China’s rise was driven by economic reasons. China’s ascent to become the world’s second-largest economy in 2010, surpassing Japan, prompted Obama to adopt a “pivot to Asia” strategy and to withdraw from the Middle East, as he announced to the Australian Parliament in November 2011.

But Trump differs from Obama and Biden in that he believes the only American “general” capable of confronting China is the dollar. His pragmatic approach towards Putin likely aims to distance Russia from China. The renewed focus of Washington on the Middle East also appears to be motivated by China’s strategic importance.

In a speech to Congress in March 2023, General Michael Corella, commander of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees a region extending from Kazakhstan to Somalia and from Pakistan to Egypt, stated that “72% of China’s oil imports make them vulnerable, with 98% transported by sea, half of which comes from the Middle East.” He added: “The CENTCOM area is central to competing with China and Russia.”

“We were there in the past, we are there today, and we will remain there in the future.” But with Trump, there appears to be a retreat from Biden’s policy of putting China and Russia in one basket, instead adopting a strategy of differentiating between them and appeasing Moscow—just as Henry Kissinger did in the 1970s to foster the Sino-Soviet dispute, which was considered crucial to Washington’s victory in the Cold War.

Under Trump II, there is a trend toward constructing a new Middle East aimed at creating a Western-Middle Eastern barrier against China’s expansion into Africa and Europe, as well as a Russian wall that Trump might build against China on its Eurasian route—if he satisfies Putin. This Middle East could also serve as an energy reservoir for Europe, providing oil, gas, and green energy sources (solar and wind), part of a policy to diversify energy sources beyond Russian supplies—a lesson learned by the West from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

It is also worth recalling that US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, in the 1950s, spoke of creating a ‘Northern Wall,’ sometimes called the ‘Southern Wall,’ against the Soviet Union. This coincided with the beginning of US contacts in 1953 with the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood and the idea of using Islam as a counterbalance to communism. This strategy included Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan, with Afghanistan maintaining a neutral stance at the time, and was linked to the concept of launching the Baghdad Pact. The plan was that this alliance would include Arab countries, with Turkey acting as a bridge between the Baghdad Pact and NATO.

As discussions of the ‘Deal of the Century’ emerged during Trump’s first term, Gulf circles circulated talk of a Sunni-Jewish alliance against Iran. During this period, Trump moved toward a policy of confrontation with Iran, culminating in his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 and the implementation of maximum economic pressure. This approach was also aligned with the broader goals of the ‘Deal of the Century’ and the normalization efforts under the Abraham Accords.

With the deep state’s tendency in the United States, as understood from General Corella’s statements, to use the Middle East as a battleground to put pressure on China (and also Russia), one can interpret Trump’s current policies as an effort to please Saudi Arabia—ranging from a Saudi nuclear reactor built by Washington without tying it to normalization with Israel, to lifting US sanctions on Syria at the request of Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as Trump indicated upon announcing his decision, and extending to US support for the new Syrian authority. Additionally, there is an open US relationship with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, different from the Biden era.

This new Trumpian approach towards the Saudis has angered Israel, which Trump did not visit when he traveled to Riyadh, unlike in 2017. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to pressure the new Syrian regime run counter to the policies of Washington, Riyadh, and Ankara. In the Israeli press, there are reports claiming that “the new Middle East is being built without Israel,” and blame is placed on Netanyahu and his far-right allies.

Indeed, Trump annoyed and shocked Netanyahu not only with the points mentioned above, but also by his decision to negotiate with Iran, his unilateral deal with the Houthis, and the opening of a direct US channel with Hamas.

However, it should be noted that Trump’s negotiation strategy with Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is not like Obama’s approach prior to the 2015 nuclear deal, when Washington turned a blind eye to Tehran’s regional expansion in exchange for an agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program. More likely, Trump is exploiting Iran’s weakened position in the region—after the defeat of its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza, and the fall of its ally in Damascus—to negotiate on nuclear issues. He bets that a toothless Iranian nuclear program, combined with the lifting of economic sanctions and the strengthening of reformists and liberals, will lead to Iran being absorbed back into the West, much like during the Shah’s era. This scenario becomes even more plausible if Khamenei, the elderly leader, passes away—an event that could trigger a power shift similar to what happened in the Soviet Union in 1982 after Leonid Brezhnev’s death, when the balance of power shifted against the hardliners, paving the way for Mikhail Gorbachev’s rise and later Boris Yeltsin, amid an economic-social crisis and a changing international landscape no longer favorable to Moscow.

It is likely that the new Middle Eastern scene will see Iran weakened and marginalised at its expense, with Sunnis taking on a more prominent role in the American strategic dance—after the Shiite role in this dance, which started in Baghdad in 2003, then Beirut in 2008, and Sanaa in 2014, before Obama’s 2015 decision to accept Bashar al-Assad’s continued rule. A key aspect of this vision is for Damascus to be firmly within the US orbit, and for Turkey to align with Washington—though only after the reconciliation between Erdogan and Abdullah Öcalan.

It is also important to remember that the concept of a “New Middle East” was initially launched by former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres in the 1990s, and included the idea of a two-state solution. Achieving this, however, seems impossible with Netanyahu still in power, just as the realization of such a project would require the disappearance of Hassan Nasrallah and Yahya Sinwar, and the weakening of Khamenei’s influence.

The question now remains: Is it possible to view Washington’s apparent satisfaction with the prospect of Islamists coming to power in Damascus in 2024—similar to what happened in Kabul in 2021—and its renewed openness toward Riyadh and Istanbul, as a continuation of Washington’s strategy in the 1950s to forge an alliance between the West and the Islamic world against communism, then represented by Moscow and Beijing? This includes now the Turkish world, encompassing the former Soviet Islamic republics, as well as the Uighurs in China, which Washington might seek to leverage against China—and occasionally against Russia.