Trump’s Middle East strategy: negotiations and tensions

Trump has appeared to have filled his second administration with anti-Iran hawks. Nevertheless, Trump himself has stated his preference for a “deal” with Iran―in accord with his “Peace through Strength” and “maximum pressure” logic. Trump asserted, “I would like a deal done with Iran on non-nuclear. I would prefer that to bomb the hell out of it.” He also stated that Israel would not carry out a strike if there were such an agreement.

Trump's remarks suggested he wants to negotiate with Tehran—even as he, feigning reluctance, signed an executive order to reimpose his “maximum pressure ¹” approach. Trump stated, “I’m going to sign (the executive order), but hopefully we’re not going to have to use it very much… We will see whether or not we can arrange or work out a deal with Iran… We don’t want to be tough on Iran. We don’t want to be tough on anybody… But they just can’t have a nuclear bomb.”

Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, asserted much the same thing: “The United States should not rule out ² any arrangement with Iran that leads to peace and security in the Middle East.”

At the same time, US intelligence agencies, the “hidden” or “deep” state, warned that Israel might strike Iran sometime this year, in 2025—in the belief that Trump, unlike Biden, would give the Israeli defense forces the green light ³ to hit Iranian defenses and nuclear enrichment facilities. To offset such reports, Trump stated, “Reports that the United States, working in conjunction with Israel, is going to blow Iran into smithereens are greatly exaggerated.”

Such reports may be “exaggerated,” but could they also possess some elements of truth?

So far, Iran has been hesitant to agree to talks with the new Trump administration—and swore that Tehran would not negotiate under pressure. After all, it was Trump, under the influence of his first-term National Security advisor, John Bolton, who had killed the JCPOA Iran nuclear agreement that would have limited its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the removal of heavy US sanctions. In addition, Trump, the Dragon Slayer ⁵, was killed by a drone strike in 2020, General Suleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, the division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was primarily responsible for clandestine military operations. Suleimani was seen as an Iranian war hero by Tehran, who had fought against the so-called Islamist State but who had also opposed the US and Israel by commanding IRGC operations in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, southern Lebanon, and Gaza.

Trump has blamed his first-term National Security Advisor, John Bolton, for “blowing up ⁵ the Middle East” by supporting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. not to overlook Bolton’s influence on Trump’s own decision to dump the JCPOA Iran nuclear accord in addition to Trump’s failure to reach a deal with Kim Jong Un. Since Trump left office, North Korea has been accelerating its missile and nuclear weapons production and has forged a mutual defense treaty with Russia while building closer defense ties ⁶ with Iran. (Trump took away Bolton’s security protection team even if there has allegedly been an Iranian fatwa placed against him for the killing of General Suleimani and for advocating the overthrow of the Islamic Republic even before he became Trump’s national security advisor.)

In response to Trump’s apparent waving of an olive branch to Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei observed about the Iran nuclear accord, “The Americans did not uphold their end of the deal… The very person who is in office today (Trump) tore up the agreement. He said he would, and he did.” Khamenei then added, “This is an experience we must learn from. We negotiated, we gave concessions, we compromised—but we did not achieve the results we aimed for. And despite all its flaws, the other side ultimately violated and destroyed the agreement.”

Instead of placing maximum pressure on Iran, which has been significantly weakened by its confrontation with Israel, and given the fact that Iran’s lines of support for Hezbollah and Hamas have largely been cut off after the Syrian revolution overthrew the pro-Iranian pro-Russian Al-Assad regime, the US should revive the Iran JCPOA talks on nuclear enrichment, as urged by the UN and Tehran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian. The latter has assured the world that Iran is not seeking to develop nuclear weaponry. Guaranteeing that Iran will not be able to strike Israel with nuclear weapons can reduce the “existential” threat to Israel and open the door to a wider peace.

To establish a wider peace, the Iran nuclear enrichment talks should be accompanied by multilateral talks ⁷ aimed at seeking a “no-first-use” of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) for the entire region in addition to reducing the numbers of missiles and drones, among other weaponry. As it appears dubious that Israel will give up any of its non-declared nuclear weapons, such an approach can help reduce fears that Israel, or any other state, will deploy WMD. (Tel Aviv will neither affirm nor deny that it possesses nuclear weapons even if numerous sources have confirmed that it possesses a nuclear weapons capability and even if such a position of denial, “strategic opacity” (Amimut), does nothing to build international trust and prevent further nuclear proliferation.)

In the meantime, repetitive Israeli threats to strike Iran, combined with Tel Aviv’s democidal actions against Palestinian civilians and its adamant refusal to accept the creation of a Palestinian state, diminish the chances for a Saudi-Israeli rapprochement that could lead to a wider Middle East Peace settlement after the signing of the Abraham accords ⁸.

Trump’s real estate plans for the US to build a “Gaza Riviera” are a no-go. His proposal to expel Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt until Gaza is rebuilt after such a destructive war needs to be replaced by a viable peace plan that is accepted by Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and other wealthy Gulf states, as well as the Palestinians.

Trump’s plan appears to propose that the Palestinians be resettled outside Gaza with no guarantees that they could ever return or even afford to live in what would become a revamped tourist area if they did return. Instead, steps should be taken to reconstruct Gaza step by step with minimum population displacement within Gaza in the process of building a viable demilitarized Palestinian state that links the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as a capital, backed by international financial support and security guarantees, and with a new forward-looking Palestinian leadership.

There is, however, a real danger that lack of progress in bringing peace to Gaza and now the West Bank by way of forging a viable demilitarized Palestinian state, coupled with continued US and Israeli threats to Iran, could press Iran and Saudi Arabia closer together ⁹ in an unexpected alliance. Such an alliance could be backed by Russia ¹⁰, which has signed a strategic partnership with Iran, as well as by China and North Korea, who both possess strong political, economic, and military links with Iran.

A wider war would plunge the Arabo-Persian Gulf region into permanent mayhem, strengthen militant Islamist factions, including Hamas which has not entirely been “eradicated” as intended by Netanyahu, and potentially draw the US, Russia, and China indirectly or directly into the strife as well—particularly if Israel (or other actors) attacks Iranian nuclear enrichment and energy facilities and world energy prices skyrocket. In retaliation, Iran could launch strikes against Israel itself and US bases in the region with its growing drone, stealth, and hypersonic missile capabilities, coupled with international terrorist actions.

Trump has permitted Israel to acquire without a congressional review more than $7 billion in armaments, including 2000-pound bombs that the Biden administration had held up—all because “Israel has paid for them” in Trump’s words. At present, Israel alone could not eliminate Iran’s hidden and deeply buried nuclear energy sites without US assistance unless it used nuclear weaponry. The danger is that some form of terrorist action—whether backed by Iran or not—or else a false flag operation—could be manipulated by a nefarious Netanyahu—fearful of being convicted by still-functioning Israeli courts for fraud, breach of trust, bribery, and war crimes—to draw a gullible Trump into attacking Iran.

Trump has stated that he intends to engage in nuclear arms talks with both Russia and China. He has promised the possibility of peace with Iran as well… Yet, in the meantime, the US continues to boost its defense and missile capabilities to counter a burgeoning China-Russia-Iran-North Korea “axis”―an axis that the policies of the US and its allies have thus far been pressing even closer together.

Let us hope saner minds can prevail in Washington, Tel Aviv, and Tehran.