Trump Will Encounter a Very Different Middle East in His Second Term

Observers of President-elect Donald Trump have long known the folly of trying to predict his decisions. But when it comes to foreign relations, especially in the Middle East, there are some ways that his second term will undoubtedly be different from his first.

The region has changed drastically since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, which have disrupted the balance of power and the priorities of its major players.

It is impossible to say what’s coming. But my colleagues have conducted extensive reporting on everything that has changed, and this seems like a good moment to draw together some of their findings.

Oct. 7 attacks

Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, was one of those moments that divides history into “before” and “after.” In the attack, Hamas massacred civilians in Israel and took others back to Gaza as hostages. As my colleague Steven Erlanger wrote just two weeks later, the assaults shattered longstanding assumptions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ushering in a period of violent uncertainty.

In Trump’s first term and through much of President Biden’s, Palestinian demands for statehood received little attention. Israel controlled the West Bank and contained Gaza so tightly that it seemed that status quo might endure indefinitely.

But Hamas’s attack, and the wars and realignments that followed, have changed everything. The United States is once again deeply involved in the region, where it has provided military support for Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and against Hezbollah in Lebanon. And widespread anger over the conduct of Israel, which has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced over a million, has brought renewed attention to the issue of Palestinian statehood.

As I’ve written in recent columns, if Israel and Iran fail to reach a new balance of deterrence against each other, their conflict could intensify, potentially drawing in other countries.

Saudi Arabia and Iran: From cold war to détente

For most of the 2010s, Saudi Arabia and Iran used proxy battles to fight a cold war in the Middle East. Their rivalry provided a kind of decoder ring for the region’s many civil wars as well as the sectarian tensions between Sunni and Shia Muslims: Iran backed Shiite militant groups throughout the region, while Saudi Arabia sought influence via Sunni proxies of its own.

That has begun to change. In March 2023, China brokered a deal re-establishing relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. As my colleagues Farnaz Fassihi and Vivian Yee reported, the countries agreed to reopen embassies; revive an old security pact; not attack each other, even through proxies; tone down the rhetoric in the news media; and not meddle in each other’s domestic affairs.

Many of those promises are, at present, aspirational rather than real. “I would call it a cautious détente, a cautious opening up, a cautious willingness just to work together to de-escalate,” said Anna Jacobs, a senior Persian Gulf analyst for the International Crisis Group.

The thaw in relations was on prominent display this week, as my colleague Ismaeel Naar reported. On Sunday, the Saudi and Iranian military chiefs met in Tehran. That same day, the Saudi Press Agency reported, the president of Iran spoke directly to Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia and its de facto ruler, by phone.

That dialogue “sends a really powerful message, especially with Trump’s re-election, that the region is very different from Trump’s first term,” Jacobs said. “The relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran is very different now.”

A setback for an Israel-Saudi pact

Before the Oct. 7 attacks, Saudi Arabia and Israel seemed on the cusp of an agreement to normalize their relations that had the potential to reshape the Middle East. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel hoped that such a deal would lead to the creation of a kind of Middle Eastern NATO, creating closer security ties between Israel and the Gulf States while further isolating Iran and its allies.

Now, things look very different. Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon have made it untenable for Saudi Arabia and other countries to make a deal with Israel unless they extract significant concessions, possibly including a commitment to Palestinian statehood — but Israeli opposition to a two-state solution is now stronger than it has been in decades.

Coupled with the détente between Iran and Saudi Arabia, that raises the possibility of a new regional order in which Israel, rather than Iran, becomes more isolated.

The unpredictability of Trump Part II

In Trump’s first term, many argued that he was following the “madman strategy” in foreign affairs. That’s the idea that if your opponents think you are unstable enough to follow through on a threat despite potentially disastrous consequences, they’re more likely to back down.

While there may be some strategic logic for following the madman strategy against adversaries, behaving erratically with friendly countries can cause them to pull away and seek other alliances.

In 2019, a missile attack hit Saudi Arabia’s major oil installations at Abqaiq and Khurais. The U.S. accused Iran of carrying out the strike, though the Houthi rebel group, an Iran-backed militia in Yemen, claimed responsibility. Trump said that there was “no rush” to respond because he didn’t want to involve the U.S. in a war.

That response appears to have contributed to the Saudi decision to pursue a reset with Iran, according to a report from the International Crisis Group.

The second Trump administration may bring more mixed signals. As my colleagues Lara Jakes and Adam Rasgon have written, Trump’s nominees for the top diplomatic envoys to the Middle East have little foreign policy background but have signaled fervent support for Israel.

And although Trump has long taken a harsh line on Iran, this week Elon Musk, a close adviser of the president-elect, met with two Iranian officials to discuss ways to defuse tensions between Iran and the United States, my colleague Farnaz Fassihi reported.