Today the Middle East faces much uncertainty. There are countless questions about post-Assad Syria, Iran-Israel hostilities, the Gaza war, Israel’s land theft in the West Bank, Houthi militancy, and the unpredictable nature of the incoming US administration. All of these dynamics will shape events in the Middle East in 2025.
Syria: Turkey versus Israel?
The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)-led lightning offensive that began last month and resulted in the Syrian regime’s fall on 8 December was nothing short of a major geopolitical earthquake which will have significant repercussions for the Middle East.
Looking ahead to next year, Syria’s political transition will be important to monitor as the region adapts to new realities resulting from the weakening of the Iran-led ‘Axis of Resistance’.
The intervention of outside actors in post-Assad Syria will have a major impact on this delicate transition following more than 60 years of Baathist rule. It appears that in 2025 many external players will seek to influence this transition in manners that serve their own interests, which raises legitimate concerns about the future of Syria’s stability and territorial integrity.
At this point, it is easy to conclude that Turkey and Israel are poised to become the strategic beneficiaries of Syria’s political transition and the resultant blow to Iranian influence in the Levant.
“Turkey is steadily expanding its influence across regions stretching from the Horn of Africa to the Levant and Afghanistan, cementing its role as a force to be reckoned with in the region. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s support for HTS, which successfully gained control of Damascus, has further amplified Ankara’s clout – arguably elevating it beyond that of Tehran,” explained Veena Ali-Khan, a fellow at the Century Foundation who focuses on the Gulf, in an interview with The New Arab.
“As Tehran’s grip on the region loosens, the stage is set for Erdogan to potentially fill the vacuum and redefine the regional order. At this stage, however, it is too early to tell,” she added.
Israel, which did not necessarily want Assad to fall, is grappling with many uncertainties related to Syria’s future. Tel Aviv’s perspective seems to be that no entity/entities governing Syria will be friendly to Israel nor capable of easily establishing stability in the war-ravaged country.
Therefore, the Israeli leadership appears to be determined to keep the Syrian state weak and unable to counter Israeli hard power in the Levant or the greater Middle East, which helps explain Tel Aviv’s rationale for waging hundreds of airstrikes all over Syria since Assad’s regime fell on 8 December while also illegally seizing more territory in Syria beyond the Syrian land that Israel has been occupying since 1967.
“Israel will try to cement its presence in southern Syria and is concerned about the rise of a conservative Sunni regime in Damascus,” explained Osama al-Sharif, a Jordanian journalist and commentator based in Amman, in a TNA interview.
“Israel’s increasing assertion in the region, highlighted by its tactical successes against Hezbollah and Hamas and now southern Syria, could solidify its role as an ‘agenda-setter’ in Middle Eastern geopolitics,” Francesco Salesio Schiavi, an Italian Middle East expert and analyst, told TNA.
Given Ankara and Tel Aviv’s conflicts of interest vis-à-vis Syria, Gaza, and other issues, 2025 could be a year in which Turkish-Israeli tensions heat up, with the two US allies possibly set on a “collision course” that could have a major impact on the Middle East’s geopolitical order and security landscape.
Although Israel is pleased to see the Tehran-led ‘Axis of Resistance’ dealt a severe blow with the HTS-led coalition taking control of Damascus and much of Syria, Tel Aviv will probably be nervous about the role that Ankara plays in the country. Hamas returning to Syria is one sign of this Turkey-oriented Sunni order that appears to be forming in post-Assad Damascus.
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Next year US President-elect Donald Trump’s administration will likely need to channel significant diplomatic energy into preventing the Turkish-Israeli rivalry in Syria from escalating. There is no denying that Washington has zero interest in a scenario whereby hostilities between a NATO member and Tel Aviv spiral out of control.
With Trump being highly transactional and unpredictable, it is extremely challenging to predict how his administration will approach Turkey and its actions in Syria. Nonetheless, Ankara will likely succeed in convincing the Trump team that Turkey is an influential power in the Levant and any successful US foreign policy in Syria will require cooperation with Ankara and consideration of Turkey’s national interests.
Within this context, how Trump’s second administration manages to balance US support for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is dominated by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)-linked People’s Protection Units (YPG), with Washington’s commitment to its alliance with Turkey will be key to observe.
“I think Turkey’s prominent role in the quick downfall of the Assad regime in Syria has made policymakers in Washington and the region at large recognise its outsized weight and influence on regional affairs,” said Caroline Rose, director at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, in a TNA interview.
“And the threat to launch an offensive in Northeast Syria, too, has now set Washington and Ankara on a trajectory of continuous communication and diplomacy, as the US seeks out a ceasefire to prevent further clashes and SDF losses. I think that regional actors will, too, seek out engagement with Turkey in assessing the future of a transitional government in Damascus.”
Mindful of US domestic politics, Trump’s tendency to cater to the highest bidder, and the influence of DC lobbyists, one must consider how various special interest groups associated with the Middle East will operate in Washington next year.
As post-Assad Syria’s political transition plays out, it will be necessary to monitor how Turkey, Israel, and the Gulf states’ lobbies seek to influence both the White House and the Congress. As some experts note, if there is more of a Turkey-Israel clash, it is safe to assume that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other lobby organisations will seek to persuade the Trump administration to avoid cooperating with Ankara in relation to Syria.
“In 2025, a renewed and strengthened cooperation between Turkey and the US, particularly under Trump, on matters of mutual interest is possible. However, a Congress influenced by various lobbies, including the Israeli, Greek, Armenian, and Kurdish [ones], poses a challenge to establishing a healthy, win-win relationship between Turkey and the US,” Dr Ali Bakir, assistant professor at Qatar University and senior non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s “Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative” and Middle East Programs, told TNA.
Iran-Israel Hostilities
This past year the Iranian-Israeli ‘shadow war’ gave way to direct state-to-state confrontations, subjecting the Middle East to higher levels of unpredictability and danger. Looking to 2025, one of the most troublesome dynamics in the region will be the possibility of a further escalation of hostilities between Tehran and Tel Aviv.
“The prospect of a direct war between Israel and Iran has never been closer. With the Trump presidency around the corner, Israel may feel emboldened to cross long-standing red lines, including striking Iranian nuclear sites. Such an escalation would not only cripple any hope of a US-Iran nuclear deal but could also entangle Washington in Israel’s conflict with Tehran, setting the stage for a broader regional war that will ultimately be more difficult to stop,” Ali-Khan told TNA.
The chances are good that Trump’s second administration will advance a ‘maximum pressure 2.0’ campaign against the Islamic Republic even if that does not entail any direct US military intervention against Iran. Although doubtful that any Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member would partner with such an anti-Tehran pressure campaign this time around, Israel would enthusiastically back such an agenda.
A renewed US-led “maximum pressure” campaign would almost inevitably give Tel Aviv a higher level of confidence in its quest to continue dealing blows against the Iran-led ‘Axis of Resistance’ following Israel’s military operations in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria throughout 2023/24.
“With Israel viewing its campaigns in Lebanon and Syria as largely successful, it may now shift its sights to Iraq and Yemen, doubling down on the last arenas of the Axis of Resistance. This could mirror its strategy in Lebanon – precision airstrikes, targeted assassinations, and efforts to decapitate leadership structures,” Ali-Khan commented.
Erwin van Veen, a senior research fellow at Clingendael’s Conflict Research Unit, has a similar assessment. “Israel is currently kind of drunk on its military successes against Hezbollah, Iran, and Syria’s military infrastructure. It is not a secret it has long wished to take the conflict to Iran by attacking its nuclear facilities,” he told TNA.
“It may do so around or shortly after Trump’s inauguration as president to confront him with a fait accompli and sabotage Iranian overtures to negotiate another nuclear deal. Needless to say, Iran would respond, and a regional high-intensity conflict [would] likely erupt.”
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Gaza and the West Bank
In 2025, there could be extremely important developments in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) with major repercussions not only for the Palestinians themselves but also for Egypt, Jordan, and others in the region.
Roughly 15 months into Israel’s war on Gaza, which both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have concluded constitutes a genocide, it is unclear how the situation in the blockaded enclave will play out next year. Although Trump has signalled to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he’d like the war over by the time his second term begins on 20 January (or at least very soon after), there is no guarantee that a ceasefire will be implemented that soon.
A legitimate concern is that Trump’s second administration will support the Israeli government in an annexation of the West Bank and Gaza in which Palestinians in the West Bank are ethnically cleansed and forced into Jordan while those in Gaza are forcefully displaced to Egypt. Such a scenario could easily fuel significant turmoil in these two neighbouring countries, raising serious questions about their stability.
“An unconditional pro-Israel policy from former President Trump could backfire, exacerbating tensions and instability,” warned Dr Bakir, who also told TNA that a “sudden economic collapse in Egypt is always a potential scenario”.
Accelerated Israeli settlement growth in the West Bank, as per Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s ‘Decisive Plan’, which was published in 2017, will “trigger new rounds of violence with Palestinian resistance groups, likely cause social if not political upheaval in Jordan and further isolate Israel that will only enjoy the backing of the US and a few Western allies such as Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK in defence of its illegal occupation and mounting number of war crimes including a likely genocide,” explained van Veen.
“In turn, this will strengthen Chinese, Russian, and Iranian geopolitical narratives, (fatally) damage the laws of war, and put an end to any Western efforts to advance human rights, if this is not already the case, or fight terrorism,” he added.
Yemen
Ansar Allah, commonly known as the Houthis, remains a powerful force within the ‘Axis of Resistance’ that continues striking Israel directly and waging maritime attacks against vessels purportedly linked to Israel.
In light of the Syrian regime’s fall earlier this month, there is good reason to assume that Ansar Allah will become increasingly indispensable to the Islamic Republic while playing a more preeminent role among the coalition of regional actors operating within the Tehran-led ‘Axis of Resistance’.
In 2025, Israel will likely seek to intensify its military operations against the Houthis in order to deliver a blow to Ansar Allah similar to what Tel Aviv did to Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and various Iran-backed groups in Syria. Nonetheless, Israel’s confrontations with the Houthis in Yemen will continue to be a different experience than Tel Aviv’s fight with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
With Yemen being 44 times Lebanon’s size and geographically further away from Israel, the Houthis have several advantages. Moreover, Ansar Allah has gained significant support from Yemen’s population for its maritime attacks, which began in November 2023 under the banner of supporting the Palestinians in Gaza, and direct missile and drone strikes against Israel.
Looking ahead, the Houthis are set to remain closely allied with Iran in 2025, but Ansar Allah will seek to diversify its international relationships. The Houthis will do so by establishing stronger partnerships with Russia and actors in the Horn of Africa. Ansar Allah will continue engaging China and the group reaching out to North Korea is a possibility that one can’t dismiss.
Houthi-Russia engagement is set to make Ansar Allah an increasingly valuable bargaining chip to Moscow next year, with important implications for Yemen’s position in geopolitical tensions between President Vladimir Putin’s government and the West.
“The Red Sea is rapidly becoming a critical flashpoint in the global power struggle, evolving into a key battleground for influence. A face-off between the US and Israel – potentially backed by a few Gulf allies – and an opposing axis of the Houthis, Iran, and Russia appears increasingly likely,” Ali-Khan said in a TNA interview.
Analysts note that under such circumstances, it will be key to observe how Abu Dhabi responds. “The UAE may seek to capitalise on international anger with the Houthis, using the opportunity to attempt a military takeover of Hodeida, leveraging widespread opposition to the group. Conversely, the Houthis could consider initiating an offensive in Yemen,” added Ali-Khan.
“This intensifying rivalry in strategic choke points like the Red Sea reflects a broader trend of mounting volatility in a world increasingly shaped by geopolitical brinkmanship,” she told TNA.
Iran’s decisions in the year ahead
In 2025, the Middle East will be a dynamic part of the world. Policymakers and stakeholders will need to consider a host of disturbing and challenging scenarios that could lead to far more regional instability with major implications for the rest of the world. As conflict dynamics remain intense, it will be key to watch Iran’s moves.
Particularly important to focus on are questions about how Tehran faces Trump 2.0 and a renewed Washington-led “maximum pressure” campaign while trying to reconstitute the ‘Axis of Resistance’ in the aftermath of humiliating setbacks in the region. How the Iranians deal with Turkish and Israeli gains in Syria, where Iranian influence will likely be hardly anything compared to what it was in recent years, will require close monitoring.
Ultimately, 2025 could be a year in which the Islamic Republic makes bold and decisive moves based on the painful lessons that the leadership in Tehran learned over the past 12 months.
“Iranian strategy post-Assad is ripe for profound recalibration. Such a process can lead to very different outcomes and different styles of behaviour. Tehran could decide to dash for the bomb, re-negotiate with the US, seek to rebuild the Axis of Resistance or focus its energy more on its immediate neighbourhood such as the Caucasus, Afghanistan, and Turkey – closing the Israel chapter as best as it can. Since this variation is rather great and consequences differ, it is an important dynamic to watch,” holds van Veen.
Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics
Follow him on Twitter: @GiorgioCafiero
