A little more than one week into US President Donald Trump’s second term, much about how this new administration will conduct foreign policy has yet to be fully understood.
As an unpredictable and highly transactional leader, there is a lot of uncertainty concerning Trump 2.0’s agenda on the international stage.
In terms of US foreign policy in the Middle East, this administration appears to be deeply divided. There are, as of now, two main sides and which one will make the arguments that Trump finds most persuasive is currently unclear.
On one side are the traditional Republican hawks and neo-conservatives. These voices tend to advocate for less diplomacy and a more militarised US foreign policy approach to the Middle East. Preserving US primacy and hegemony at all costs is their agenda.
On the other side are “restrainers” and “realists”. Although they should not be mistaken for pacifists or doves, these voices favour more diplomacy with America’s adversaries and believe that the bar for using military force in the Middle East should be high. Unlike the neo-conservatives, these figures recognise that the US and Israel’s national interests do not always align.
In his first administration, Trump selected many hawks. These individuals included Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Adviser John Bolton, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, and special envoy on Iran Brian Hook.
Obsessed with putting pressure on Iran and Syria while giving Israel unconditional support, these figures heavily influenced Trump 1.0 in the Middle East, particularly when it came to dealing with Tehran.
There are some signs that neo-conservatives will have far less influence in Trump’s second administration. After winning last year’s election, Trump announced on social media that Pompeo and Haley would not serve in his second administration. He reportedly brought Hook on board to lead the transition to the new State Department, only to fire him on social media early on the morning of 21 January.
Within a few days of returning to the White House, Trump controversially ordered an end to Pompeo, Bolton, and Hook’s security protection, which they received following assassination threats from Iran. When asked about revoking Bolton’s security protection, Trump replied, “We are not going to have security on people for the rest of their lives”.
He went on to call Bolton a “warmonger” who is “dumb” and blamed him for the disastrous US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
What all these moves indicate might be difficult to fully comprehend so early on in Trump’s second term. However, experts believe there might be some reason to expect Trump to conduct a less hawkish foreign policy in the Middle East this time around.
Trump’s early ‘win’ on Gaza
During the days leading up to Trump’s inauguration, officials on his team put pressure on Israel to agree to the Gaza ceasefire which went into effect on 19 January. The Biden administration never used US leverage to effectively apply pressure on Israel during the 15 months of warfare in Gaza.
Although it is unclear how much longer the Trump administration will keep such pressure on Israel to abide by the ceasefire, the deal going into effect created the optics of Trump being a leader who can end conflicts.
Steve Witkoff, a New York real estate developer and investor who is close to Trump, played a key role in securing the deal. Now, as the Trump team works to finalise details for the fragile ceasefire’s second phase, Witkoff is talking about visiting Gaza on his upcoming trip to Israel in his capacity as Trump’s Middle East envoy.
“While many of Trump’s announced appointees are hardline Israel supporters, Trump himself doesn’t seem to care about treating Israel with kid gloves. He wanted a deal. Biden never wanted one enough,” wrote Dr Shadi Hamid in the Washington Post four days before Biden’s term ended.
“Who would have thought? When you put pressure on allies dependent on America for billions of dollars of military aid for their survival, you actually get results.”
The angry reaction from far-right figures in Israel’s government, who see this ceasefire deal as Tel Aviv capitulating to Hamas, highlights how unconditional US support during Trump’s second term is something Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government should not take for granted.
Although denied by Trump, there has been talk of him assigning Witkoff responsibility for heading Washington’s Iran policy. Reassuring to advocates of diplomacy, Witkoff has stressed Trump’s desire to secure a deal with Tehran.
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“The president will not allow a bomb to be gotten by the Iranians. Not going to happen. We’re not going to that place… hopefully, we can solve it diplomatically,” he told Fox News earlier this month.
“It seems clear based on media reports that Witkoff personally played a decisive role in the negotiations that led to the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel,” Dr Thomas Juneau, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, told The New Arab.
“He showed himself to be a skilled negotiator and, crucially, to have the ear of President Trump. As long as he does, he will play an influential role, notably on Iran.”
Hawks versus ‘restrainers’
Dr Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, spoke to TNA about the divisions within the second Trump administration.
“There is an intense struggle taking place within the transition in which a minority of those around Trump – the neocon hawks – have gotten a leg up on numerous appointments within the State and [National Security Council (NSC)]. But at the Pentagon, realists and restrainers have scored quite well. This is not over, though, so we do not know the final tally,” he told TNA.
“Also, if the previous Trump term is a guide, there will likely be a lot of resignations and replacements within the first 12 months. But clearly, the neocons do not have the same control over the bureaucracy compared to what they enjoyed in Trump’s first term,” added Dr Parsi.
On day one of Trump’s second term, former CIA analyst Michael DiMino was sworn in as US Deputy Assistant for Secretary of Defence for the Middle East. DiMino has called for pulling US troops out of Iraq and Syria, putting “pressure” on Israel during the Gaza war, and engaging Iran and Yemen’s Houthi rebel movement diplomatically.
Scores of neo-conservative hawks and pro-Israel voices in the US have been furious about DiMino serving this role at the Pentagon. Yet, understandably so, his appointment has given many restrainers a sense of optimism about the second Trump administration’s foreign policy.
But as Gordon Gray, the former US ambassador to Tunisia, noted in a TNA interview, “While DiMino’s recommendations will be heard, his primary responsibility is overseeing the implementation of US Middle Eastern policy, not actually deciding it”.
Dr Juneau made a similar point. Cautioning against excessively focusing on the backgrounds and ideologies of individuals in the Trump administration, he noted that “they are only one piece in a much broader machine” and that “DiMino’s voice will be a moderately important one in the system, but it will be only one among many”.
Loyalty to Trump
In general, Trump will probably prioritise loyalty above practically anything else mindful of his first-term experience with former generals such as James Mattis and H.R. McMaster, who frequently clashed with the president on major foreign policy issues from Syria to Afghanistan and North Korea.
Although these veterans left a fair number of Trump’s critics with some sense of reassurance based on the assumption that they would limit some of the more excessive aspects of the Trump presidency, Trump felt that these seasoned veterans betrayed and undermined him during his first term. This time around, Trump wants a team of loyalists.
Described as “ceaselessly loyal to Trump”, Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth perhaps illustrates this reality better than anyone else in the new administration.
“Although the US has very strong state institutions, the US president has surrounded himself with ‘yes’ men and women who will likely concede to his directives, rather than challenge his policy suggestions,” explained Dr Neil Quilliam, an associate fellow in the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, in a TNA interview.
Marco Rubio, a more traditional Republican, is now the US Secretary of State. As Washington’s top diplomat, Rubio may disagree with Trump on certain issues such as the US military presence in northeastern Syria. But experts agree that Rubio, like everyone else in the Trump team who does not want to be fired, is set to serve Trump loyally.
“I think Rubio has gotten the memo – he will implement Trump’s foreign policy, including on Iran, or his tenure will be short and humiliating,” noted Dr Parsi.
“Trump appears to have learned the lesson from his previous term, in which Pompeo, Bolton, and others systematically undermined Trump’s policies. He will likely have zero tolerance for such conduct. Rubio appears to have fallen in line,” he added.
Dr Juneau shares this assessment about Rubio and how he will function as the new Secretary of State. “Rubio has also shown that he will loyally implement Trump’s decisions, whether they align with his own preferences or not. That is, arguably, the main reason why he is in that position,” he told TNA.
A ‘gift’ to Trump’s pro-Israel backers
Elise Stefanik, whom Trump nominated to serve as US ambassador to the United Nations, will be one of the hawkish figures in this new administration.
Having accused the UN of “anti-Semitic rot” while expressing her view that Israel has a “biblical right” to control all of the occupied West Bank, Stefanik – like Hegseth and Trump’s pick for US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee – is a pro-Israel fanatic. Like Rubio, she was on record opposing Trump’s push for pulling the US military out of Syria during his first term.
But Dr Parsi cautions against reading too much into his pick of Stefanik for this role. “I don’t think Trump cares particularly about the United Nations, and it appears that this was an easy gift to some of the pro-Israel elements that supported his campaign. It is worthy that he appointed her before he appointed the Secretary of State,” he told TNA.
“This was an early concession to those elements, and I suspect Trump views it as rather cost-free since he does not care much about what happens at the UN,” added Dr Parsi.
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Gray similarly notes that Stefanik’s views will not be driving US foreign policy. “Elise Stefanik will be a reliable advocate for Israel, just as Ambassador-designate to Israel Mike Huckabee will be. At the end of the day, however, the White House will direct US policy toward the Middle East, not US envoys to the United Nations or Israel,” the former US ambassador told TNA.
The big picture
With Trump’s second term having just started, it is too early to fully understand how US foreign policy will change with him at the helm. Yet, some of Trump’s recent hiring, firing, and rhetoric suggest that a second round of “maximum pressure” on Iran might not be in the cards. As he said on Fox News on 23 January, Trump’s “only” insistence vis-à-vis Iran is that the country “can’t have a nuclear weapon”.
Put simply, Trump’s message is that he hopes for a diplomatic (not a military) solution to Washington’s problems with the Islamic Republic. If his approach to Iran would move in this direction, it would certainly signal a major loss for the neo-conservatives in Washington and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who have bet much on a second Trump term.
“President Trump’s primary concern is to avoid further US military entanglement in the region, consistent with public opinion polling and his campaign pledge to stop wars, not start them. With Israel-Iran tensions growing, both Trump and Iran are signalling interest in a new nuclear deal,” explained Ferial Saeed, a non-resident senior fellow at the Stimson Center and a former senior American diplomat, in a TNA interview.
“Arab states also want to avoid war and further instability in the region and would welcome a deal preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Prime Minister Netanyahu, however, wants a military solution. Trump is likely to be less receptive to his views. He told a reporter after his first term that Netanyahu tried to use him to ‘fight Iran to the last American soldier’. With a stronger political position domestically, Trump can push back on Netanyahu’s preferences, making the possibility of talks with Iran more plausible,” she added.
With a strong mandate from the American people, Trump is in a unique position to approach the Middle East with policies that are in line with the restrainer vision for US foreign policy. But with Trump being so unpredictable, it is simply not possible to know if this is how he will proceed during these upcoming four years.
“Trump went further than any president in recent memory in terms of embracing peace. He said that his most important legacy will be to be a peacemaker. Obama rallied against ‘dumb wars’ and wanted to restore diplomacy. But there wasn’t any embrace of peace per se,” commented Dr Parsi.
“Whether Trump truly pursues this or not remains to be seen, but he has put down a marker that he can be measured against. I think there are reasons to believe that he is sincere and that he may pursue a larger arrangement for the Middle East. This could be positive. But if it is simply a larger version of the Abraham Accords, then I fear Trump’s efforts will be for naught,” he told TNA.
Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics
Follow him on Twitter: @GiorgioCafiero
