A new Middle East: How to make Trump's vision for the region into reality - analysis

Trump also thanked the nations of the Arab and Muslim world for their role in bringing peace.

This means that countries in the region know that they will have several more years of continuity in the White House. This matters because the countries have been seeing US presidents come and go over the past decades and they have become wary of the shifting policies coming out of Washington.

The Middle East is in a unique position today. Most of the terrorist groups that once threatened to tear apart the fabric of this region are weakened or defeated. For instance, al-Qaeda, which cast a shadow over the Middle East, no longer exists in the way it once did. ISIS is mostly defeated, except for a few squads it has in the desert of Iraq and Syria. The defeat of extremist groups means that countries can focus on rebuilding themselves and can also focus on trade.

The Gulf states have close ties with the Trump administration. This is especially true of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain.

The UAE and Bahrain are partners in the Abraham Accords, which were strained over the last several years. Hamas carried out its attack on Oct. 7 in part to try to derail Israeli normalization with Saudi Arabia. In essence, Hamas wanted to prevent more peace deals. Hamas was backed by Iran and its proxies in doing this. What that means is that Iran and groups in Lebanon, Yemen, and other places were seeking to sabotage the Gulf.

Iran had already backed the Houthis in Yemen over the past decade. This threatened Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and they intervened in Yemen in 2015. However, Iran was able to get Saudi Arabia to end most of that intervention. This set the Houthis on a path where they could build up their drone and rocket threats to the extent they even threatened Israel.

It’s worth considering these pieces of the Middle East puzzle. On one side you have the states backing stability and also integration of the region. These states are led by the Gulf countries. They want to bring the region into various economic blocs.

What that means is that some of these countries have sought to join BRICS, which is an economic bloc led by Russia, China, Brazil, India, and South Africa. Some of them have also taken an interest in the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization. This means that the Gulf states are looking all around the world for their future partnerships. Their concern over the US commitment to the region led them to hedge by considering working with China, Russia, and others.

However, the Gulf interest in economic partnerships isn’t just about hedging in case the US role in the region declines. The Gulf states also want to work with Western friends and allies. The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor is an economic and trade concept that links India to Europe. India is also a member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which means it partners with Australia, Japan, and the United States. This means that by linking up with India, the Gulf states are also linking up with key Western allies.

The Gulf states have not always been on the same page regarding policy. For instance, during Trump’s first term, there was a crisis in the Gulf beginning in 2017. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain cut off ties with Qatar. Qatar was blamed for backing the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups. In those days Turkey and Qatar were closely linked and seen as potentially backing extremists in the region.

The year 2017 was a different time. Syria was in a civil war, but Russian and Iranian intervention there had turned the tide in favor of Assad. In Libya, there was also civil war, and the Houthis in Yemen were targeting Riyadh with ballistic missiles. Iran, too, would target Saudi Arabia, in an attack on its Abqaiq facility.

Therefore, if one goes back to the era of 2017-2020, during Trump’s first presidency, the region was in a different place. Turkey, for instance, was seeking to broaden its role in the Eastern Mediterranean. It signed a deal with Libya and sought to threaten Greece and Cyprus. It also sought to stop the Abraham Accords by threatening to cut ties with the UAE if the UAE normalized with Israel. As such, the Abraham Accords came about in a time of division in the Gulf. That all tended to change around 2019-2020.

The region that we see today in the Gulf and in terms of more potential ties with Israel is a very different region. Hamas may have launched the Oct. 7 war to prevent Israeli-Saudi ties, but it did so only because of the context of a divided region. The divisions were not just in the Gulf but also between the Iranian axis countries.

However, the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein then plunged his country into war with the US by invading Kuwait. The war with the US and a coalition of local and international countries weakened Iraq. The US then invaded Iraq in 2003 and deposed Saddam Hussein.

This led to an era of instability and uncertainty in the region. Iran exploited a weak Iraq and funded various Shi’ite groups there. When ISIS invaded Iraq in 2014, the country almost collapsed. Iran helped defend Baghdad by working with Shi’ite militias. These militias had been called up by a fatwa issued by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, an Iraqi cleric. By 2017, when ISIS was largely defeated in Iraq, the Shi’ite militias had become a key part of Iran’s axis. Across the border in Syria, Iran also exploited the civil war and weak Syrian state to transfer arms to Hezbollah.

When Hamas launched its Oct. 7 war, it was joined soon after by Hezbollah and then by the Houthis and Iraqi militias. Iranian technology, such as the Shahed-type drones, helped these states in their attacks. Iranian ballistic missile technology enabled the Houthis to launch long-range missiles at Israel. Israel was able to defend itself only because it had invested in missile interceptors with the US since the 1980s. As such, Israel was well placed to stop the attacks, but it came at a price. The Houthi involvement led to attacks on ships in the Red Sea. This made the war a regional war.

The Iranian axis was very powerful in 2023, but throughout the war it was weakened. Hezbollah was defeated by Israel by November 2024. Iran sought to attack Israel directly in two rounds of massive ballistic missile attacks in 2024. However, Iran was then weakened in a 12-day war in 2025.

While the Iranian axis is not defeated, it is badly damaged and doesn’t control as much of the region as it did in the past. A major reason for this is the change in power in Syria. On December 8 the Assad regime fell from power.

Thus, many regimes that had emerged in the 20th century during the Cold War were now gone. Saddam’s regime, like the Ba’athist regime in Syria, was a relic of the Cold War era. It was an Arab nationalist regime rooted in socialist ideas of the mid-20th century.

THE FALL of the Assad regime has unlocked Syria. It means Syria is no longer hijacked by Iran and Russia. Today, Syria is run by a transitional government led by Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Sharaa is interesting because he was a product of the chaos that emerged in the past decades. He was radicalized by the US invasion of Iraq, and he traveled there to back the insurgency. He was imprisoned in Iraq and then returned to Syria to fight the Assad regime. He led a group linked to al-Qaeda, but then rebranded it into Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, a Syrian rebel group.

With Syria moving toward stability, it means one of the key Middle Eastern countries is now moving in a new direction. Syrian stability will help Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq.

It’s worth recalling that Syria once controlled Lebanon – from 1976 to 2005. In addition, it’s worth recalling that after World War I the Arab Revolt leaders sought to put one of the sons of Sharif Hussein on a throne in Damascus. That effort failed, and instead Faisal, the one who had tried to take Damascus, ended up running Iraq. Abdullah, one of the other sons, became the first king of Jordan. He was killed by a Palestinian in 1951 during a visit to Jerusalem.

On October 13 a descendant of Abdullah, the current King Abdullah II, went to Egypt for a summit with Trump. Trump is using that summit to push for peace in the region and also push for trade and investment. This is a symbol of how the region has changed.

There are a lot of opportunities now. For instance, Egypt and Turkey now get along, which brings hope for Libya. In addition, Turkey recently hosted the leader of the Kurdistan region of Iraq. That is good for Turkey and Iraq. Oil is now flowing from the Kurdistan region. The Kurdistan region, which is autonomous, also helped make Syria more stable.

Turkey’s close ties with the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq and also with Baghdad and Syria mean that Turkey has now moved into the place of influence that Iran once had.