This is a pivotal moment for the Middle East. The boundaries of power and diplomacy are being redrawn through a mix of explicit military threats and hard-nosed negotiation. As attention turns to the anticipated meeting between US envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian officials in Istanbul, strategic maneuvers by American fleets continue in the region’s waters. These two tracks are not contradictory visions; rather, they represent the logic of grand deals put into practice. US President Donald Trump seeks to address this historic conflict through an institutionalized agreement geared toward tangible, material outcomes that go beyond containment as it is typically conceived.
“Midnight Hammer” is a key analytical concept at the center of this approach and the shift in US military doctrine. Washington’s attack on Iranian nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan in June 2025 established a precedent for using hard power as a direct negotiating tool. Since then, military force has ceased to be merely theoretical and has become a highly credible option. The mindset of the current US administration suggests that broader military action is likely if the Istanbul talks fail. Indeed, Trump believes that the success of any deal hinges on the constant presence of the threat of force hovering over the negotiating table, compelling the adversary to offer major concessions on its regional project.
The use of force does not imply a prolonged war of attrition; rather, it functions as a surgical tool to impose changes in political behavior in exchange for guarantees of economic survival. This quid pro quo reflects Trump’s preference for addressing the roots of crises instead of merely containing them—an approach that redraws the map of alliances based on current power balances rather than rigid traditional alignments.
In this sense, we are witnessing an attempt to institutionalize deterrence, whereby military threat becomes part of the administrative machinery of American diplomacy. The question remains, however, whether these calculations and contractual arrangements can withstand the complexities of identity and history, which have long reshaped the Middle East in ways that defy the expectations of great powers. Even as the region enters a phase of hyper-realism, its social imaginary retains the capacity to generate unforeseen trajectories when political and national rights are reduced to little more than dry clauses in administrative agreements.
