Donald Trump will return to the White House on Monday for a second term as president of the United States. The Middle East is a different region from the one he witnessed during his first time. Bashar al-Assad has now fled Syria, Israel killed Hassan Nasrallah and forced Hezbollah to head north of the Litani River, and so much more.
Trump will find a Gaza that has been completely destroyed. Israel’s military machine and barbarity ran rampant in the enclave for a year and a half. He will find a leaderless Hamas after Israel killed its military head, Yehya al-Sinwar, and Ismail Hanieh in Tehran.
Iran will come under sharp focus under Trump, whether it comes to its nuclear file or remaining armed proxies in the region, in Iraq and Yemen. Trump will find an Iran without air defenses after Israel took them out during a strike last year.
Trump will return and find few parties ready to work, invest and accomplish anything. He will find the Gulf region, led by Saudi Arabia, ready to do that.
Syria, Lebanon and Gaza will need reconstruction and the region will need to go through a painful process to uproot the remaining armed proxies.
Trump will return as the region is presented with a serious opportunity to achieve real peace, which can only be possible with the establishment of a Palestinian state. He will be confronted with the Palestinian division and stubbornness of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who believes he achieved a victory that does not bind him to do anything now to pursue peace.
Trump was certainly not elected to rebuild the Middle East or dedicate himself to its issues, but post-war Gaza has imposed a new reality on the ground in the region that cannot be ignored or taken lightly. It is an opportunity of a lifetime.
The challenge of Iran’s nuclear file and the deadlines related to it will not allow Trump the luxury to choose between taking a decision or not. There can be no hesitation when it comes to a nuclear Iran.
The nuclear file also provides Netanyahu with an opportunity that he cannot pass up, especially after the Israeli strikes left Iran in a compromised position and after its allies were defeated in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza. Netanyahu will try to lure the United States into a confrontation with Iran.
Netanyahu has openly declared his intentions towards Iran. Trump has not, even though he has said that his administration will once again adopt a maximum pressure policy against Tehran. It will do so as soon as he is sworn in. This is the most dangerous period in any US presidency as demonstrated in the past 40 years.
Trump will return to the White House with the realization that he only has this one presidential term. He will not bother himself in three years to prepare to run for another. All he wants to do is make achievements inside the US that will go down in the history books.
Perhaps he may not care about the Middle East. This too is dangerous. But he will certainly attempt to portray himself as a president who changed the region, whether it comes to Iran or the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, because Trump always seeks to boast about his achievements.
Herein lies the opportunity - as well as the risk - to deal with Trump. There’s no need to describe the nature of this unpredictable man. The next four years will be equally as unpredictable, but we must work on seizing the potentially once in a lifetime opportunities in the region and this is where wise leaders come in.
