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Your guide to what the 2024 US elections mean for Washington and the world
If Iran is an easy target and Joe Biden is an outgoing duck, what is Donald Trump? Some might say a bird of prey; others a vulture. A minority thinks it is a dove. In reality, few people, probably including Trump, have any idea what he will do in the Middle East or beyond. The world is used to an America that conforms to a template, even if it translates its own rules when they are inconvenient. With Trump that clarity fades. Do you consider the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria good news, bad news or a matter of indifference? It’s hard to say.
What is clear is that Assad’s collapse is a bad time for the four-member “axis of agitation.” Two of them – Russia and Iran – have lost their most important friend in the Middle East, whom they could do nothing to save. Its four core members, including China and North Korea, have been reminded that even the most brutal regimes can suddenly dissolve. The same happens with the axis choristers in Cuba and Venezuela. In terms of raw geopolitics, the past week has been good for the United States. But it says little about what is to come.
Rarely has Iran been more exposed. Having destroyed most of the regime’s air defenses and missile production facilities, Israel’s window of temptation to strike with greater devastation is increasing. Iran has also lost most of its proxy shields. Hezbollah has been severely weakened; Hamas is a shadow of itself; and Syria is now hostile territory. Additionally, Benjamin Netanyahu’s stock line that Biden has been holding him back will soon end. The question is which path Trump will take.
Chaos is a playground in which Trump thrives. It is also his preferred management style. Trying to guess Trump’s wishes through his appointments is futile. On the one hand there is Marco Rubio, as Secretary of State, and Mike Waltz as national security advisor. Both are conventional hardline Republicans, long-time critics of Assad, Iran, Russia and China. On the other are figures like Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick as director of national intelligence, who for years has expressed admiration for Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Incoming Vice President JD Vance’s worldview is closer to Gabbard’s. advance has praised Assad as a protector of Christians.
The radically divergent foreign policy instincts of Trump’s picks suggest one thing: He likes to play his subordinates off against each other. It’s impossible to know which of those two worldviews will gain predominance, or whether Trump’s actions will be driven by ulterior business motives. Even Israel should be confused. Trump 2.0 could be the most militantly pro-Israel administration in American history. It will also include domestic hardliners close to the anti-Semitic far right in the United States.
The options facing Iran are not enviable. Toward the end of his first term, Trump ordered the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s most powerful military figure, in a drone strike. This was the first time since World War II that the United States openly assassinated a foreign official. However, months followed during which Trump refused to respond to Iranian attacks on American warships and on friends, including Saudi oil facilities. Both Trump’s action and inaction came as a surprise.
The effects of Trump’s policy of maximum pressure on Iran and his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal were to lead Tehran to aggressively step up its nuclear program. Failed. But in chaos there are also opportunities. Today’s Iran is no longer a regional superpower. Its new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, was elected on a promise to restore prosperity, which will not be possible without an easing of US sanctions. Pezeshkian has sounded out Trump.
Last month, Elon Musk, the mega-billionaire at the heart of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago court, met in New York with Iran’s ambassador to the UN. It is not known what they talked about. Even if it was unauthorized, the precedent of Musk’s independent work is strange. The message emanating from Trump’s Palm Beach beauty pageant is that anything, from war to peace, is possible. Trump’s foreign policy will be a golden age for middlemen. His circus of the sun lands in Washington next month.
Will there be a pattern to this? Trump returns at a time when it is no longer possible to talk about a global order. He is both the harbinger of the death of the old and its accelerator. The risks of war and a new era of nuclear proliferation are increasing. However, the outgoing Biden administration has been deprived of answers. Trump could choose to midwife the new. But chaos seems more likely.