Strategic Argument and Areas of Debate
The prospective return of a second Trump administration threatens to exacerbate regional instability by pursuing an aggressively pro-Israel and anti-Iran maximum pressure doctrine that systematically marginalises Palestinian statehood and prioritises transactional bilateral agreements. This strategy risks entrenching protracted conflicts by prioritising unilateral dominance over sustainable multilateral peace frameworks across the Middle East.
Executive Summary
A renewed Donald Trump administration is anticipated to radically reorient United States foreign policy in the Middle East by intensifying its maximum pressure campaign against Iran and providing unconditional diplomatic and military support to Israel. Relying on the strategic blueprints of the Project 2025 framework, the administration aims to expand the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia, marginalising the Palestinian pursuit of a two-state solution. Consequently, key appointees such as Marco Rubio and Mike Huckabee are expected to dismantle international humanitarian mechanisms like UNRWA and bypass United Nations resolutions, fostering an environment that encourages Israeli territorial expansionism and regional instability.
Analytical Framework and Key Drivers
Maximum Pressure Doctrine Reinstatement: The anticipated U.S. administration aims to drastically intensify economic and military coercion against Iran, deliberately abandoning the diplomatic frameworks established by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). This strategy focuses on crippling Iranian oil exports to China whilst implicitly supporting Israeli decapitation strikes against IRGC and Hezbollah leadership.
Unconditional Military and Diplomatic Endorsement: Guided by ideological alignments and frameworks like Project 2025, the new administration seeks to provide Israel with unwavering geopolitical cover at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). This posture deliberately dismisses the viability of a two-state solution whilst defending Israeli settlement expansion and military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon.
Transactional Regional Normalisation Expansion: The administration intends to expand the Abraham Accords by structurally integrating Saudi Arabia into an overarching anti-Iran security architecture. However, this relies on navigating complex Saudi demands for a formalised U.S. defence pact and a civilian nuclear programme independent of the Comprehensive Security Integration and Prosperity Agreement (C-SIPA).
Personalist Foreign Policy Institutionalisation: Trump’s second term promises a highly individualised policy approach driven by hawkish appointees who actively oppose the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and international humanitarian institutions like UNRWA. These selections indicate a systemic rejection of conventional diplomatic norms in favour of aggressive, unilateral interventionism under an “America First” banner.
Strategic Assessment & Empirical Findings
- The initial Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) withdrawal failed to contain Iranian nuclear ambitions, with uranium enrichment surging from the mandated 3.67% to 60%, placing it precariously close to weapons-grade levels.
- Despite early economic shocks that inflicted an estimated $200 billion in losses on Iran, the nation successfully pivoted towards China, exporting approximately $70 billion in oil during 2023 by utilising clandestine shipping networks.
- The Trump administration’s initial “maximum pressure” sanctions drastically reduced Iranian oil production from 2.9 million barrels to 775,000 barrels, a punitive benchmark the prospective administration will likely attempt to replicate.
- U.S. military backing for Israel reached an unprecedented $22.7 billion between October 7, 2023, and September 30, 2024, a financial and strategic commitment expected to increase under renewed Republican leadership.
- The prospective normalisation drive faces profound structural hurdles as Saudi Arabia leverages its Vision 2030 objectives to demand robust U.S. security guarantees that transcend shifting political administrations.
Geopolitical Trajectories & Policy Risks
- The marginalisation of Palestinian self-determination under the expanded Abraham Accords represents a critical strategic vulnerability that threatens to fuel perpetual cycles of retaliatory violence by disenfranchised populations across the Levant. By enabling Israeli annexation ambitions without a two-state resolution, the United States risks cementing long-term regional disequilibrium and conflict.
- Saudi Arabia’s dependency on a durable U.S. security umbrella constitutes a major policy constraint, as Washington must carefully balance Riyadh’s demands against the escalating threats posed by Iran and its Houthi proxies in the Red Sea. Failure to address these complex proxy vulnerabilities could derail broader normalisation efforts and prompt Saudi Arabia to deepen its economic entanglements with China.
- The systematic defunding of international humanitarian infrastructure, specifically targeting UNRWA, poses a severe institutional risk to civilian populations enduring the catastrophic fallout of conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon. This aggressive dismantling of United Nations mechanisms undermines global humanitarian frameworks and exacerbates the destabilising impacts of structural poverty and displacement.
Critical Policy Questions & Responses
Question 1 How does the proposed expansion of the Abraham Accords strategically compromise the Palestinian pursuit of a two-state solution?
Answer: By pursuing bilateral normalisation agreements between Israel and prominent Arab states like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, the Trump administration systematically isolates Palestinian diplomatic leverage. This approach grants Israel effective impunity to expand settlements and conduct unrestricted military operations in Gaza and Lebanon, ultimately neutralising any substantive international pressure for Palestinian statehood.
Question 2 What strategic trade-offs does the United States face when attempting to enforce a renewed maximum pressure doctrine against Iran?
Answer: Reinstating aggressive economic sanctions and targeting Iranian oil infrastructure inevitably accelerates Tehran’s geopolitical and economic integration with China, which absorbed roughly $70 billion in Iranian oil in 2023. Furthermore, this punitive posture forces the United States to balance its desire to cripple the IRGC and Hezbollah against the heightened risk of sparking a direct, uncontrollable regional conflict.
Question 3 Why has the previous U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) structurally failed to constrain Iranian nuclear proliferation?
Answer: The unilateral abandonment of the JCPOA removed essential regulatory constraints, allowing Iran to escalate its uranium enrichment from the civilian threshold of 3.67% up to a highly critical 60%. Instead of coercing Iran into submission, the removal of the agreement’s framework incentivised accelerated nuclear development and the fortification of its regional proxy networks across the Middle East.
Question 4 What dependencies complicate Saudi Arabia’s potential integration into a United States-brokered normalisation agreement with Israel?
Answer: Saudi Arabia’s willingness to normalise relations is strictly contingent upon securing a binding U.S. defence pact and approval for a civilian nuclear programme that aligns with its Vision 2030 ambitions. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman requires these robust security guarantees to mitigate persistent threats from Iranian proxies, demanding a bilateral framework that surpasses the secondary status afforded to other nations within the Abraham Accords.
Key Actors and Systemic Dynamics
- Donald Trump Administration → Accelerates → Abraham Accords
- United States → Constrains → Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)
- Project 2025 → Shapes → United States Foreign Policy
- Israel → Undermines → Two-State Solution
- Iran → Depends on → China
- Saudi Arabia → Demands security guarantees from → United States
- Marco Rubio → Challenges → Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement
- IRGC → Supports → Hezbollah
- United States → Weakens → UNRWA
- Houthis → Disrupts → Red Sea Global Trade
