Second Trump term: Fostering a path towards peace in Middle East?

King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa with then-President Donald Trump at their first meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

By Habib Toumi

MANAMA: Donald Trump’s return to the White House puts an end to the Biden parenthesis and presents, according to many people in the Gulf and the Middle East, better prospects to help end ongoing wars, ominous instability and deep tensions.

Much of the anticipation is based on pre-election pledges when Trump presented himself as the man to bring peace to the scarred Middle East.

In 1941, and as he set out for the Middle East, French General Charles de Gaulle, later the president of France (1959-1969), declared that “towards the complicated Orient, I flew with simple ideas”.

More than 80 years later, the Middle East is much more complicated and its intricacies have ominously metamorphosed it into a hotspot of volatility, widespread instability and alarming uncertainty involving regional and global powers.

The explosive combination of ideologies and ambitions have dangerously compounded the situation, sowing seeds of division and creating excoriating tensions. Today, in addition to the states involved, multiple militias or non-state actors have evolved into instrumental players used to influence or re-shape situations.

Today, amid this growing miasma, people in the Middle East are hoping that Trump’s return to the White House will harness the suffocating cycles of negativity to birth a positive situation, especially that he is likely to make Ukraine a purely European issue and concentrate on the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific.

Relations will be much easier with the six Gulf Cooperation Council, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Their leaders, in their cables of congratulations, expressed readiness to work together for peace in the region and for cooperation.

The view that Trump will advance peace in the region is expressed more openly by GCC citizens.

In a letter published in a UAE daily, Turki Al Faisal, the 1979-2001 head of Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence urged Trump to continue his efforts for peace in the Middle East.

“I believe God spared your life not only to deal with the situation inside the United States, which faces enormous challenges for you to overcome, but, because America is what it is, to work with your friends in Saudi Arabia and other friends you have in the area, to pursue what you started before: to bring PEACE, with capital letters, to the Middle East,” Prince Turki wrote.

“Before your first stay at the White House and until your return to it, America and other countries talked the talk about ending the bloodshed in the Middle East but they never walked the walk.

“Your personal commitment to peace and your steadfast friends in our part of the world will work with you to accomplish that… to open the doors to peace for all of us.”

Al Faisal highlighted that the region is now in more turmoil than when Trump was in the West Wing.

“When you left in January 2021, there was no war in Gaza, Iran and Israel were not firing missiles at each other, the Houthis were not interdicting shipping in Bab Al Mandab, there was no civil war in Sudan.”

In Bahrain, Trump’s victory was warmly greeted, and King Hamad said in his congratulations he looked forward “to strengthening cooperation and developing mutual benefits for both nations.”

Relations between King Hamad and Trump during the first term were particularly cordial. The two leaders met in May 2017 during Trump’s first trip abroad to Riyadh.

“Our countries have a wonderful relationship together, but there has been a little strain, but there won’t be strain with this administration,” Trump said, referring to the Obama administration.

“We’re going to have a very, very long-term relationship. I look forward to it very much – many of the same things (in) common.”

Trump in January 2021 bestowed the presidential honor ‘Legion of Merit’ with the rank of Chief Commander upon Bahrain’s monarch.

Bahrain, designated a Major Non-NATO Ally in 2002, plays a key role in the region’s security architecture. It hosts the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet and U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, and participates in U.S.-led military coalitions, including the Global Coalition to Defeat Daesh and the International Maritime Security Construct to promote freedom of navigation in the region.
For local businesspeople, trade policies promoted by Trump could provide opportunities to expand trade between Bahrain and the U.S., especially in non-oil sectors.

The U.S-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement (FTA) entered into force in 2006 and has created additional commercial opportunities for both countries.

Relations with the broader Middle East will not be so easy as with the GCC, especially if key members in the new administration hawkishly hold non-compromising approaches towards a region that, at its core, is an unusual maze of political games and a labyrinth of deceptions.

In his first term, Donald Trump had a complex, multi-layered and, at times, ambiguous relations with the Middle East. His goals in the second term are reportedly ending the war in Gaza, getting a normalization agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel, and trying again to make peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

He is also expected to hold on to his policies of prioritizing economic power over diplomatic and military presence and not fully confront Israel’s internal political constraints deepened by the far-right elements in the Israeli coalition who stubbornly refuse deals and compromises and have no credible post-war plan.

However, for Trump, ending the war in Gaza is a sine qua non condition for moving toward a regional peace process.

Regarding Iran, Trump has repeatedly emphasized that Tehran will not be allowed to possess nuclear weapons. In 2018, he withdrew from the Iranian nuclear agreement.

He might seek to isolate Iran diplomatically and weaken it economically to counter its influence, and limit its power and options.

Trump is likely to focus on building a close relationship of interests with Iraq by reviving previous agreements between the two countries.

However, the US is likely to resort to economic sanctions if Baghdad does not curb the activity of the Iraqi factions and militias loyal to foreign countries.