Biden or Trump, US wants a lesser Middle East role

Prior to the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan posited that the Middle East had been “quieter than it has been for decades.”

This is obviously no longer the case. On the contrary, the heart-wrenching state of the region has inflamed tensions and inspired generation-defining protests across the world.

This unrest has led many to wonder if the Biden administration’s Middle East policies will ultimately undermine the president’s re-election campaign against former president Donald Trump in November.

It ultimately may. But even if the occupant of the White House changes, US policy toward the region largely will not. This is because Biden and Trump will both do everything possible to attain what Sullivan had hoped for: an ultimately quieter Middle East.

Bipartisan support for coalition-building

No single US initiative will be more crucial to securing a quieter Middle East than the boosting of ties between regional partners. The groundwork has already been laid through the Abraham Accords, the Arab-Israeli normalization agreements initiated by the Trump administration and embraced by the Biden administration.

The fruits of such efforts became apparent when a diverse coalition – featuring the US, France, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel — worked together to down 300 Iranian projectiles launched at Israel on April 13. It was the first direct attack by Tehran against Israel in their decades-long shadow war.

The coalition’s joint response marked dramatic progress towards a long-term and bipartisan US goal for the Middle East: a level of regional cooperation and stabilization that will finally allow for a decreased US footprint.

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