President-elect Donald Trump’s big win on 5 November raises countless questions about what his return to the White House means for the future of Washington’s Middle East foreign policy. How Trump 2.0 might approach the region differently than Trump 1.0 is unclear.
Although difficult to predict Trump’s moves, there is likely good reason to assume that his foreign policy team will stand for iron-clad US support for Israel, strong relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, and “maximum pressure” on Iran.
Once Trump becomes Commander-in-Chief again, he will be responsible for making tough decisions concerning the future of America’s military presence in Syria and Iraq.
Many experts believe that Trump 2.0 will be somewhat reluctant to keep American troops deployed in conflict-ridden parts of the Middle East. In general, there is an overall policy of moving towards decreasing the US military footprint in war zones across the region while favouring a large presence of American troops in the GCC states.
“I think most of the focus of Trump moving forward will be to bolster commitments in the Gulf, which are defensive in nature and don’t really draw the US into escalation and confrontation, and are also paid for by the Gulf countries. I think that’s something Trump is very much in favour of – low risk, and obviously low cost as well,” explained Dr Andreas Krieg, an associate professor at the Defence Studies Department of King’s College London, in an interview with The New Arab.
“On the periphery though, particularly in Syria and Iraq, I think that Trump will continue where he left off last time around in term one, which is the further reduction of troops,” he added.
“The Trump White House will have little desire to keep US troops committed to Iraq and will want to draw down, basically, pack up and go home. Trump’s modus operandi will be for regional governments to carry the burden for providing security in the region and, unless there is a direct material benefit, US troops will not be part of the arrangement,” said Dr Neil Quilliam, an associate fellow in the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, in a TNA interview.
Fundamental differences between President Joe Biden and Trump’s perspectives on international issues are worth noting. Looking at the world through ideological lenses, the Biden administration sees a “special American mission in the world”, while Trump approaches global affairs far more transactionally and harbours “no such illusions” about the “global order,” Dr Mehran Kamrava, a professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar, told TNA.
He added that the US president-elect is “mainly concerned about what he perceives to be beneficial to the US and to him and his legacy personally” and that “this is likely to result in an overall reduction in US troop presence in the world in general and in the Middle East in particular”.
Syria
To say that the situation in Syria is complicated is an understatement. President Bashar al-Assad’s government – backed by Russia, Iran, and various non-state actors in the Tehran-led ‘Axis of Resistance’ – controls the most populated parts of Syria. Israel has been occupying the Golan Heights since 1967.
Idlib remains ruled by anti-regime Islamist militias, which, to varying degrees, have received support from Turkey. In the northeast, there is a US military presence, consisting of 900 troops, backing the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), dominated by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)-linked People’s Protection Units (YPG).
Various voices say that Trump will pull the US military out of north-eastern Syria. On 8 November, Robert F. Kennedy Jr told political commentator Tucker Carlson that Trump intends to withdraw American military forces from northern Syria so they do not become “cannon fodder”.
Four days later, Turkish Defence Minister Yaşar Güler noted in an interview that “Trump gave instructions to withdraw troops from Syria three times during his presidency”. He expressed his belief that “Trump will strongly focus on this and withdraw American troops from Syria and the region”.
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Yet, even if Trump would like to see the US military withdraw from Syria, some experts question how or if this would occur mindful of those who will likely surround Trump once he returns to the Oval Office on 20 January 2025.
“Because the Trump team is made up of Iran hawks, they are likely to push back against Trump’s desire to pull US troops out of Syria. Robert Kennedy Jr is on record saying that Trump wants to pull troops out of Syria, but almost everyone else says that they are critical to the US mission in the region, which is to thwart Iran and help Israel,” noted Dr Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, in a TNA interview.
Dr Nabeel Khoury, former deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Yemen, made a similar argument.
“US troop presence and [the] US role in the Middle East will experience the push and pull of various domestic and international voices and forces in the next administration: [the] ideological bent of Trump supporters is at once both isolationist and interventionist. The isolationist trend will however have to give way to strong voices – not the least of which will come from Israel – to keep Iran in check, in Syria, Iraq, and the broader Middle East region,” he told TNA.
Specifically in Syria, “the pull of watching over Iranian and allied militia movements and potential ISIS revival will keep US military presence in place for the foreseeable future,” holds Dr Khoury.
According to Dr Quilliam, the situation in Ukraine will have an impact on how the second Trump administration approaches Syria and the future of US-Russia geopolitical competition in the war-torn country. As he told TNA, if Moscow is willing to agree to, what Washington would see as, a “sweeter deal” on Ukraine, the Trump team would be willing to make more concessions to the Kremlin in Syria.
“After all, the US has never considered Syria to [be] under its sphere of influence, or of a direct national interest. It is easy to argue that developments in Syria do affect the US national interests, but that has not been reflected in policy. Under these circumstances, one can envisage US troops being withdrawn from Syria. Irrespective of developments between Russia and Ukraine, it is difficult to imagine Trump keeping US troops for the duration of his policy unless there is an obvious transactional benefit to the US [or] the president, himself,” explained Dr Quilliam.
A sensitive question is, what will the next administration’s policies be towards the YPG?
If the US assesses that it has less interest in keeping US special forces in Syria, Washington’s relationship with the YPG stands a good chance of being severed shortly.
Another factor to consider is how Trump’s second administration will approach Assad. There is good reason to consider the possibility of Trump moving in the direction of some EU member-states such as Austria, Hungary, Italy, and Slovakia, which have officially or unofficially “legitimised” the Damascus government through high-level meetings and re-establishing diplomatic ties, chipping away at Assad’s reputation as a ‘pariah’ in the West’s eyes. If this is how Trump approaches Syria, his administration may come to see less of a need to sponsor the YPG.
“It will come down to a cost-benefit analysis and whether the YPG continues to serve US interests. It will take time for a Syria policy to emerge and given Trump’s key appointments, which include an ‘all sorts’ mixture of characters with irreconcilable approaches to policy positions, allies, and adversaries. However, Trump’s policy instincts suggest that he will eventually follow the European slide towards working with the Assad regime and, if that is the case, then he would likely abandon the YPG, even if those around him advise him strongly not to do so,” holds Dr Quilliam.
The next US administration, like past ones, will have to make decisions about the YPG with Turkish interests and positions in mind. As always, moves that distance Washington from the militant group bode extremely well for the US-Turkey relationship. Perhaps the second Trump administration will see Washington’s standing in Ankara as far more important than any US interest that can be advanced through the YPG, prompting Trump’s White House to cut off the PKK-affiliated organisation.
However, Dr Landis believes that Trump’s team will remain committed to supporting the YPG if the incoming US administration sees the Kurdish militia as useful to weakening Iran’s position in the Middle East and/or strengthening Israel’s. “The US will try to work through its proxies in the region, whether that is through Israel or the Kurds to hurt Iran and protect Israel,” he told TNA.
Iraq
Nearly 22 years after the US- and UK-led invasion of Iraq, which toppled Saddam Hussein’s government and gave rise to Iraq’s post-Baathist political order, Washington and Baghdad maintain a complicated bilateral relationship.
With roughly 2,500 US troops based in Iraq as advisors to the country’s security forces, different Iran-aligned groups target US forces, putting Iraq under significant pressure while caught up in US-Iran hostilities. Added to the mix, is the role of Iraq-based militias in the grander fight between the ‘Axis of Resistance’ and Israel in the post-7 October 2023 period.
In September, Washington and Baghdad reached an understanding for most American military forces to leave Iraq by the end of 2026. But the US side still needs to give its final approval. There is good reason to expect Trump’s second administration to pull US troops out of Iraq following this timeline agreed upon with the Iraqi government, if not sooner.
In addition to Trump’s unpredictability, there are always unforeseen circumstances that might prompt his administration to keep US forces in Iraq. What must be considered is how the incoming administration may react to Israel possibly waging future operations against ‘Axis of Resistance’ groups in Iraq.
There is also a question about how the second Trump administration will approach the exemptions that permit Iraq to buy natural gas from Iran. The possibility of the incoming administration revoking those as part of a wider effort to tighten the screws on Tehran must be considered.
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Within Trump’s team, there will likely be some debate and disagreement over whether Iraq is, from the US perspective, a ‘lost cause’ to Iran or a country where Washington can take actions to contain the Islamic Republic within the context of a ‘maximum pressure 2.0’ agenda.
“Some will want to punish Iraq and place it under the same sort of sanction regime as has been imposed on Iran and Syria. Others will want to maintain the US military presence in Iraq in the hope of collecting intelligence, thwarting the passage of Iranian weapons through Iraq and Syria to Hezbollah, and serving as support for US troops in Syria,” Dr Landis told TNA.
Dr Krieg believes that the next US administration will want to essentially cut Washington’s losses and withdraw most of its troops from Iraq, noting a change in the country’s strategic environment.
“We have a government [in Baghdad] that is quite close now with Iran and the US doesn’t have the freedom of manoeuvrability that [it] once had on the ground. In Trump’s terms…Iraq has been lost anyway and it makes no sense to keep up this sunk-cost phenomenon of pouring more money, troops, and US taxpayers’ money into [Iraq] because it’s lost anyway,” he said in a TNA interview.
The overall US military posture
The next administration is likely to oppose increasing the US military presence in Iraq and Syria while favouring a heavy American footprint in the GCC states such as Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Based on the individuals whom Trump has selected for his team, we can expect his second administration to be hawkishly anti-Iranian and fanatically pro-Israel. For example, Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defence is Army National Guard veteran Pete Hegseth, who said “Zionism and Americanism are the front lines of Western civilisation”. In 2018, he called for a Jewish temple to be built at al-Aqsa in Jerusalem.
“The second Trump administration certainly will not want to increase its military presence and will likely back Israel in projecting its military and technical posture throughout the region, especially now that Iran has been weakened and Israel believes that it has escalation dominance,” holds Dr Quilliam.
“The overarching goal is likely to construct a regional security architecture with Israel at the core of the arrangement flanked by the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and other US-friendly states. Of course, that is pie in the sky, but it fits the model where regional states carry the burden for regional security and the US enables and facilitates it,” he added.
Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics
Follow him on Twitter: @GiorgioCafiero