The Middle East is far from settled
President Trump is trying to declare the war between Israel and Iran over. It isn’t. He claims the US bunker busters obliterated Iran’s uranium enrichment. They didn’t. The US intelligence community is saying the attack set back Iran’s nuclear ambitions months, not years. As Hegseth’s performance suggests, the Americans have no idea where Iran’s Highly Enriched Uranium is located.
The ceasefire won’t last
Israel has established its overwhelming military superiority, but Iran has not surrendered. If Israel detects any move to revive the nuclear program, or even Iran’s conventional military capacity, Jerusalem will attack again. It will want to maintain its absolute air supremacy. American pressure will not prevent further Israeli attacks.
Iran has less incentive to break the ceasefire. Its attacks on Israel so far have done little damage. So the Supreme Leader is declaring victory and trying to de-escalate. Tehran’s limited attack on US forces in Qatar was a clear signal. The Iranians don’t want to fight right now. They will try to reconstitute their capacities secretly and avoid giving Israel any reason to attack.
Nuclear diplomacy is more difficult
Iran now has good reason to get nuclear weapons, which it hopes will ensure regime continuity. Tehran won’t be interested in nuclear diplomacy. Even if it were willing, the Supreme Leader would hesitate to engage with Trump. He not only withdrew in 2018 from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. He also used nuclear negotiations as a cover for the Israeli attack on June 13.
Israel will not want a new nuclear agreement either. Jerusalem does not trust the Iranians or the International Atomic Energy Agency. It wants the Americans to sustain maximum sanctions pressure on Iran. Washington would have to loosen the sanctions as part of any nuclear deal. Trump has already loosened sanctions to allow Iran to sell oil openly to China. The Israelis will no doubt try to scupper that trial balloon as soon as possible.
The Palestinian issue remains
Iran’s ostensible reason for enmity towards Israel is the Palestinian issue. Prime Minister Netanyahu has demonstrated unequivocally his opposition to solving it by any means other than violence. He hopes to displace two million Palestinians from Gaza. He is allowing Jewish settlers to displace thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank.
Iran also is not looking for a civil solution. It wants to claim leadership of the Islamic world by opposing the existence of the Jewish state. Tehran will no doubt do what it can to continue to support Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. Those are the front-line fighters against Israel, which has damaged them all since the October 7, 2023 assault from Gaza. But they all still have some fight left.
The bright spots
One relative bright spot in the Middle East landscape is the Levant. Lebanon now has a president, prime minister, and army who are trying to disarm Hezbollah south of the Litani River. Syria has an interim Islamist (even jihadist) administration that is hostile to Iran. It is surprisingly tolerant of Israel’s use of its airspace to attack Iran as well as targets inside Syria. But it is also presiding over violence against minorities. And ultimately, Damascus will want the Israelis to withdraw from Syrian territory Jerusalem seized during the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.
Another relative bright spot is Turkiye and its relations with its own Kurdish population. The Kurdish PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) has declared an end to its decades-long violent rebellion and willingness to disarm. If this process goes smoothly, it will open the possibility of a less autocratic, more democratic Turkiye. It also opens the possibility of reintegrating Syria’s Kurds into Damascus’ governing and security institutions. That would end the hostilities between the Syrian Kurds and Turkiye’s forces in parts of northern Syrian and Iraq. Turkish withdrawal from its outposts in those two neighbors would then become a serious possibility.
Still, a gloomy outlook
Those bright spots do not yet shed sufficient light to alleviate the overall gloom in the Middle East. Trump is hoping to turn away from Iran and work instead on normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia:
But without Israeli flexibility on the Palestinians, that will not be possible. Turkiye/Israel rivalry also loom, especially in Syria. President Erdogan is comfortable with an Islamist government in Damascus. Netanyahu is not. Even if the question of Iranian enrichment were resolved, which it isn’t, big problems remain in the Middle East. The Palestinians and Turkiye/Israel rivalry persist.
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