Without question, the formation of the Abraham Accords was the greatest foreign policy achievement of Donald Trump’s first term as president. The major step toward Arab-Israeli normalization was a blow to the Iranian regime’s ambitions for regional hegemony, took pressure off American resources, and provides a glimpse of what a future of peace might look like for the Middle East. Expanding the accords ought to be a major goal of Trump’s second term in office.
Sadly, the effects of the Biden administration’s total foreign policy incompetence make achieving any kind of peace in the region unlikely. Its hasty decision to retreat from Afghanistan was among the first in a series of signals of weakness that emboldened Iran and set back Arab-Israeli normalization. If Trump wants to restore American strength, he will need to demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that the era of liberal “restraint” has ended.
Last week, a working group from the Vandenberg Coalition released a new report with recommendations for an “America First” agenda in the region that would do just that.
“As the Trump administration inherits a complex global threat landscape due to Russia’s war in Ukraine and Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific,” the report reads, “it is vital to ensure the Middle East does not similarly fall to adversarial interests.”
It outlines the kind of tough-minded steps the administration ought to take to reassure regional allies and restore deterrence toward the Iranian aggressor.
Although Vandenberg’s recommendations are commonsensical and aligned with public sentiment, sadly not everyone in Washington’s think tanks has embraced them. At Responsible Statecraft, the blog of the isolationist Quincy Institute, Jim Lobe harshly condemned it as a “neocon manifesto.” It would be easy to dismiss Lobe as simply another “restrainer,” but Trump recently appointed another Responsible Statecraft contributor, Michael DiMino, to serve as deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East. Clearly this kind of thinking has influence within the administration, which makes it all the more important for serious conservatives to advocate the kinds of policies Vandenberg has recommended.
Lobe specifically criticizes the report for promoting some kind of neoconservative ideology, but nothing could be further from the truth. From the outset, the working group recommends, “The administration should adopt an interests-based approach that focuses on advancing the security and prosperity of the United States.” The report is not advocating endless wars to spread some vague idea of democracy, but rather mitigating concrete threats to national security.
The most important American interest Vandenberg articulates is denying the enemies of the United States the ability to dominate the Middle East. The Iranian regime is working to deepen security ties and diplomatic relations with both Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the Chinese Communist Party. Together, this rising axis hopes to roll back American influence and advance a shared authoritarian agenda. If Iran achieves its hegemonic ambitions, there will be consequences in every corner of the world.
The key to preventing these plans from coming to fruition is denying Tehran the opportunity to arm itself with nuclear weapons. As the report argues, a “nuclear Iran would be a catastrophe” because it would completely shift the balance of power in the Middle East. Preventing that should be a top priority for the new administration. China is sending components such as missile propellent to Iran, and Russia is providing the regime cover in the global community as it further develops its nuclear program; breakout could be mere weeks away.
In his salvo against the Vandenberg report, the closest Lobe gets to a proposed solution to this pressing problem is the Obama-era nuclear deal. But the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action failed completely when it was first implemented. Rather than persuading the hard-line regime to back down, the deal gave it breathing room to develop both its nuclear program and its terrorist network, which has targeted hundreds of American soldiers and was instrumental in planning the horrific Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. The Iranian regime simply is not a good-faith negotiator; the only way to persuade it to abandon its fanatic path of aggression is to demonstrate that the costs are too dear to tolerate.
But the United States cannot reestablish deterrence on its own. Any national security agenda for the Middle East must incorporate a plan to work closely with regional allies, especially Israel. Although Oct. 7 was a setback for normalization between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbors, leaders from both peoples fully understand that their common enemy is Iran. Trump can prove his quality as a deal-maker by bringing them together to confront the larger threat.
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As tempting as retreat may be to some in Trump’s orbit, it simply would not be in American interests. The United States is the glue that holds the Abraham Accords together. Without a serious plan for leading in the region, the process of normalization would collapse in on itself and provide Iran an opportunity to reassert the power it has lost as its proxies collapse.
After the failures of the idealistic and internationalist Biden administration, Washington could use a dose of hardheaded realism. National security cannot be achieved by merely issuing calls for peace; it requires the cultivation and strategic deployment of actual power. The Vandenberg Coalition clearly understands this. It remains to be seen whether the new Trump administration does as well.
Michael Lucchese is the founder of Pipe Creek Consulting, an associate editor of Law & Liberty, and a contributing editor to Providence.