For an administration sorely lacking foreign-policy experience, President Donald Trump has set ambitious goals in the Middle East. Foremost among them is to contain the influence of Iran, which Trump has identified as the greatest threat to U.S. interests and those of its regional allies, like Israel and Saudi Arabia. Second is to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) in Syria and Iraq, where the administration has intensified Obama-era strategies. Fostering a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is at best a tertiary goal, and the Trump administration's pursuit of it needs to be understood in the context of U.S. politics as well as Middle Eastern politics and security. Effective mediation is subordinate to pro-Israeli domestic political interests. The value of a peace agreement is primarily to remove the major obstacle to overt cooperation between Israel and the Arab world against their shared Iranian enemy, rather than a principled pursuit of sustainable peace. Consequently, the administration has not shown the commitment or diplomatic skill necessary to achieve this goal and is failing to employ a sound mediation strategy.

Although these goals are not dissimilar to those of the Obama administration, they are being pursued very differently. Obama was wary of extensive military engagements and pursued diplomatic missions with Iran, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal) being perhaps the signal foreign-policy achievement of his presidency. Obama also unsuccessfully tried to mediate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He was considered hostile by successive right-wing Israeli governments due to his acknowledgment of Palestinian grievances and rights, despite agreeing to the largest-ever U.S. military aid package to Israel.¹

In stark contrast, Trump has withdrawn from the JCPOA, pledged to confront Iran, and prioritized improved relations with Israel and Saudi Arabia. Militarism is a key tool in Trump's policy repertoire, serving to simultaneously create jobs at home and "make America great again" abroad. Trump has maintained or intensified the existing international military engagements he inherited, increasing the frequency of air and drone strikes (and the rate of civilian casualties).² In Syria, Trump approved the bombing of Shayrat airbase, used by the Assad regime to launch chemical-weapons strikes against civilians, and more recently targeted Syrian chemical weapons infrastructure after the Douma chemical attack; Obama did not militarily enforce his own stated "red line." The Trump administration also committed U.S. troops indefinitely to the northeastern region controlled by their allies, the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces, in order to prevent a resurgence of ISIS and limit Iranian control of the area.³ Although Trump has since called for their withdrawal, sowing confusion about U.S. policy, this has yet to happen.⁴

Diplomacy, mediation and conflict resolution are at the bottom of the administration's foreign-policy to-do list, and are viewed solely through the lens of power. Trump's approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the wider region is clearly articulated by Michael Wolff, who argues that Trump has sought to simplify a notoriously complex region into three elements: "powers we can work with, powers we cannot work with, and those without enough power whom we can functionally disregard or sacrifice."⁵ On the basis of the evidence to date, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt belong in the first category, Iran in the second, and the Palestinians in the third. Those Trump can work with will pressure the weak in order to more effectively counter those he cannot work with. Further evidence of this regional view is contained in the U.S. National Security Strategy unveiled on December 18, 2017, which altered decades of policy:

For generations the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has been understood as the prime irritant preventing peace and prosperity in the region. Today, the threats from radical jihadist terrorist organizations and the threat from Iran are creating the realization that Israel is not the cause of the region's problems.⁶

While this argument against "linkage" has clear merits, the issue continues to resonate in the Arab world and should not be dismissed lightly. Trump's over-simplification of how to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on this logic has severely damaged the prospects of reaching a peace agreement.