Research & Commentary Results

The United States is Israel’s closest ally, and its support is a central pillar of Israel’s national security. The US provides Israel access to purchase advanced weapon systems, ammunition and weapon emergency supplies in times of war, intelligence sharing, opportunities for cooperation in defense technology, and crucial diplomatic cover at the UN Security Council and elsewhere. It also provides Israel with regular security aid, to be spent in the United States, currently at an annual rate of $3.8bn (under an MOU that expires in 2028). Since October 2023, the US also offered active military support, in a break from the historical norm. It contributed substantially to Israel’s defense against Iranian ballistic missiles, in conjunction with Arab regional partners, and bombed nuclear sites in Iran in support of Israel’s campaign in the “12 Day War” of June 2025.

The Abraham Accords have represented a remarkable shift in U.S. Middle East policy. They reframed Arab-Israeli normalization as a result of shared interests – within the Middle East and directly with the US, rather than as a byproduct of Israeli-Palestinian peace. Signed in September 2020, on the last leg of the first Trump administration, the Accords brokered by Washington normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, followed by framework agreements with Morocco and Sudan. From the American perspective, the Accords were intended to break decades of diplomatic stagnation in the Middle East in order to establish a regional framework aligned with American strategic objectives.

MEI Senior Fellow Mohammed Soliman joins hosts Alistair Taylor and Matthew Czekaj to discuss his new book, West Asia: A New American Grand Strategy in the Middle East. The book argues that it is time for the United States to move decisively away from nation-building and focus instead on order-building, outlining a framework for a new regional order that links Europe to the Indo-Pacific. Soliman also shares how he conceived of the core ideas behind his book and explains why his thesis is especially relevant in today’s geopolitical, economic, and technological landscape.

In November 2025, the United States sought and obtained approval for a United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR 2803) endorsing the formation of a Board of Peace (BoP) and International Stabilization Force (ISF) to support the implementation of the 20-point peace plan agreed to by Israel and Hamas the previous month. The ISF’s stated role is to help secure and demilitarize the Gaza Strip, primarily by facilitating the decommissioning of weapons, protecting civilians, and training and advising burgeoning Palestinian police forces. In the intervening months, however, progress on standing up the ISF has stalled, and conflicting messaging from US officials provides more questions than answers.

Donald Trump’s first year of his second presidential term has been a roller coaster of twists and turns both at home and abroad—particularly in the Middle East. His regional focus was driven by two main factors: first, Trump’s own ego and sense of possible place in history; and second, the volatile, dynamic events driven by actors in the region.

In the first year of his second term in office, US President Donald Trump focused considerable time and energy on the Middle East, but the results so far have been uneven. This report assesses the US government’s actions in the region over the past 12 months, from January 2025 through January 2026.

MEI Senior Fellow Lucy Kurtzer-Ellenbogen joins hosts Alistair Taylor and Matthew Czekaj to discuss the latest developments in Gaza. Nearly four months after the Israeli government and Hamas agreed to President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan, Washington has announced that phase two of the process is now underway. Kurtzer-Ellenbogen, Taylor, and Czekaj examine the humanitarian situation in the devastated coastal strip, assess what phase two could entail, break down how international actors are responding, and explore what would need to happen to realize the plan’s aspirations.

Whether the truce between Damascus and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces holds or collapses will have major implications for neighboring Turkey, which has long-standing interests in Syria, but recent developments already point to a win for Ankara.

As the rivalry between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi sharpens in Yemen and beyond, Turkey has begun edging closer to Saudi Arabia, sparking claims that a new regional order is taking shape: a Turkey-Saudi axis backed by a NATO-like defense architecture, implicitly aligned against Israel and the United Arab Emirates. This reading overstates the case.

President Donald Trump has sharply warned the Iranian regime to halt its brutal crackdown on protesters. Amid speculation that the US is preparing for military action in Iran, Washington should take the lessons and fundamentally different context of its successful June 2025 operation against the Islamic Republic into account as it plans for how to respond.

The final days of 2025 marked a turning point in the Middle East, as competition between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in Yemen spilled out into the open. Tensions between the two coalition partners, which jointly launched a military intervention in Yemen in 2015, have simmered for years and are now rapidly escalating, with far-reaching implications for both Yemen and regional security more broadly.