Unfinished business will drive the Mideast agenda in 2026

Following another year of pivotal developments and transformational change, the Middle East could be poised to turn the page on many of its long-running conflicts and sources of instability. But lasting fruits of the processes begun in 2025 will require a determined, intentional focus by regional actors and the United States. Given current trends, MEI experts weigh in on where the region may be headed in 2026.

Contents:

The region in suspended resolution

Paul Salem
Senior Fellow

The Middle East enters 2026 awaiting two strategic rethinks, neither of which might occur.

In Israel, the government has won many battles but has not developed a strategy to pivot from open-ended armed conflict to sustainable political arrangements that would consolidate its battlefield gains. “Domestically,” Israel has decimated Hamas and the Gaza Strip, but it has not rolled out a sustainable strategy — whether within a one-state or two-state context — that would ensure a secure future for Israel’s seven million Jews living alongside seven million Arabs. President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan was a welcome departure but must be followed up with continued diplomacy.

To its north, Israel’s wars have enabled the rise of new and promising state leadership in Syria and Lebanon. But Israel’s unfettered military actions in both countries and the absence of coordination is weakening the rise of those states. It is a good sign that both countries are now in talks with Israel; those talks should be moved forward.

In the wider Arab world, Saudi Arabia — and whither goes the kingdom, other Arab states will follow — remains essentially ready for a historic normalization and integration agreement with Israel, if Israel can offer a decent future for the Palestinians. Here too, the Israeli government has developed no strategy to grasp that opportunity.

A strategic rethink is desperately needed in another influential Middle Eastern capital, Tehran. The 30-year strategy pursued by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of ensuring Iran’s deterrence and defense through a network of allied or proxy forces ringing Israel has collapsed. Its nuclear program is in shambles, as are its economy, water resources, and domestic political support base. Despite signs of intense strategic debate inside Tehran, the country’s regional policy remains stuck in dysfunctional autopilot, doubling down on support for militia allies and proxies, threats to Israel and the United States, and an unwillingness to seriously negotiate on a new way forward.

The wars of the last two years have wrought much destruction, devastating lives and entire communities, but they have also created opportunities for positive breakthroughs. Indeed, the region can be said to be within visible reach of historic progress toward peace and regional integration. The Trump administration wants to move in that direction — as do Saudi Arabia and most other regional powers.

Will strategic rethinks in at least one of the two key countries shift in 2026 to enable positive breakthroughs, or will it remain another wasted year in which armed conflict might not be as intense as in 2023, 2024, and much of 2025, but in which the final steps toward long-overdue peace agreements and regional integration remain as elusive as ever?

Follow: @paul_salem

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Trump’s high ambitions for the Middle East likely to face tough realities in 2026

Brian Katulis
Senior Fellow

President Donald Trump dedicated more of his personal time and attention to the broader Middle East in the first year of his second term than any other US president perhaps since Barack Obama in 2009.

Trump visited the region twice — once in May, in a trip dominated by economic diplomacy, business deals, and a historic meeting with Syria’s new leader, and again in October, to mark a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. He also devoted considerable time to meetings and conversations with regional counterparts visiting Washington, DC, aimed at advancing peace and seizing economic opportunities.

Of the second Trump administration’s biggest strategic moves during its first year, the four with the potential to have the most lasting impact include, in order of importance, having:

1. Doubled down on deepening and broadening relations with regional economic powers like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Israel;
2. Continued pragmatic engagement with Syria’s new leadership;
3. Achieved a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that has produced possible openings for a more sustainable peace; and
4. Engaged in limited military operations against Iran’s nuclear program as part of the 12-day Israel-Iran war.

In these actions and Trump 2.0’s overall engagement, the United States has had more impact on the dynamics in the Middle East than on any other region of the world except for the Western Hemisphere, where Trump’s aggressive immigration policies combined with military strikes against alleged drug traffickers and threats against Venezuela and Colombia have shaken things up. Trump’s approach with Russia on the Ukraine war has fallen short of achieving its stated aims, and his China policy remains strategically ambiguous and inconclusive. 

Time will tell whether Trump’s prioritization of the Middle East will produce more lasting results — much work remains unfinished, and the pathways ahead are unclear. In some ways, Trump 2.0’s attempts to achieve historic results in the region during the first year might be characterized as having an Icarus complex, where overconfidence and high ambitions produce a downfall.

Trump’s desire to ascend to new heights in the Middle East without doing the tough, day-to-day-work of diplomacy on key files is the dynamic to monitor in US policy in the coming year. Nearly all of the points in his administration’s 20-point plan on Gaza remain unfulfilled and lack clarity two months after the cease-fire was celebrated. Threats posed by Iran, though diminished, remain present, leaving many unanswered questions about what is next. Syria’s transition continues to move forward, but many security, economic, and political challenges could endanger continued progress. Similar things can be said for Lebanon next door. Finally, last spring’s US military campaign against the Houthis in Yemen did not produce sustainable results or eliminate the threats that undercut security in places like the Red Sea.

The second Trump administration put the Middle East in the spotlight and had a discernable impact on key issues — but the complicated realities present on each of the major files will require significant attention and follow-up action in year two to produce continued progress.

Follow: @Katulis

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Despite high-profile breakthroughs, uncertainty remains — 2026 needs to be a year of follow-through for Middle East security

Jason H. Campbell
Senior Fellow

From a US defense and national security perspective, 2025 was a year of seemingly consequential advancements punctuated by disruptive events. Headlines touting new defense agreements with key partners (Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and, to some extent, Qatar), the deterioration of a key adversary’s capabilities and influence (Iran), and a peace plan halting the region’s bloodiest conflict (the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza) paint a picture of progress.

Yet as is often the case in the Middle East, things remain complex. Any positive momentum could quickly fade if detailed solutions to difficult issues are not found. Additionally, the reverberations from the Israel-Iran 12-Day War and Israel’s strike targeting Hamas leadership in Doha are still being felt and will continue to have an unpredictable impact on regional stability. 

As the calendar turns over, a number of significant issues remain either “stalled out” or “precariously looming.” In Lebanon, momentum behind an effort to disarm Hizballah has dwindled and frustrations are increasingly being voiced. In Gaza, the initial euphoria surrounding a cease-fire and return of hostages has been replaced by uncertainty and even doubt as implementation has been stymied by a lack of consensus on key details and persistent, if less frequent, violence by both sides.

More ominously, sentiment in the region suggests that a resumption of hostilities in at least one of two theaters active during 2025, and perhaps one mostly dormant since late 2024, may be likely in the coming months. While the 12-Day War greatly damaged Iran’s military capabilities and leadership, Israel remains wary that Tehran will replenish its ballistic missile stocks, continue to engage its regional proxies, and eventually even resume its nuclear program. As such, there are expectations in Israel, Iran, and among other interested parties that Israel will carry out follow-on strikes. Moreover, if implementation of the Gaza peace plan continues to stall, the likelihood that Israel will re-escalate operations in Hamas-controlled areas will increase significantly. Finally, Israeli officials have signaled that they are prepared to adopt distinct policies toward the Lebanese government and Hizballah, pursuing economic ties and political negotiation with the former while resuming a war footing on the latter.

For all these matters, 2026 must be a year of follow-through for President Donald Trump’s Middle East security policy. Based on recent evidence, however, there is reason to question the administration’s commitment. The National Security Strategy released earlier this month both underrates US strategic interests in the Middle East and overstates the degree to which key challenges have been resolved.

Even on the positive developments, the details surrounding a revamped defense agreement with Qatar still need to be finalized and questions pertaining to any eventual sale of F-35s to Saudi Arabia need to be resolved. Reduced US leadership in Lebanon could scuttle the best chance in decades to diminish Hizballah. Failure to make progress on the Gaza peace plan risks the resumption of hostilities there, and should Israel conduct strikes against Iran again, US interests throughout the region will be placed at great risk. Considering all this, the Trump administration must, at a minimum, remain committed to seeing through its ongoing initiatives in the Middle East well into the New Year. 

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Can the 20-point plan proceed from placeholder to progress?

Lucy Kurtzer-Ellenbogen
Senior Fellow

President Donald Trump’s 2025 diplomatic legacy in the Israeli-Palestinian arena is his United Nations Security Council-approved 20-point plan. His record in 2026 will be defined by his ability to push that plan past the cease-fire stage. Through Security Council Resolution 2803, he achieved buy-in from regional and international allies desperate for a break in this brutal two-year war and reluctant to antagonize the president: Silence the guns, release the hostages, let aid flood in. The rest was to be “tomorrow’s problem.” 

With Phase I of the cease-fire nominally complete, pending repatriation of the remains of one last Israeli hostage, “tomorrow” has arrived. But still-inadequate aid flow and significant ongoing Gazan fatalities underscore a state of uneasy pause rather than solidified cease-fire. That fragility speaks to the challenges inherent in moving to Phase II: Transitional governance and security mechanisms overseen by an international Board of Peace, a technocratic Palestinian governing committee, and an international stabilization force (ISF).

Phase II looks set to unfold slowly given that Hamas is still in a position to bargain over terms of disarmament, Israel is unwilling to retreat from more than half of Gaza until that disarmament, and potential ISF contributors are wary of entering Gaza without a clear mandate. We can expect a dialing back of expectations and a flexible framing of even modest achievements.

The US president’s commitment to the plan will be key to maintaining momentum and avoiding a full relapse. On the latter, he may be helped by the parties’ respective disincentives. Returning to a full-scale combat posture cannot be appealing to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he enters an election year. And a degraded but still-standing Hamas has more to gain by laying low militarily and pointing fingers at Israel, even as it seeks to regroup and rebuild.

American complacency with this status quo would be a path of least resistance but could make a resurgence inevitable. In the Israeli-Palestinian context, temporary parameters often become permanent and a recipe for open-ended conflict. The Israel Defense Forces’ chief of staff has referred to the “yellow line” that currently divides Gaza north to south as “a new border line.” Hamas sources have said they will enter talks but will not be forced to disarm. There are no easy answers to operationalizing Phase II. If the Trump administration wants this plan to advance, it will need to sustain the determined and ally-coordinated diplomacy that yielded the cease-fire in the first place, while keeping pressure on the intransigent parties who are hoping the president will lose focus, declare victory, and walk away.

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Differences in American and Israeli threat perceptions will shape policy in 2026

Natan Sachs
Senior Fellow

As 2025 comes to a close, the United States remains active on multiple policy files relating to Israel. At the center is the gargantuan task of stabilization and reconstruction in Gaza as well as, in theory, the decommissioning of Hamas’ weapons. This is accompanied by the US’s determination to promote Syrian recovery and state consolidation; by American efforts to encourage the Lebanese government to follow through on its commitment, and sovereign duty, to disarm Hizballah; and by Washington’s desire to consider the Iranian nuclear program “obliterated.”

Israeli cooperation on these issues is important for each of President Donald Trump’s goals, and Israel itself has a strategic interest in seeing all these fronts move forward. In Gaza in particular, promoting reconstruction vigorously is both a moral and a strategic imperative for Israel. Yet being thousands of miles closer to these arenas, Israel necessarily evaluates both risk and the benefits of stability differently than the United States. The Trump administration hopes to move forward despite numerous bumps along the road: Hamas refusing to give up the weapons that allow it to exert control over the population in Gaza; Hizballah refusing to give up its arms in the majority of Lebanon’s territory; and Iran rebuilding its vast ballistic missile program. Israel, on the other hand, views these not as details but as core strategic threats. The Israeli leadership’s desire for stability is contingent on it not providing cover for the reconstruction of the “ring of fire,” which had surrounded the country but was severely weakened in the long war of 2023-25.

Israel is only now beginning to emerge from the trauma of October 7, 2023. The soul-searching around the historic failure of that day has led, in part, to a belief that Israel must never again allow threats to fester on its borders. The Israeli government’s inclination to view Hamas before October 7 as contained, deterred, and focused on developing the Gaza Strip resulted in a catastrophic misreading of intelligence. This failure has, in turn, inculcated a national conviction that merely containing threats is insufficient on any front. The lesson learned was not without some merit, though it is a lesson that risks overlearning.

The coming year will be one of decisions for Israel, in foreign policy as well as domestic politics. Initial optimism about change in Lebanon, and to a lesser degree Syria, has soured. The need for a strategic view, cautious and vigilant but open to tactical and strategic opportunities when they arise, remains important. The US administration would do well, therefore, to balance an emphasis on strategic goals with an eye toward valid threat assessments in its dealings with Israel.

Domestic drama will further complicate matters — 2026 will be an election year in Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is consistently underwater in national polls, but the opposition remains short of a secure majority for an alternative coalition. By the time 2027 rolls in, any of three options could occur: a new government and prime minister in Israel, a return of a victorious Netanyahu, or a return to a deadlocked parliament and a prolonged political crisis. Already, the Netanyahu coalition’s attempts to dismantle judicial independence are back in full swing, portending a return to the domestic upheaval that preceded October 7, 2023. This political turmoil will only make sound policymaking harder in the year to come.

With so much to distract Israel, from tactical and strategic threats to domestic turbulence, only sustained and careful US attention will suffice to promote US goals.

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Egypt tackles problems on foreign, domestic, and economic fronts

Mirette F. Mabrouk
Senior Fellow

Having long faced a revolving door of crises brought on by a mix of its geographic location and domestic policies, Egypt has become a practiced multitasker. This year, however, upheavals on the foreign, domestic, and economic fronts upped the ante even for a country permanently used to juggling one pressing issue after another.

The foreign policy issues have been the most complex, largely because of the nature of foreign policy threats — not always one’s own fault but ultimately one’s problem. Egypt has conflicts raging on three of its borders, in Gaza, Sudan, and Libya, with simmering tensions, and potential conflicts, further away in the Red Sea and Horn of Africa.

The ongoing conflict in Gaza has been a constant and spiraling cause of both international and domestic tension, and more than two months on the ostensible cease-fire has not brought an end to the killing, nor clarified a path forward. As of December 9, a United States general had apparently been appointed to take command of the new international stabilization force in Gaza as early as January 2026. This is likely to be complicated by the fact that Israel has not received a confirmation from any of the countries supposedly participating in the force, chief among them Egypt. Nor is any confirmation likely to be forthcoming under the current circumstances. An Egyptian official who spoke anonymously to the author noted that there was no mandate; “no one knows what anyone is supposed to be doing, and there are no circumstances in which Egypt is going to go into armed conflict with Palestinians,” he said.

The recent Israeli declaration that the Rafah border crossing would be opened on the Israeli side, in one direction only, for the exit of Palestinians, with no right to return, was flatly rejected by Egypt. “There’s a treaty,” said the above official. “Movement in both directions, with Palestinians exiting Gaza for medical care and returning, and aid entering from Egypt. One-way traffic is forced ethnic displacement, and that’s a red line for Egypt.” 

That red line is enforced by more than mere state policy. Public opinion in Egypt is overwhelmingly empathetic to the plight of the Palestinians, and the Egyptian government is well aware of the dangers of consistently quashing sentiment that is difficult to accurately gauge and even more difficult to control. The country is already dealing with public discontent over purported irregularities in recent parliamentary elections, which prompted President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to make an unprecedented public statement addressing the violations. 

The conflict on the border with Sudan is another potential flashpoint. Since the start of the worst of the violence in April 2023, approximately 1.5 million Sudanese refugees have fled to Egypt as of November 2025, according to the European Commission, making it the largest host country for Sudanese fleeing the conflict. The Egyptian government estimates that, as of January last year, the country was hosting 8-9 million refugees, 60% of whom had been in the country for a decade. Further complicating matters for Egypt’s already strained economy, UNHCR is slashing its funding for refugees in the country. 

One of the economy’s sturdiest pillars was already being strained — as of October, Yemeni Houthi attacks on maritime traffic in the Red Sea, ostensibly against Israel in support of the Palestinians, had cut Suez Canal revenues by 45.5% to $3.6 billion during fiscal year 2024/2025, compared to $6.6 billion a year earlier, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) said in its balance of payments report. 

However, there has been good news on the economic front. The last International Monetary Fund review, while expressing concern over the slow pace of privatization, offered significant praise. The government has improved macroeconomic stability, expenditures are down, and inflation dropped to a low of 12.1% in October from a high of 38% in September 2023. 

Egypt’s stability is essential to that of the region as a whole. While a significantly improved economy is critical to internal harmony, external pressures are often beyond the government’s control. For the foreseeable future, Egypt will have to continue to put out fires on multiple fronts.

Follow: @mmabrouk

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2026 will be the year of the “investor state”

Karen E. Young
Senior Fellow, Economics and Energy Initiative

From a macroeconomic context, the new year will test how government economic management moves from choices on managing inflation and interest rates to one of how governments spur domestic investment and protective policies to incubate new key sectors, meet energy security needs, and expand technology access and dominance. Including in the Middle East, government economic policy will move to invest in nascent sectors and try to insulate against global headwinds of nationalist industrial policy, techno-nationalism, and simmering, but not boiling, regional conflict.

Plentiful global oil supply and no direct threats to physical transit or energy infrastructure in the Middle East have kept oil and natural gas prices subdued since October 2023. As the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Plus (OPEC+) phases out its earlier production cuts, the recovery in oil output in 2026, along with continued growth in non-oil GDP, is likely to support Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) economies. But while increasing output supports oil revenues and (for some) achieves a priority of securing market share, the persistent lower-price environment (JP Morgan and many others assume $58 per barrel for 2026) certainly will have an impact on plans for government contracting awards. Many producers in the region face deteriorating trade balances and pressure on their fiscal balances. Fiscal restraint will be key, with priority for government spending on projects that meet diversification needs in providing low-cost, renewable power to meet rising electricity demand and expand export potential for gas and industrial products, from petrochemicals to aluminum. MEED reports that contract awards in infrastructure for water, power, and construction have fallen off sharply from 2024 to 2025, especially in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, declining from $151.7 billion in 2024 to roughly $20.5 billion in 2025 and from $96 billion in 2024 to $31 billion in 2025, respectively.

While there has been a steep decrease in awards for large-scale project contracts in the past year, governments in the GCC region will continue to invest in infrastructure and support diversification through artificial intelligence, electricity generation, transmission and logistics, and tourism. For the GCC, the AI race will have some mixed consequences in public-sector labor markets over the longer term, as digital governance displaces public sector workers but creates better service delivery.

In the wider Middle East and North Africa region, countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Lebanon should see some relief from soft commodity prices and investment spending, supported in some cases by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and see minimal improved growth. The IMF estimates GDP for the region will rise by 3.2% in 2025 (up from 2.1% in 2024), a 0.6-percentage-point (pp) upward revision since May, and 3.7% (+0.3 pp) in 2026. Qatar’s North Field liquefied natural gas (LNG) expansion from the middle of next year should also be a force for local GDP growth and last several years. For the GCC, non-oil GDP growth will persist but is likely to decrease slightly, with rates not as strong as those in 2025 at 3.8-4.0%.

The region’s economic heft will continue to concentrate in the Gulf. Structurally, diversification is inseparable from the global reorganization of energy systems — and the GCC will need to reposition itself not just as the world’s oil and gas supplier but as a supplier of a broad array of energy solutions and capital. 

Follow: @ProfessorKaren

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Iran faces a dangerous year full of hard choices in 2026

Alex Vatanka
Senior Fellow

Iran enters 2026 facing the most complex convergence of foreign and domestic pressures since the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988. Externally, the Islamic Republic is being squeezed on nearly every side: the United States is pursuing a harder, more coordinated sanctions regime, and a new round of conflict with the US and Israel is a distinct possibility; Europe has shifted from mediation to alignment with Washington on the issue of Iran; the Gulf states are testing Iranian red lines under the cover of new US security guarantees; Israel continues to degrade Iran’s regional infrastructure; and even Russia and China — Tehran’s supposed strategic lifelines — are offering only conditional support. The result is an overstretched foreign policy that no longer produces strategic depth but instead accumulates vulnerabilities. This makes 2026 a dangerous year for Iran.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the new confrontation over three disputed islands in the Gulf and the Arash/Dorra gas field. These two separate issues, one a dispute over territory between Iran and the United Arab Emirates and the other a dispute over competing maritime claims and the right to develop energy resources between Iran, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, have become fused together as the Gulf states have moved from routine rhetoric to a coordinated campaign portraying Iran as violating maritime norms. Tehran sees this as a direct challenge to its sovereignty and energy rights, triggering an unusually sharp response and raising the risk of a deeper, multi-front confrontation. This escalation comes at a moment of Iranian weakness. After the 12-Day War with Israel, Tehran’s deterrence ecosystem — from Lebanon to Yemen — has taken an unprecedented hit. Gulf capitals sense an opening they have not had in years, and Iran is responding forcefully to compel them to think twice. The risk is not imminent war but a creeping entanglement across overlapping territorial, legal, and energy fronts that could easily result in a miscalculation.

At the same time, Iran’s diplomatic horizon has narrowed. Tehran sees Washington as uninterested in real negotiation, Europe as politically exhausted, China as pragmatic and noncommittal, and Russia as opportunistic — supportive but unwilling to jeopardize its own interests for Iran. The revived confrontation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the strange “snapback limbo” at the United Nations reveal Tehran’s survival playbook: endure through ambiguity, buy time for the sake of it, exploit fractures among great powers, and hope Western pressure becomes uneven. But survival is not strategy. Iran is approaching a point where it must decide whether foreign policy remains a tool of ideological endurance or becomes a vehicle for economic recovery, an unresolved dilemma that will define 2026.

Domestically, the system is fraying. President Masoud Pezeshkian’s government is trapped between expectations it cannot meet and a state it cannot control. Ministerial resignations, cabinet infighting, and the elevation of personal loyalty over competence have hollowed out governance capacity. Parliament, led by a resurgent Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, is positioning itself as an alternative center of authority, while hardliners around Saeed Jalili’s “shadow government” police the ideological perimeter and narrow any space for diplomatic flexibility. These internal rivalries are not mere factional skirmishes; they are preparations for a post-Khamenei order. Every camp is sharpening its profile while testing how far it can go without triggering repression from above.

Meanwhile, the public mood is brittle. Economists, technocrats, and insiders warn openly that the state is heading toward “collapse or chaos” without structural reform. The budget crisis, suffocating sanctions, and decades of institutional decay have produced a sense that Iran is improvising rather than governing. With grinding inflation taking a severe toll on households and the state cracking down on academic and civil-society spaces, the probability of renewed protests remains high.

The defining trend for 2026 is therefore one of simultaneous external compression and internal fragmentation. Iran’s foreign-policy challenges are sharpening just as its domestic political system loses coherence, and the succession question hangs over everything. A brittle state facing a hostile region and an angry population cannot drift indefinitely. Whether through crisis, recalibration, or rupture, the coming year will force choices that Iran has spent years postponing. 

Follow: @AlexVatanka

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2026 will see Russia trying to remain relevant in the Middle East

Iulia-Sabina Joja
Senior Fellow

Russian influence in the Middle East has been limited this year, but Moscow sees those setbacks as temporary. While US action has sidelined Russia across the region, the Kremlin is playing a long game. A Ukraine peace deal facilitated by Washington could revive Moscow’s appetite and ambitions. Meanwhile, Russia is making smaller, more targeted bets across the Middle East and Africa. 

Russia’s losing streak began with the late-2024 collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria — a key client state for both Moscow and its closest Middle Eastern partner, Tehran. Despite the strategic blow, Moscow salvaged key assets: Assad resides under Russian protection, and by late 2025 Russia had resumed operations at its Tartus and Hmeimim bases. President Vladimir Putin welcomed Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Moscow in October, and Sharaa has expressed interest in renewed cooperation with Russia. In 2026, Russia will likely pursue economic, energy, and reconstruction projects to re-embed itself in Syria. 

Moscow’s greater regional setback came through Iran’s losses to Israel and the United States during the 12-Day War in June. The seemingly effortless suppression of Iran’s S-300 air-defense systems, purchased from Russia, is almost certain to deliver a blow to Russian arms sales in 2026. Yet criticism that Moscow failed to aid Tehran militarily during the conflict misunderstands the relationship: The two powers do not share an alliance with a mutual defense clause but rather an expanding strategic partnership, formalized in 2025, spanning defense, energy, finance, and sanctions evasion. Broadly speaking, Russia — along with China — offers Iran political cover, allowing the latter to project defiance in the face of Western pressure and reject charges of international isolation. Over time, however, the relationship has also made Moscow more dependent on Iranian drones and missiles for use in the war in Ukraine. Thus, driven by its own wartime supply needs, Russia is likely to deepen cooperation in 2026 with both Iran and its regional proxies — the “Axis of Resistance.” According to reports, Russia has supplied weapons to Hamas in Gaza and Hizballah in Lebanon in recent years as well as shared intelligence with the Houthis in Yemen, who have inflicted substantial damage on US and allied maritime interests.

Facing US pushback, Moscow has diversified its regional approach. In 2025, Russia strengthened ties with the Gulf, a trend set to continue. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Plus (OPEC+) offers Russia market access, political leverage, and a way to blunt Western sanctions. Thus, this past year, Saudi-Russian ties broadened across energy, visa liberalization, and high-level diplomatic engagement, as well as increased and diversified trade (with a focus on technology and mining). The United Arab Emirates similarly expanded economic and tech cooperation with the Kremlin, signaling that Russian access to the Gulf would continue unabated in 2026. 

Russia also pivoted to eastern Libya, building up its military presence with Libyan National Army head Khalifa Hifter. This delivered a major strategic gain: influence over Mediterranean trade corridors and leverage over Europe and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) through potential pressure on energy flows and migration routes — tools Moscow has historically weaponized. These footholds will complicate Western planning in 2026. 

Finally, Libya has become a launchpad for Russia’s power projection into Africa. In December 2025, Sudan’s military government reportedly offered Russia its first Red Sea naval base in exchange for arms and diplomatic cover. In 2026, this could impose significant costs on the United States, which has sought to prevent Russian and Chinese control of African ports that could support rearmament and threaten vital sea lanes.

Follow: @IuliJo

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Unresolved issues, if left unaddressed, could spark renewed conflict in Syria

Charles Lister
Senior Fellow, Syria Initiative

As the Trump administration enters 2026, its support for Syria’s fragile transition looks set to continue. Since President Donald Trump’s meeting with interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia in May, the United States has removed sanctions at record speed; energy giants such as Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Honeywell stand poised to make large-scale investments. Sharaa addressed the United Nations General Assembly in September and visited the White House in November. To close out the year, the Caesar Act — originally passed in 2019 to punish Bashar al-Assad’s regime for its human rights abuses — will be repealed by Congress, following the president personally intervening to secure the support of House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast. Meanwhile, US military and intelligence ties with Syria’s new government are growing rapidly, with more than a dozen joint operations against the Islamic State (ISIS) and the remnants of Iran’s proxy infrastructure in Syria conducted since the spring.

While US support for Syria is expected to continue next year, a renewed urgency will be necessary to achieve breakthroughs in Syria’s most significant geopolitical challenges: 

• Israel’s hostile stance toward Syria’s transition has seen it forcefully occupy more than 350 square kilometers of territory, launch more than 1,000 air and artillery strikes, and conduct nearly 700 ground incursions into Syria over the past year. Although Damascus never responded militarily and has engaged in US-mediated direct talks with Israel, Israeli military actions have escalated sharply through November and December 2025. The status quo is unsustainable, and if unresolved, serious conflict looks all but inevitable — a prospect that could threaten Syria’s transition altogether. 
   

• The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) must dissolve and integrate into the Syrian state, as a matter of urgency, if Syria is to avoid a major civil conflict. Despite signing a US-mediated framework agreement on March 10, no substantive steps have been taken to begin the SDF’s assimilation. While the US military and government have repeatedly declared that their priority now lies in Damascus, and Syria’s government has now joined the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, the SDF has stalled. Hundreds of Arab men have been detained by the SDF for declaring their support for Damascus; the SDF banned any Liberation Day celebrations to mark the fall of the Assad regime on December 8; and expansive military tunnel construction continues throughout SDF urban areas. Patience in Damascus, and in neighboring Turkey, is running out. 
   

• The Druze-majority governorate of Suwayda must open channels of dialogue with Damascus in order to provide space for the US- and Jordanian-mediated roadmap to ease tensions and reintegrate the region into the rest of Syria. Since Druze-Bedouin violence triggered government intervention, Israeli counter-intervention, and a spiral of atrocities in July, Suwayda’s de facto authorities have consolidated a firm grip — refusing any contact with Syria’s government, preventing residents from leaving, and publicly demanding secession. Drug smuggling into Jordan has surged by more than 400%, and intra-Druze tensions, arbitrary arrests, and death by torture have begun. Suwayda’s new rulers openly associate themselves with Israel, conducting weekly parades alongside banners bearing the Israeli flag and the face of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Suwayda file will not be resolved until Israel’s hostility to Damascus is settled. 

Follow: @Charles_Lister

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Road ahead for US-Turkey relations must address Syria, Kurds, Israel

Gönül Tol
Senior Fellow

In early 2025, Ankara viewed Syria as its most promising foreign-policy file. President Donald Trump’s return to the White House and Bashar al-Assad’s fall fed hopes that a long-troubled arena might finally become an area of opportunity. Turkish officials expected a US troop withdrawal, an end to Washington’s cooperation with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)-linked Syrian Kurdish forces, and a reset in Turkey-United States ties. A friendly government in Damascus, they believed, would help roll back Kurdish autonomy, disarm the militia, and reopen Syria for Turkish business — especially the construction sector close to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. But as the year closes, none of these expectations have materialized, leaving Syria poised to be one of Ankara’s most acute challenges heading into 2026. The stakes have only grown: Erdoğan has launched a new initiative at home with imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan aimed at disbanding the organization. The success of that process now hinges heavily on what happens next in Syria. 

Turkey faces two urgent challenges in Syria: the stalled talks between Damascus and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and the slow-moving negotiations between Syria and Israel. For Ankara’s own disarmament initiative with the PKK to advance, Damascus and the SDF must first finalize a deal integrating Kurdish forces into the Syrian military. Although the two sides reached an understanding on March 10 with Ankara’s support, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan recently warned publicly in Doha that the SDF is dragging its feet on implementation, leaving the process in limbo. Indeed, the deal — intended to integrate SDF military units and civilian institutions into the Syrian state, unify control over key assets, and guarantee Kurdish political rights — has made little practical progress. The SDF accuses Damascus of slowing the process by resisting the degree of local autonomy implied in the agreement. Damascus, for its part, accuses the SDF of breaching the terms of the deal. On the ground, tensions persist: Sporadic clashes in shared-control zones highlight lingering mistrust rather than convergence.

Turkey’s second major challenge is Israel’s ongoing military activity in Syria. Beyond Ankara’s concern that Israeli operations are destabilizing the country, Turkish officials fear that as long as Israel remains active on Syrian soil, the Syrian Kurds will feel little pressure to reach a compromise with Damascus. Ankara is therefore pinning its hopes on US-brokered talks between Israel and Syria, expecting a deal that will either prompt Israel to withdraw or at least significantly curb its military operations in Syria. 

Israel and Syria appear closer than at any point in years to a limited de-escalation agreement, but major gaps remain. Direct security talks have focused on establishing a demilitarized buffer zone in southern Syria, a condition Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says could make a deal “possible.” Damascus, however, rejects any buffer-zone arrangement that infringes on Syrian sovereignty and insists that full Israeli withdrawal from Syrian territory must accompany any pact. US pressure has pushed the parties toward a framework, but the negotiations are more likely to produce a narrow security understanding rather than a political breakthrough. If concluded, such a pact could curb some Israeli military operations in Syria, but deep mistrust, diverging red lines, and Israel’s determination to continue targeting perceived threats — especially Iran-linked actors — mean any agreement would be fragile, tactical, and far from a durable peace. 

Ankara wants 2026 to deliver both deals, clearing the way for its short-term goals — yet the road ahead looks far from smooth.

Follow: @gonultol

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Leveraging Lebanon’s (slow) reemergence

Paul Salem
Senior Fellow

What gives me guarded optimism about Lebanon’s future is the profoundly changed geopolitical environment. Since 1958 — and then steadily since 1963 — Syria has been ideologically opposed to Lebanese statehood and was aligned — first with the Soviets and then with Iran — in diametric opposition to the Lebanese state’s general Western and Arab Gulf leanings.

For the first time in more than half a century, the Syrian tectonic plate — of which Lebanon is a part — is aligning in the same direction as the Lebanese state. Over 2026, if Ahmed al-Sharaa's government strengthens its legitimacy and authority (particularly in the areas abutting Lebanon), continues to prevent an Iranian return, and consolidates its alignment with the Gulf, Turkey, Europe, and the United States, then those conditions inexorably favor the continued strengthening of the Lebanese state and army as well as the further weakening of Hizballah.

After more than 35 years under the Assad regime and the allied Iranian thumb, Lebanon in early 2025 elected new sovereign leadership to the presidency and government and has deployed the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) on the first phase of reclaiming state sovereignty. As 2026 approaches, the government and the LAF need to show the regional and international community that the disarmament and replacement of Hizballah in all areas south of the Litani River is full and complete, and they need to make much clearer what their plan is to neutralize and eventually disarm Hizballah north of the river.

There is a critical role for the US-led International Monitoring and Implementation Mechanism (IMIM) to confirm the LAF’s regaining of operational control south of the Litani. At that point, Israel should be pressed to make meaningful concessions in terms of its lingering occupation and continued airstrikes in that zone, as originally agreed in the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement of November 2024. A successful conclusion of this phase should be met with stepped-up support for the LAF from the regional and international community. The US-led mechanism should also clarify and agree with the LAF what the next steps in neutralizing and disarming Hizballah north of the Litani will be in 2026.

It is a good sign that direct talks between Lebanon and Israel — through the IMIM — have been expanded to include civilian participation, and that process should be encouraged. In the meantime, the Lebanese government needs to speed up its economic reform work by sending what is known as the Gap Law — designed to reallocate national debt and unlock support from the International Monetary Fund — to parliament before the end of the year.

In the midst of all this, Lebanon is facing elections — either in May or perhaps in the summer — and it is too early to say whether they will significantly reshuffle the executive branch, i.e., the government, or not.

There is reason to be cautiously hopeful about Lebanon in 2026 and beyond. If Syria holds together and moves forward, that will provide favorable winds for Lebanon. If the LAF consolidates its work south, and then north, of the Litani and receives significant additional support, it can continue to strengthen the state’s backbone. And if parliament — which is riven with financial and factional interests — passes a reasonable version of the Gap Law, then the coming year could see the reform and revival of the banking system.

But Lebanon is moving slowly in the right direction; the regional and international community should continue to press the state to move quickly and decisively while also doubling down on providing empowering support to the LAF to sustain the positive momentum.

Follow: @paul_salem

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Stability but not security for Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2026

Marvin G. Weinbaum
Senior Fellow

Pakistan and Afghanistan have reason for satisfaction but much to account for at the threshold of 2026. Pakistan is enjoying its new-found political embrace with the United States, reversing Washington’s decades-long tilt toward its nemesis India. The country has been able to enter a transactional relationship with the US that could enable Islamabad to revive their once close security partnership. Pakistan has also concluded a mutual defense arrangement with Saudi Arabia that may yield sizable economic investment along with debt relief. With its large, readily deployable military, the country made strong progress during 2025 in realizing its ambition of playing gendarme for the region and being accepted as a leading actor in the affairs of the Islamic world. Entering the new year, Pakistan’s macroeconomic indicators trend positive. The once high inflation rate has dropped sharply, remittances are up, and foreign reserve holdings have strengthened. The Shehbaz Sharif government has as well negotiated with President Donald Trump’s administration a comparatively favorable tariff agreement. There has been very little progress, however, in introducing needed structural reforms of the economic system or in managing its heavy fiscal deficits and massive external debt.

Politically, the government seems secure and is thought likely to finish out its term of office. This stability comes at a high price though. Little remains of the country’s democratic system. The political opposition is increasingly cast as a national security threat, and public trust in the system continues to erode. The recent years of hybrid military-civilian rule have given way to a virtual military dictatorship. Field Marshal Asim Munir has overseen the dismantling of the major opposition party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf through arrests and the imprisonment of its leader Imran Khan on a raft of mostly insubstantial if not fraudulent charges. The military has its thumb on a beholden Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government, a pliant parliament, and now with an amended constitution, a wholly subordinated judiciary. But while the government may be well in hand, the state is increasingly insecure. Attacks carried out mainly by the terrorist organization Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan spiked in 2025, and federal authority has eroded as it contends with an insurgency-plagued Balochistan and opposition-governed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. With 2026 there are fresh worries of another war erupting with India and a wider conflict with the Taliban regime.

In Afghanistan, after nearly four and a half years in power, the Afghan Taliban remain the dominant force across nearly all of the country. Despite some disagreement among the regime’s leadership over the direction provided by its hard inner core, the Taliban remain organizationally cohesive and united in their mission to carry forward their own brand of Islam. Pressure on the regime to change is inconsistent and largely ineffective. The Taliban pay little price for rejecting repeated calls for a more inclusive Afghan leadership and a more enlightened treatment of the country’s women. While the international community — save for Russia — continues to deny the government in Kabul the full legitimacy it seeks through formal diplomatic recognition, in recent years more than two dozen states have accorded it de facto political recognition and several have opened embassies. The regime has meanwhile withstood the pressure to yield from the US’s elimination of its humanitarian aid program and reduced contributions to United Nations food assistance — on which more than 65% of the population relies. It has also weathered thus far the stress on the economy from the repatriation of more than three million Afghan emigrants forced from Iran and Pakistan. If Afghanistan’s financial system remains relatively stable, it is due in no small part to US financial transactions that have firmed up the banking system in order to stave off economic collapse and a new surge of refugees. The coming year could pose a strong test for Taliban rule, especially if there is a major escalation of its military faceoff with Pakistan and Afghanistan takes center stage in the subcontinent’s enduring India-Pakistan rivalry. 

Follow: @mgweinbaum

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Looming oil oversupply may impose fiscal constraints on Gulf producers

Colby Connelly
Senior Fellow

With a tumultuous 2025 nearly in the rearview mirror, Gulf oil and gas producers will continue working toward regional stability, due in no small part to the desire to promote ongoing economic growth. The initial public offering (IPO) boom that began in 2022 largely continued through 2025, and Gulf capitals will be eager to maintain the flow of investments into their countries while sovereign funds remain on the hunt for attractive assets across the globe.

As ever, the trajectory of the global oil supply and demand balance will weigh heavily on the ambitions of Gulf states both at home and abroad. Oil markets are expected to experience some degree of surplus next year, though the actual scale of the surplus continues to be a matter of debate among market watchers, with more recent forecasting pointing to a narrower glut than was expected earlier in the year. For context, a market surplus is a dynamic in which oil supplied to the market exceeds demand from consumers, thus exerting downward pressure on prices. Oil prices were already subdued in 2025 despite a range of geopolitical risk factors and a healthier than expected macroeconomic landscape, suggesting that the price environment in 2026 may potentially be even softer than this year’s has been.

By many expectations, a surplus in 2026 will push benchmark oil prices down into the $50 per barrel (bbl) range. While this is not a catastrophic outcome for Gulf producers, prices remaining in this range for a prolonged period will have a pronounced effect on the fiscal position of regional states. Not all regional producers are equally well positioned to weather the storm though. Saudi Arabia expects to run a budget deficit of $44 billion in 2026 but will have little trouble addressing that shortfall by raising debt or scaling back some of its mega-project ambitions, which it has already done to some degree. Kuwait’s return to debt markets after an eight-year absence will head off the need for it to draw from sovereign wealth funds to fill its fiscal gap. Iraq, by contrast, is currently in a state of government formation after its recent election and has no budget for 2026. If its fiscal trajectory for the last three years is any sort of guide, however, Baghdad will need $70/bbl oil to balance its budget, an outcome that is highly unlikely in the coming year.

Although the most powerful members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Plus (OPEC+) — with the exception of Russia — are located in the Gulf, the group’s recent agreement to carry out comprehensive assessments of its members’ oil production capacity makes cuts highly unlikely in 2026. Firstly, group members had long been seeking an opportunity to unwind deep production cuts that began in 2022 and still remain in place to various extents. But perhaps more importantly, the start of the aforementioned assessments next year will provide no incentive whatsoever for member states to cut production, as the results of said assessments will provide a baseline for where the group sets production quotas in the future. As a result, the group is unlikely to pursue a strategy that involves cutting production again, and even were it to do so, it would be difficult to foresee a high level of compliance while capacity assessments are ongoing throughout the year.

This will leave regional oil producers with limited room for maneuverability in 2026. Though the subdued price environment will still likely be far from the worst of what producers around the world have seen in recent years, some constraints are probably on the horizon. This is likely to have a significant impact on Gulf states pledging major investments in the United States, as well as producers like Iraq where the relative stability of the past few years hangs in the balance.

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US-Chinese tech competition in the Gulf will heat up next year

John Calabrese
Senior Fellow

As President Donald Trump’s second administration continues to crystallize its Middle East policy, 2026 is shaping up to be a year defined less by traditional security concerns and more by intensifying great-power competition over technology, investment, and influence — especially in the Gulf.

The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, in particular, are moving rapidly to position themselves as global hubs for artificial intelligence (AI), advanced computing, and data-driven industries. Qatar too is developing extensive AI infrastructure. This shift is forcing the United States to adapt, both to maintain its strategic foothold and to prevent China from anchoring itself in the region’s emerging technological architecture. 

The Gulf monarchies are now major buyers and hosts of AI infrastructure, sovereign labs, and hyperscale data centers. Their access to advanced chips and cloud partners along with growing data-governance influence is enhancing their geopolitical leverage. For Washington, the issue is whether these systems run on US technology or on Chinese platforms with competing regulatory norms and security risks. The task is to secure supply chains without appearing heavy-handed and to match export controls with credible cooperation. 

Traditional security challenges — Iran’s nuclear trajectory and regional proxy activity — remain central but are now intertwined with technology. Gulf partners want defense capabilities rooted in cyber resilience, data protection, and AI-enabled warning systems. The US leads in these areas, though diplomatic friction risks creating openings for Beijing. The 2025 Gulf-US Summit underscored this with AI-driven threat detection, autonomous systems, and stronger cyber and data protocols. Moreover, US weapons’ digital lock-in creates enduring dependencies that give Washington leverage Beijing cannot match. 

Economic competition will shape the year ahead. China’s broad investment presence still appeals to Gulf states pursuing technology partnerships, while their sovereign wealth funds are directing major capital into US tech — leverage Washington is beginning to harness. Gulf governments are balancing engagement in China’s Digital Silk Road with US security priorities. Trump’s Gulf tour and the US-Saudi AI Strategic Partnership signal a push to curb China’s digital influence. To stay competitive in 2026, the US will have to offer better financing, clearer regulation, and deeper public-private ties. 

Finally, standards and norms — data governance, AI regulation, and digital sovereignty — will become a more explicit arena of competition. Beijing has been proactive in promoting alternative frameworks. Washington will need to lead more visibly, expand regional capacity-building, and show that partnership with the US delivers both technological advantages and long-term stability. 

In short, an important aspect of the US Middle East agenda in 2026 will depend on Washington’s ability to pair its traditional security role with a credible technology strategy — one capable of meeting Gulf partners’ rising expectations and blunting China’s accelerating push into the region’s digital and defense ecosystems. 

 

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images