Levant

The spotlight on US policy in the Middle East remains focused on talks with Iran, with a third round set for Oman this coming weekend after discussions in Rome on April 19 offered some signs of progress. But a growing humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip and the stalled efforts to safely return hostages held by Hamas remain the biggest challenges that President Donald Trump’s administration has yet to address successfully.

On April 12, the United States and Iran wrapped up their first round of renewed diplomatic talks in Muscat, with round two set for April 19, in Rome. In the interim, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is in Moscow to coordinate with the Russians. But the real breakthrough will not come from nuclear talks alone — it will require confronting the region’s most explosive fault line: the Iranian-Israeli standoff. Russia claims it can help.

It is no surprise that both Iran and the United States have approached their first diplomatic engagement in four years with wariness. There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical about the probability of the negotiations culminating in a deal. But it would be a mistake to assume that the conditions in 2025 are the same as existed in 2015. Time is not on the Iranians’ side now and changes afoot in the Middle East and the broader global community give Iran an incentive to move toward an agreement, assuming that Washington is sincere and realistic in its negotiations with Tehran.

For months, Turkey’s government has been trying to accomplish three major tasks simultaneously or nearly so to solidify its hold on power at home and enhance its influence in the broader region. Its three-pronged approach to fulfilling that goal consists of seeking to 1) crush democracy and destroy the political opposition in Turkey by bringing serious criminal charges against Ekrem İmamoğlu, the popular mayor of Istanbul; 2) bring Turkey’s pro-Kurdish party into a coalition to win the next national election with current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan continuing his 22-year rule; and 3) leverage its new and powerful influence in Syria to neutralize Kurdish power in the northeast and in the Syrian national government.

The biggest development this past week in the Middle East policy of Trump’s second administration was the initiation of talks between the United States and Iran. This small sign of hope for diplomatic progress comes at a time when the administration continues to implement an assertive and unpredictable economic unilateralism that has roiled global markets and reduced trust and confidence between the United States and most close international partners. Brian Katulis unpacks three things to watch closely as Trump’s Iran policy evolves and his broader national security approach unfolds.

For much of the past two decades, ISIS has enjoyed favorable conditions in Syria, but since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024, dynamics have changed. With Assad’s departure, ISIS lost its long-standing and vitally important safe haven in Syria’s central desert and its most significant driver for recruitment. The results — so far — have been dramatic.

(This episode was recorded on Monday, April 7).

In this episode of Middle East Focus, hosts Alistair Taylor and Matthew Czekaj are joined by Eran Etzion, former deputy head of the Israeli National Security Council, for a revealing look inside Israel’s most pressing challenges.

US President Donald Trump surprised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by publicly announcing “direct” talks between the United States and Iran set to take place later this week. The American president also unleashed global economic uncertainty by announcing simultaneous, unexpectedly high tariffs on dozens of countries around the world — including a 17% duty on Israel — and kicking off an escalating global trade war.

Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s far-right National Rally, was convicted of embezzling EU funds and barred from running for office for five years, effectively disqualifying her from the 2027 presidential race. Meanwhile in Turkey, Ekrem İmamoğlu, mayor of Istanbul and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s most formidable rival, was arrested on corruption charges and jailed, just as he was poised to become the opposition’s presidential candidate. Both Le Pen and Turkish officials are now pointing to each other to justify their own actions.

Almost immediately after the start of the conflict in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his governing coalition began a concerted effort to persuade first the European Union and then the United States to pressure Egypt to accept Palestinian refugees. Egypt refused and continues to do so. Capitulating is not in Cairo’s national interest and bullying it will only backfire.

President Donald Trump confirmed this week that he plans to travel to Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries later this spring. This visit will bring the region into sharper focus at a time when Trump’s priorities have focused closer to home and on his unique brand of economic warfare.

President Donald Trump is focused on realizing two transformative breakthroughs that his predecessors failed to accomplish: an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict, centered on a tripartite US-Saudi-Israeli deal, and an agreement between the US and Iran. Both would be historic achievements. So far, however, progress in each case has proven difficult and plodding.

The leaked Signal chat among top US administration officials discussing military strikes against the Houthis laid bare the central problems with Trump 2.0’s nascent national security approach: a strong inclination to prioritize tactics and propaganda in statecraft without a clear and practical strategic framework to deal with the biggest challenges in the world and in the Middle East.

Iran is accumulating enough near-weapons-grade enriched uranium to build a nuclear weapon within weeks or months, not years. President Donald Trump, having withdrawn the United States in 2018 from the nuclear deal that would have postponed that possibility, is now appealing for negotiations with Tehran. But in the Middle East, the nuclear question does not concern only Iran.