Where do US presidential candidates stand on major Middle East issues?

Special Where do US presidential candidates stand on major Middle East issues?
Whoever replaces President Joe Biden in the White House will face the twin challenges of the Gaza conflict and the looming threat of a full- scale war in the Middle East. (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 02 September 2024
Follow

Where do US presidential candidates stand on major Middle East issues?

Where do US presidential candidates stand on major Middle East issues?
  • From bolstering US-Gulf relations to preventing a regional war, candidates offer both conflicting and convergent visions
  • Republican and Democrat nominees are aligned on ties with Saudi Arabia, but could diverge on response to Gaza conflict

LONDON: With the ongoing conflict in Gaza, the looming threat of a full-scale war in the Middle East, a stalemate in Ukraine, and intensifying competition between the US and China, America’s 47th president will face multiple foreign policy challenges.

Indeed, international affairs could prove even more demanding than domestic economic concerns for the incoming administration, with implications for national security, the price of commodities, and America’s standing in the world.

And while uncertainty hangs over the trajectory of the next US president’s Middle East policy, there are indications it will broadly align with the status quo, with regional alliances playing a key role in helping Washington address current and emerging challenges.




Saudi-US partnership, built on more than 70 years of friendship, has been strengthened by exchange opportunities promoting mutual understanding. (AN archives)

Analysts believe America’s cooperation with Gulf states, notably with regional leader Saudi Arabia, will continue to yield strategic benefits in areas including energy security and regional stability.

Norman Roule, a former senior US intelligence official, told Arab News: “There is no shortage of areas in which the US and its partners in the region, especially Saudi Arabia, can cooperate.”

Vital growth areas for the US and Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia, include trade, defense, energy, artificial intelligence, space, communications, environmental technology and strategic investments.




Cooperation on space exploration is one of the rising features of Saudi-US partnership. (AN archives)

Despite a rocky start early in his presidency, President Joe Biden has upheld America’s long-standing security, educational and institutional ties with Saudi Arabia. This partnership, built on more than 70 years of friendship, has been strengthened by exchange opportunities promoting mutual understanding.

“The next US president and administration can build on the work of its predecessors by reinforcing existing collaboration with regional allies,” Joe Macaron, a fellow at the Washington-based Wilson Center, told Arab News.

This appears to be high on the agenda for both of the main party candidates — Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump — both of whom view Riyadh as an important partner for Washington.

Throughout his term as president, from 2017 to 2021, Trump placed Saudi Arabia at the heart of his Middle East agenda, viewing the Kingdom as a key business partner and an ally against Iran’s malign influence in the region.

Likewise, Harris, who replaced Biden as the Democratic nominee in July, has acknowledged Riyadh as an important partner.




US Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has acknowledged Saudi Arabia as an important partner of the US. (Reuters photo) 

In 2019, she told the Council on Foreign Relations that the US and Saudi Arabia “still have mutual areas of interest, such as counterterrorism, where the Saudis have been strong partners,” and stressed the need for continued coordination.

However, Macaron emphasized that “as challenges and new geopolitical trends” continue to emerge in the Middle East, “US interests are at stake in the next four years.

“The US can potentially enhance trade and cooperation, but most importantly the expectation is for the US to have a clear and predictable approach to the Middle East,” he said.

Failure to do so could have dangerous consequences. For Roule, “the region’s broken states,” including the Palestinian territories, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, “cannot be ignored,” as “doing so makes them vulnerable to Iran, Iranian proxies and terrorism.”

“Sudan, Yemen and Libya stand out as areas where much more work needs to be done,” he said. “The end of the Gaza war will bring highly expensive reconstruction projects that will require careful and long-term management.”




When the Gaza war ends, the US and other countries have much work to do to reconstruct a nation laid to waste by Israel in revenge against the Hamas invasion on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. (Reuters)

Israel’s assault on Gaza, which came in retaliation for the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, has threatened to spill over into neighboring countries, including Lebanon and Syria, raising concerns about the potential for a regional war pitting Israel and Iran and its proxies.

As the US is Israel’s biggest financial and military backer, the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza and the possibility of a full-scale Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon have become key issues in the US election race.

While reaffirming his staunch support for Israel, Trump has urged the Israeli government to quickly conclude its military operation in Gaza, saying the prolonged war is damaging Israel’s global image.

In an interview he gave in April, Trump said Israel needed to “finish what they started” and “get it over with fast” because it was “absolutely losing the PR war.”

“You’ve got to get it over with, and you have to get back to normalcy. And I’m not sure that I’m loving the way they’re doing it, because you’ve got to have victory. You have to have a victory, and it’s taking a long time,” he said on the “The Hugh Hewitt Show.”




Donald Trump has voiced concerns that conflict in the Middle East could drag the US into a third world war scenario. (AP photo)

Harris, too, has been clear about her support for Israel’s security and its right to exist. Despite opposing an arms embargo on Israel, the vice president has said she and Biden are working to end the conflict.

Since the launch of her presidential campaign in July, Harris has sought strike a balance between reaffirming US support for Israel and expressing sympathy for Palestinian civilians — mirroring Biden’s approach to the conflict.

In her speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last week, she said: “Let me be clear, I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself. At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating … The scale of suffering is heartbreaking.”

 

IN NUMBERS

40k+ US troops and contractors in the Middle East.

• 7.5k Personnel aboard two aircraft carrier groups deployed in the region.

For her part, Green Party candidate Jill Stein has been a vocal advocate for Palestinian rights, openly vowing in several media appearances and social media posts to “end the Gaza genocide.”

Earlier this month, she also slammed Israel in a post on X for “attempting to drag the US into escalations on the brink of WWIII.

“We are seeing ourselves on the verge of potentially nuclear conflicts, which is terrifying,” she said, referring to the possibility of all-out war between Israel and Iran.

More than 40,000 US military personnel deployed across the Middle East, including in Iraq, Syria and Jordan, are at risk of being drawn into a broader conflict should regional tensions escalate.




A US Army soldier hands out candy to children while on joint patrol with local forces on May 25, 2021 near the Turkish border in northeastern Syria. (Getty Images)

Trump has also voiced concerns that conflict in the Middle East could drag the US into a third world war scenario. “Who is negotiating for us in the Middle East? Bombs are dropping all over the place!” he posted on X.

“Let’s not have World War lll, because that’s where we’re heading!”

Fears of an all-out war between Israel and Iran have intensified in recent weeks following Israel’s suspected killing of Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh in the Iranian capital, Tehran, on July 31 and of Hezbollah number two Fuad Shukr in Beirut on July 30.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, immediately threatened Israel with a “harsh punishment” for the suspected killings. Iran’s security chief Ali Akbar Ahmadian, meanwhile, told Mehr news agency that “all fronts of the resistance will take revenge for Haniyeh’s blood.”




Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attends the funeral prayer of the Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Tehran in late July. (Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)

On Aug. 25, Hezbollah launched hundreds of missiles at Israeli targets, marking the onset of its retaliation for its slain commander. Shortly beforehand, Israel launched a wave of preemptive airstrikes aimed at thwarting Hezbollah’s barrage.

All of the US presidential candidates have expressed a desire to prevent a broader war in the Middle East, yet their specific strategies for this remain unclear. One thing they appear to share in common, however, is a commitment to normalization.

“At a time of great political polarization in US politics, there is an emerging consensus on the importance of deepening and broadening the process of normalizations between Israel and America’s Arab partners,” Firas Maksad, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC, told Arab News.

“The style and pace might differ depending on who is elected to the White House, but not the strategic trajectory.”

Opinion

This section contains relevant reference points, placed in (Opinion field)

In 2020, Bahrain and the UAE signed the US-brokered Abraham Accords, designed to normalize relations between Israel and Arab states.

Macaron believes “it is paramount for the next US administration to define its objectives in the Middle East beyond managing chaos.”

At the moment, the US is “reactive to developments in the Middle East as it manages crises erupting one after the other, which includes managing both allies and foes.”




Continuing threats by Yemen's Houthi militia against commercial vessels passing through the Red Sea remains a major concern not just for the US but the whole world. (REUTERS)

He added: “The US is being tested to control the impulses of an increasingly aggressive approach of the Israeli government while continuing to deter Iran and its proxies without provoking a direct confrontation.

“Ultimately, the US must be proactive by advancing its separate interests and by setting limits when needed for both its foes and allies.”

Former intelligence official Roule believes that an effective US foreign policy for the Middle East must include three elements.

“First, the approach must be consistent and clear that our policy will reap benefits for both the US and our partners, as well as deterrence against Iran and its proxies,” he said.

“Next, the next administration must do more to build a bipartisan approach to the region with Congress.

“Last, our approach should involve frequent and senior engagement with partners in the region, who will sometimes better understand the opportunities and challenges before us.”
 

 


Second round of Gaza polio vaccination ‘more complicated’: UN

Second round of Gaza polio vaccination ‘more complicated’: UN
Updated 6 sec ago
Follow

Second round of Gaza polio vaccination ‘more complicated’: UN

Second round of Gaza polio vaccination ‘more complicated’: UN
  • The vaccination campaign began after the first confirmed polio case in 25 years was reported in the besieged Gaza Strip
GENEVA: A campaign starting next week to give hundreds of thousands of children in war-stricken Gaza the necessary second dose of polio vaccine will be “more complicated” than the first round, the UN said Friday.
The United Nations agencies for health and for children said they were gearing up to start providing follow-up doses to some 591,700 children under the age of 10 across Gaza from Monday.
That follows a first vaccination round implemented from September 1 to 12, which Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization’s representative for the Palestinian territories, hailed Friday as “a massive achievement.”
The vaccination campaign began after the first confirmed polio case in 25 years was reported in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Like the last round, the upcoming campaign will take part in three phases, aided by localized “humanitarian pauses” in fighting: first in central Gaza, then in the south and finally in the hardest-to reach north of the territory.
Speaking via video-link from Jerusalem, Peeperkorn told reporters he had “confidence” in the hundreds of teams ready to roll out the second stage of the campaign.
But he acknowledged he was “concerned about the developments in the north,” where Israel has dramatically escalated its operations and has issued a string of evacuation orders.
“We are concerned,” agreed Jean Gough of UNICEF.
“The conditions on the ground are really more complicated this time,” she told the briefing, also speaking from Jerusalem.
She emphasized the need to fully vaccinate at least 90 percent of children to ensure polio does not spread.
“It will be absolutely critical that not only the localized humanitarian pauses are respected in the north, but also that people are not forced to move from one area to another,” she said.
Gough stressed that the UN had held numerous meetings with Israeli authorities and had received confirmation from Cogat, an Israeli government agency, that the humanitarian pauses would be implemented.
“This worked in the last round and we are confident” it will work again, she said.
“It is difficult, but it is possible.”
The Gaza war began on October 7 last year, when Hamas militants stormed across the border and carried out the worst attack in Israeli history.
The militants took 251 people hostage in an attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
According to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, 42,065 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, a majority civilians, figures the UN has described as reliable.

Iranian internal debate key to next phase in Israel stand-off

Iranian internal debate key to next phase in Israel stand-off
Updated 46 min 41 sec ago
Follow

Iranian internal debate key to next phase in Israel stand-off

Iranian internal debate key to next phase in Israel stand-off
  • Newly-elected reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian extended an apparent olive branch to the West at the UN
  • Khamenei vowed that Iran’s militant allies, primarily the Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah, would not “back down”

PARIS: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is Iran’s undisputed number one, but in the pecking order beneath the supreme leader are different factions competing for influence as the country maps out how to react to growing setbacks and escalating confrontation with Israel, experts say.
While some insiders are seen as favoring negotiation, others believe in using force, with the outcome of the behind-the-scenes debate helping to determine whether the current tit-for-tat cycle spirals into a full-blown war.
In a rare public sermon last week, Khamenei vowed that Iran’s militant allies, primarily the Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah, would not “back down” in their war against Israel, the Islamic republic’s sworn enemy which he said “does not have long to live.”
Yet last month, newly-elected reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian extended an apparent olive branch to the West at the UN, proposing the revival of the 2015 international nuclear deal that was unilaterally abandoned in 2018 by then-US president Donald Trump.
Experts say that as Israel prepares its response to Iran’s October 1 missile attack, Khamenei remains keen to avoid all-out war while showing the Islamic republic can still stand up to its enemies.
The supreme leader, who is chosen for life and has been in power since the death of Iran’s revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, has long been seen as seeking to balance out the various factions in Iran before deliberately and, sometimes slowly, coming to a decision.
“There were certainly dozens of hours of meetings and analysis before deciding on the details of the strike against Israel,” said Pierre Razoux, research director at the Mediterranean Foundation for Strategic Studies (FMES).
“It’s similar to a chess champion studying all possible moves and openings with their team before making a play.”
While Khamenei is the ultimate decision-maker, Iran’s power structure is deeply complex with the president often only having a limited influence in foreign policy decisions.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the regime’s ideological army which maintains links with Iran’s regional proxies, plays a crucial role, as do low-profile but powerful figures within the office of the supreme leader including his son Mojtaba who is sometimes seen as a successor.
“Despite its authoritarian nature, the Islamic Republic has always had fractious factions that disagreed over the way in which they (Iran) should interact with the outside world,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iran expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) in Washington, told AFP.
The president “does not control or set foreign and security policy. Rather, he is there to offer a change in style and not substance,” he added.
While there may be intense debates behind closed doors over strategy, it would be extremely unusual for such splits to be revealed in public.
“Khamenei adopts his decisions after consulting with members of the Iranian Supreme National Council, which, under the leadership of the reformists of the Iranian government, includes both conservative and reformist officials,” explained Eva Koulouriotis, an independent expert on the region.
Positions change with events.
When Israel assassinated Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, Khamenei initially supported “a tactical retreat, which was the opinion of the reformists,” says Koulouriotis.
However, when Israel killed Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut in late September, Khamenei decided that a stronger response was necessary.
“So he adopted the opinion of the conservatives in the IRGC, who called on him to respond to the assassination of Haniyeh to deter Israel,” said Koulouriotis.
This led to the launch of some 200 Iranian missiles on Israel on October 1. Were Israel to now launch a major attack in response, pressure would mount on Khamenei to respond more than just in kind.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah is not just an ally for Iran. It is considered Tehran’s most crucial asset, a so-called “crown jewel” boasting a formidable arsenal of drones, rockets, and missiles of various ranges, and claiming 100,000 fighters.
Some experts suggest that Hezbollah’s long-range missiles are tasked with defending Iran’s nuclear facilities, effectively serving as a sort of remote defense shield.
Iran’s strategy in the coming months and years is therefore likely to depend on a complex mix of regional dynamics, pressure from global powers, and internal factional battles.
“Given Iran’s repeated setbacks abroad, especially the loss of Hezbollah, considered its foreign policy linchpin, the radical wing succeeded in convincing the supreme leader that restoring Iran’s credibility was essential,” said analyst Hasni Abidi, director of the Center for Arab and Mediterranean World Studies (CERNAM) in Geneva.


Lebanon PM urges UN resolution on ceasefire with Israel

Lebanon PM urges UN resolution on ceasefire with Israel
Updated 11 October 2024
Follow

Lebanon PM urges UN resolution on ceasefire with Israel

Lebanon PM urges UN resolution on ceasefire with Israel
  • Lebanon’s foreign ministry would ask the UN Security Council to issue a resolution calling for a ‘full and immediate ceasefire’

BEIRUT: Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Friday urged the United Nations to pass a resolution calling for an “immediate” ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.
In a televised address, Mikati emphasized his government’s commitment to deploy the army on the border with Israel as part of a cessation of hostilities, and said Hezbollah agreed on the matter.
Mikati said Lebanon’s foreign ministry would ask the UN Security Council to issue a resolution calling for a “full and immediate ceasefire.”
He said his government was committed to “the full application of Resolution 1701,” which was adopted in 2006 and called for the Lebanese army and peacekeepers to be the only armed forces deployed in the south of the country.
Lebanon is committed to “the deployment of the army in the south and the bolstering of its presence along the border,” he said.
“Hezbollah is in agreement on this issue,” he added.
A government source had previously said that Hezbollah informed Lebanese authorities it had accepted a ceasefire with Israel on September 27, the day an Israeli strike killed its leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Previously, the Iran-backed militant group had said it would only accept a truce if there was also one with its Palestinian ally Hamas in Gaza.
Mikati also condemned attacks on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon as a “crime,” with peacekeepers targeted two days in a row by Israeli forces, according to Lebanese official media and the foreign ministry.
A year of hostilities has killed more than 2,100 people in Lebanon and forced more than one million people to flee, according to Lebanese authorities.


Iranian president says Israel, backed by West, is ‘killing innocent people’

Iranian president says Israel, backed by West, is ‘killing innocent people’
Updated 11 October 2024
Follow

Iranian president says Israel, backed by West, is ‘killing innocent people’

Iranian president says Israel, backed by West, is ‘killing innocent people’
  • Masoud Pezeshkian: ‘I would like to say to Israel: stop killing innocent people. Stop bombing residential buildings, people who have nothing anyway’

MOSCOW: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Friday that Israel should “stop killing innocent people,” and that its actions in the Middle East were backed by the United States and the European Union.
Pezeshkian was speaking to a Russian state TV reporter on the sidelines of an international meeting in Turkmenistan.
Israel in recent weeks has sharply escalated its assault on Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, including by killing its top leaders, sending ground troops into southern Lebanon and bombing the capital Beirut.
An Israeli strike late on Thursday in the heart of Beirut killed 22 people and injured more than 100, Lebanese authorities said.
Israel says the operations in Lebanon aim to allow tens of thousands of its residents to return home after being forced to leave northern Israel due to Hezbollah rocket fire over the past year.
Hezbollah is firing at Israel in support of its ally Hamas, which triggered Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza following an Oct. 7 attack on communities in southern Israel.
“I would like to say to Israel: stop killing innocent people. Stop bombing residential buildings, people who have nothing anyway,” said Pezeshkian, accusing Israel of violating every kind of international agreement.
“It does this because it knows that the US and the European Union are behind it,” he said.
The Middle East remains on high alert for further escalation in the region, awaiting
Israel’s response to an Iranian missile strike on Oct. 1.


Leaders of Jordan and southern Europe meet in a bid to help de-escalate Middle East crisis

Leaders of Jordan and southern Europe meet in a bid to help de-escalate Middle East crisis
Updated 11 October 2024
Follow

Leaders of Jordan and southern Europe meet in a bid to help de-escalate Middle East crisis

Leaders of Jordan and southern Europe meet in a bid to help de-escalate Middle East crisis
  • Jordan’s King Abdullah will join the leaders of the so-called MED9 — including Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Slovenia, Portugal and Croatia
  • Leaders will also focus on helping clinch a ceasefire deal between Israeli forces and Hamas in the Gaza strip

PAPHOS: The leaders of nine southern European Union countries and Jordan are meeting in Cyprus on Friday to come up with ways to de-escalate the crisis in the Middle East that is threatening to engulf Lebanon and trigger a wider humanitarian crisis.
Jordan’s King Abdullah will join the leaders of the so-called MED9 — including Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Slovenia, Portugal and Croatia — as well as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to brainstorm initiatives aimed at protecting Lebanese civilians caught in the crossfire between Israel and Hezbollah.
The leaders will also focus on helping clinch a ceasefire deal between Israeli forces and Hamas in the Gaza strip in line with a UN Security Council resolution adopted unanimously in June.
Cyprus’ government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis said Thursday the Jordanian monarch’s presence at the meeting lends additional weight to the proceedings given his country’s role in helping peace efforts in the region.
The meeting comes amid reports of an international diplomatic effort to degrade Hezbollah’s political hold in Lebanon.
“We want the Lebanese people to decide who their leaders ought to be, bottom line, and that has been our position,” US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Wednesday. “We certainly don’t want to dictate to the people of Lebanon who their leader is, and we’re not going to ... we want them to be able to do it absent a terrorist organization putting a gun to their head, which is the situation that Lebanon has been in for decades now.”
“Ultimately, we hope that Hezbollah is degraded enough that they are less of a force in Lebanese politics,” he added.
According to Letymbiotis, King Abdullah will also discuss with the leaders way of further bolstering his country’s relations with the EU. The Jordanian monarch and Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides will put forward a joint proposal to create a regional firefighting hub in Cyprus through the permanent deployment of fire-fighting aircraft on the island nation to respond to regional emergencies.
Christodoulides will also raise EU efforts to deal with migration flows through the adoption a new asylum policy that would more evenly share the distribution of asylum seekers through all EU members. Cyprus is considered a front-line country that receives a significantly high numbers of asylum seekers relative to its population.
Climate change is also on the agenda as the east Mediterranean and the Middle East are considered particularly vulnerable areas to temperatures changes.
Christodoulides will also highlight Cyprus’ role in helping deliver humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza via a maritime corridor as well as a waystation for the repatriation of third-country nationals evacuated from Lebanon.
According to Letymbiotis, more than 2,400 third-country nationals from 20 countries have so far used Cyprus as a transfer point to their homeland.