Iran is the low hanging fruit of the anti-American axis

After Syrian rebels toppled Bashar Assad's regime, President-elect Donald Trump asserted that the U.S. will stay out of the civil war. He wanted to end wars, he said, not start them.

In reality, Trump will have a full plate of challenges early on in his administration to avert armed conflicts from spreading in the Middle East, Europe’s East and East Asia.

They are promoted by an anti-American axis, whose weakest link is Iran. If Tehran loses Syria, it will lose the land route to resupply Hezbollah and its coveted access to the Mediterranean. Trump also benefits from Israel’s decimation of Hamas and Hezbollah and Turkey’s support for anti-Assad forces to constrain the Iranian regime without going to war.  

The new U.S. administration will have to face wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and will need to prevent a third one, with China. In Europe, the Trump White House has to make a choice: either to support Ukraine with more firepower so that it is in a stronger position if ceasefire talks are to proceed or push Kyiv to surrender territory to Russia. It can consolidate a coalition of NATO countries to provide more significant volumes of weapons to Kyiv and pressure Moscow toward a ceasefire without legitimizing Russia’s seizure of Ukrainian territory. 

Prevention of a war over Taiwan is also a high priority for Washington, both strategically and economically. The U.S. certainly does not want the island’s massive chip manufacturing capacity falling into Beijing’s hands. However, America’s military may lack long-fire capabilities and navy vessels to bring overwhelming force against China’s navy threatening Taiwan.

China also possesses nuclear-armed ballistic missiles that are likely to overwhelm America’s anti-missile batteries. Therefore, U.S. economic pressures, such as tariffs and trade sanctions, followed by a negotiation process may actually reduce tensions. 

And then there is Iran. One significant difference between the outgoing and incoming U.S. administrations is that President Biden was not feared in the region. In contrast, the Trump national security team has an opportunity to demonstrate its determination in dealing more resolutely with America’s adversaries and cannot exclude military force to undercut Iran’s destructive policies.

However, as Trump believes in low oil prices to propel economic growth, he will seek to avoid an expanding war. If conflict embroils the Persian Gulf, Tehran is capable of mining the Strait of Hormuz and blocking the shipments of up to 30 percent of the world’s oil supplies and 20 percent of its LNG.

While Trump has also asserted that he will not allow Iran to possess nuclear weapons, he is likely to try a negotiated approach first. For that, he needs intermediaries who know the region and the players well.  

Trump’s second term is viewed among several Arab states as an opportunity for conducting more transactional relations with the U.S. that will benefit the region and curtail Iranian interference. Qatar is a pertinent example, with which Trump has a constructive history. Qatar helped former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to negotiate a deal with the Taliban that ended the Afghanistan quagmire.

The Trump team has already reached out to Qatar for help in returning American and Israeli hostages still held in Gaza. Qataris and Egyptians are the only ones with access to Hamas, not because of any political support, but because every U.S. administration since President G.W. Bush — as well as Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — has asked the Qataris to act as go-betweens. 

And to prevent Gaza and southern Lebanon from becoming wastelands with hundreds of thousands of radicalized Arabs, Qatar's financial muscle will also be needed to rebuild the infrastructure and rehabilitate the population. Qataris helped in the past, and it is time for them to step up now. In Trump’s second term, he will need both allies and capable intermediaries to help Washington to overcome mounting foreign policy challenges.

The anti-American axis is closely interconnected, whether in victory or defeat. Iran is already losing two allies in the Middle East with the ouster of Syria’s Assad regime by rebel forces and a beaten Hezbollah that will lack a land resupply route. Further reducing Tehran’s negative influence will also undercut Iran’s and Russia’s military support for Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis, diminish the Kremlin’s diplomatic, economic and security backing for Iran, and reverse Moscow’s attempts to pose as a pro-Arab and pro-Muslim power countering the U.S. throughout the region.

Russia’s loss of allies such as Syria and the diminishing of Iran will also weaken China’s Middle Eastern and global ambitions and its pressures against Taiwan.  

Janusz Bugajski is a Senior Fellow at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, D.C. and author of two new books: “Pivotal Poland: Europe’s Rising Power" and "Failed State: A Guide to Russia’s Rupture.”