Can U.S. Election Results Change the Reality of Wars in the Middle East?

The United States is gearing up for a critical presidential election in 2024, with the world watching to see how the outcome might impact U.S. foreign policy—particularly regarding Middle Eastern conflicts amid rising tensions and Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza.

In an opinion piece published in The Washington Post, Ishaan Tharoor speculated on the global landscape following the U.S. election, noting that the Middle East is in a state of upheaval, with Israel growing increasingly emboldened and rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran intensifying.

Tharoor highlighted the deadly cycle of retaliation between Israel and Iran, describing recent Israeli airstrikes on Iranian military targets as a response to missile attacks from Iran on October 1. Interestingly, Israeli forces avoided targeting nuclear or oil facilities in Iran, a move analysts see as an opportunity for Tehran to de-escalate.

In another report, The Washington Post quoted Danny Citrinowicz, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, saying, “The ball is now in Iran’s court.” Iranian officials have downplayed the strikes, though Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi asserted Iran’s right to defend itself against any external aggression.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration, which has backed Israel militarily against Iran, denied involvement in the attacks. Tharoor observed that Biden’s team has struggled to manage the fallout from the Gaza conflict, with high-ranking officials shuttling between Cairo, Doha, Amman, Riyadh, and Tel Aviv in hopes of containing the crisis. What began with Hamas’s attacks on October 7 has since escalated to a broader confrontation, pulling in Lebanon, Iran, and their allied groups, culminating in a full-scale conflict between Israel and Iran.

Tharoor argued that Middle Eastern tensions will likely remain similar in January, and ongoing hostilities in Gaza may persist, with thousands of Palestinians killed and millions displaced. Arab nations, including U.S.-allied Gulf states, are skeptical of any forthcoming “next-day” reconstruction and reconciliation plan.

The Israeli-Iranian conflict is expected to continue, if not intensify, with Lebanon enduring the displacement of nearly a fifth of its population due to Israeli aggression, while also facing pressure to establish a new political framework sidelining Hezbollah, Iran’s ally. Thus, the next U.S. president—whether Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump—will confront an Israeli government “attempting to reshape the terms of its conflicts,” as noted by Jon Alterman, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and head of its Middle East Program.

Israel’s security and political establishment have ramped up efforts to weaken both Hamas and Hezbollah, chipping away at Iran’s strategic assets. As The Washington Post reported, Trump extended full support to Netanyahu’s government, while the Biden administration has tried to restrain Israel from provoking an all-out conflict, albeit while continuing to send billions in military aid and shielding Israel from international sanctions.

Alterman questioned whether Israel’s attempts to alter the “fundamental equation” in the Middle East would succeed. However, despite repeated U.S. administrations’ intent to “pivot” away from the Middle East, he stated that the next president would face a crucial decision: has the U.S. freed itself to disengage from the region, or does it need to remain involved?

Prior to the events of October 7—and even in the months that followed—the Biden administration held to a vision of peace based on a historic normalization agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Such a breakthrough could reshape the Middle East, boosting Israel’s regional integration and expanding the Abraham Accords—the normalization deals established with a few Arab monarchies under Trump’s presidency. Some even envision a trade and cooperation corridor from India to Europe, sidelining Iran. Yet, as Vali Nasr of Johns Hopkins University put it, this vision has become “threadbare.”

Saudi Arabia has been cautious about normalization talks in the absence of a viable Palestinian state, a prospect largely ignored by many in Israel. Gaza’s war “echoes across the region,” said Paul Salem, president of the Middle East Institute, underscoring that the Abraham Accords were based on a flawed assumption that the Palestinian plight “no longer mattered.”

Tharoor noted that American leadership and pressure are vital, with Nasr urging that “the new administration must bolster America’s credibility as a superpower capable of enforcing order in the region, beginning with ending the wars in Gaza and Lebanon and establishing a viable regional security framework.” Without this, the U.S. risks being pulled into a broader, more prolonged regional conflict.

Tharoor asserted that while the U.S. has sought stability over the past decade, the status quo remains unsustainable. Salem observed that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “cannot mean entrenching occupation, blockade, repression, and injustice,” adding that such measures, including ongoing Palestinian displacement, ultimately harm Israelis in the long run.

The problem, however, is that Trump and leading Republicans in Congress have shown little interest in a “two-state solution” and, at times, openly endorsed Israel’s far-right settler movement. The Biden administration and Democrats, on the other hand, are similarly hesitant to risk alienating Israel’s leadership.

Tharoor emphasized that the lack of security and peace for both Israelis and Palestinians is part of a two-fold struggle, according to Salem. The other conflict centers on Iran’s political project, which, since the traumatic Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, has involved projecting its battles beyond its borders. This “forward defense” strategy, according to Salem, creates persistent instability across the region.

Tharoor argued that Iran’s perceived threat and its nuclear advancements—a legacy of Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal that had restricted Iran’s enrichment activities—will top the next U.S. president’s agenda. However, American politicians are cautious about direct confrontation, and the new administration, whether led by Harris or Trump, is likely to revisit the possibility of Israeli-Saudi normalization as a strategy to counter Iran and the influence of global rivals like China and Russia.

In Foreign Affairs, Karim Sadjadpour wrote that Saudi Arabia, once viewed as a problematic ally, is now a valued partner, and that a historic normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia under an American-Saudi defense pact ratified by the Senate would be a coveted achievement for any future U.S. administration, Democrat or Republican.

Among seasoned Middle East analysts in Washington, there is a sense of humility and caution, shaped by two decades of failures and upheavals that have curbed serious discussions about “regime change” in the region. In 2020, Philip Gordon, Harris’s senior national security adviser, reflected on U.S. interventionism in the Middle East, cautioning that “the next time U.S. leaders propose intervention to change a hostile regime, we can safely assume such a project would be more costly, less successful, and laden with unintended consequences.”