Putting America first in the Middle East

Without question, the formation of the Abraham Accords was the greatest foreign policy achievement of Donald Trump’s first term as president. The major step toward Arab-Israeli normalization was a blow to the Iranian regime’s ambitions for regional hegemony, took pressure off American resources, and provides a glimpse of what a future of peace might look like for the Middle East. Expanding the accords ought to be a major goal of Trump’s second term in office.

Sadly, the effects of the Biden administration’s total foreign policy incompetence make achieving any kind of peace in the region unlikely. Its hasty decision to retreat from Afghanistan was among the first in a series of signals of weakness that emboldened Iran and set back Arab-Israeli normalization. If Trump wants to restore American strength, he will need to demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that the era of liberal “restraint” has ended.

Last week, a working group from the Vandenberg Coalition released a new report with recommendations for an “America First” agenda in the region that would do just that.

“As the Trump administration inherits a complex global threat landscape due to Russia’s war in Ukraine and Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific,” the report reads, “it is vital to ensure the Middle East does not similarly fall to adversarial interests.”

Read more in the Washington Examiner.