America Votes: What It Means for the Middle East
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Hi, I'm Ravi Agrawal, Foreign Policy's Editor-in-Chief. This is FPLive. Welcome to the show.

We're debuting a special series today. It's called America Votes, What It Means for the World. Every day this week, we're going to drop a new episode exploring how the two presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, agree or disagree on policy towards a particular region. And today, we're starting off with a part of the world that is in turmoil, the Middle East.

I'll remind our viewers that for years now, U.S. foreign policy leaders have looked to lessen their focus on the Middle East and instead look further east. The idea of the pivot to Asia, an idea that was announced by President Obama in November 2011, was in fact previewed a month earlier by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in an essay in Foreign Policy. And yet the Middle East keeps pulling the United States back in.

The current Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has made 11 trips to the region since October 7 last year. And we all know why, as Iran and Israel remain perilously close to all-out war. In the coming days, we will explore what we know about Trump and Harris' prospective foreign policies and how they might impact Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia.

Today, we'll start with the Middle East. I have two excellent guests with me. Stephen Cook is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of, most recently, The End of Ambition. He's also a columnist at FP. And Sanam Vakil is the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House. Like Stephen, she's been on this program before.

Remember, we've still got our special discount going. Go to foreignpolicy.com slash subscribe, type in the code FP100 at checkout and get $100 off your first year of the magazine. That is FP100, no spaces. The offer lasts just this week now. Don't miss out. Let's dive in. Sanam, Stephen, welcome back. Thanks for having me.

Great to have you both on. Stephen, let me start with you. Broad strokes in the Middle East, where do Trump and Harris have similar approaches? Where might they be different? That's a great question. And you'd be surprised to know that I get that question almost every day now. And it's also surprising when you dig a little deeper into things beyond our headlines, beyond our polarized politics, that at a level of abstraction,

President Trump and Vice President Harris's positions on a variety of important issues in the Middle East, whether it's the two state solution, whether it is U.S. policy towards Iran, whether it is regarding human rights and promotion of democratic reform in the region, are not all that different from each other.

on the two-state solution. They have obviously very different visions of what that two-state solution would look like if you go based on what President Trump's deal of the century was that he tabled during his one term in office. But nevertheless, they're both supportive of a two-state solution to bring the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians to an end. President Trump was often bellicose about Iran.

But his bellicosity hid the fact that what he was most interested in was putting pressure on the Iranians to bring them back to the negotiating table so that he can negotiate a better deal than the JCPOA. And at critical moments when it seemed like military force against Iran was called for,

he decided not to use military force. The administration that Vice President Harris has served has, for the first two and a half years, sought to draw the Iranians back into a JCPOA or some new deal that would put limits on Iran's nuclear program. So on those big issues, there may be a difference in style, a difference in rhetoric, but the ultimate policy goal of both candidates seems to me

very much the same. Sanam, I'm wondering if you can build on that, whether you agree, but it strikes me as well that Iran could be an area of emerging difference. I mean, in Washington, there's a bit of a debate going on about how exactly to use this current moment. There's in some quarters a school of thought that goes that Iran is weak.

And Israel and the United States should try and deal with its nuclear program once and for all. There is, of course, a school of thought that disagrees with that.

Thank you, Ravi. You know, I very much agree with Stephen's picture that he painted. There is much more alignment in terms of the end game for both President Trump or Harris administration. But of course, it's the approach and the tone that very much matters, particularly on Iran

I think it's important to pick apart what the intentions are, but build out what actually could be done. I think Iran is going to be one of the big crisis points for the next US president. It certainly is a growing pressure point for Europe and the UK. And obviously with the war in Gaza and Lebanon potentially spreading to Iran,

This is coming to a head. There has long been a debate in Washington about regime change or trying to change the regime. And this might seem like a moment for perhaps some more hawkish U.S. policymakers, but the reality is that neither candidate

is attracted to the process of regime change, which we saw play out very negatively for the United States in 2003 in the Iraq war and the subsequent 20-year investment that by many accounts in Washington but globally

didn't pay off and has facilitated U.S. deprioritization away from the Middle East. Regime change in Iran, of course, sounds like a dream. It could solve all of the regional problems. It could perhaps restore a balance of power, diplomatic ties between two states that have been adversarial for 46 years almost. But executing that regime change in a country that is

85 million in terms of population, but also without a real clear plan of what comes next, I think is something that we really have to draw a line under and acknowledge that in 2024, 2025, the United States isn't going to support that strategy or back any other country that thinks that's a viable option. And nobody is saying that out loud,

Because many people around President Trump have that ambition and would like to, in addition to perhaps ratcheting up more sanctions on Iran in order to bring them back to the negotiating table, would also like to throw more support to the Iranian people. So if the United States doesn't regime change in Iran, perhaps the Iranian people will do it instead.

Hmm. So Stephen, here's a question that kind of flips some of what we've been discussing so far. A lot of people often ask me, and I'm sure the two of you, how do Harris's policies differ from Biden's? I think on the Middle East in particular, that question is salient. What do we know? It's a very, very interesting question. And she hasn't actually given us a lot to go on. Of course, when it comes to the war in the Gaza Strip, there have been

particular moments when the vice president has demonstrated a certain amount of daylight, not a huge amount, but a certain amount of daylight between herself and the president that she serves. I think the two most famous ones now are in Selma, Alabama, where she talked about the need for a ceasefire. And then after her meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visited Washington and met

President Biden and now candidate for President Kamala Harris, in which she was very strong in saying that the war needed to end and had voiced her empathy for the Palestinian people. What that means in terms of her overall approach to the conflict, we're not quite sure. I think that it certainly at a rhetorical level,

President Harris will likely continue to offer her support for the Palestinian people. But does that translate into a change in the way in which the United States has supported Israel? You know, people focus on those statements or statements that President Biden had made. All the while, the United States has undertaken the longest continuous air bridge to the resupply of the Israel Defense Forces in Israel.

It's gone on over a year, almost 600 flights, probably now close to 200 ports of call of American ships delivering weaponry and material to the IDF. So this has been a fully supportive administration. Will she pull back from that?

The politics don't necessarily suggest that she will. But of course, you know, events can unfold in a way that she might decide that that there actually are red lines for an American partner in the Middle East. One of the interesting things in looking at American foreign policy in the region over decades now is that.

The American partners in the region have never been held accountable for anything that they've done. There are no red lines for them. I wonder whether there will be a red line for Israel in a Harris administration. There's no doubt that the politics of the U.S.-Israel relationship are changing, particularly in the Democratic Party. But I'm not sure that that change will catch up necessarily with a Harris administration.

Sanam, there's been a lot of reporting on Biden's almost preternaturally close ties to Israel, although he too has had real tensions of late with Prime Minister Netanyahu. So I have a two-part question for you. If Harris wins, should we expect the same? And if Trump wins, what changes regarding Israel?

I think those are really key questions. On Harris, you know, to be very honest, I think her impulse is to perhaps be a bit tougher on Israel, although she has made it abundantly clear that the U.S.-Israeli relationship

really is foundational. So I would imagine that she will try to distance herself, but the politics right now in the United States going into this very tight election perhaps have prevented her from

showing those differences. And in fact, what's really interesting to me, being abroad and watching the election, is that Harris's policies to the Middle East are becoming more aligned to what appears like a Republican position on the Middle East. The issues of deprioritization continue, but close security relationship with Israel,

and of course a pragmatism around the region, but there is no real depth or substance as to how to think of a political horizon that addresses Israel's security crisis, addresses the issue of Palestinian self-determination, and more broadly, there is no discussion on the issue of Iran, its advancing nuclear program, and in fact,

She was very tough on Iran and in fact elevated Iran as one of the principal U.S. security threats, which was, you know, I think quite alarming for many people who saw an opportunity of renewed diplomatic engagement with a new Iranian president seeking sanctions relief. So,

From Harris, I think there are a lot of question marks and she's very cautious and perhaps who she appoints around her will also be influential. I think she's a bit of a black box and so we can read whatever we want into her, but there's no guarantee as to what will come out for President Trump. Of course, from the Middle Eastern landscape, I think there is a lot of expectation that he will stop the war and that's because he has implied as such. And for a lot of

leaders around the region, but more broadly for citizens across multiple Middle Eastern countries, this is urgent. They would like to see the violence coming to an end, regular humanitarian aid being delivered to Gaza, but of course, the violence also stop in Lebanon and

That is the expectation, that Trump is going to pick up the phone to Prime Minister Netanyahu and put an end to this conflict. But I don't think that, again, here there is too much expectation that Trump will be able to deliver the magical two-state solution that some people are hoping for. The anticipation, of course, is that he will try to fund some way around his previous policy

engagement in the region to invest in an Israeli-Saudi normalization process. But here there's a caveat because over the past year and particularly over the past few weeks, the Saudi leadership from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman

to the Saudi foreign minister, Faisal bin Farhan, have made it very clear that normalization is going to be predicated on not a process, not a horizon, but statehood. And so there will be negotiation on what all of that means.

Steven, just to pick up from there, Sanam said that a lot of Harris' Mideast policies are a black box. Her current national security advisor, Phil Gordon, he's actually written a book that advocates against regime change in the Middle East. Tell us a little bit about what you know about his thinking and how that might impact a potential Harris White House.

Yeah, sure. And let me just say at the outset that Phil and I were colleagues at the Council on Foreign Relations before he went into the Biden administration. And I've actually known Phil for the better part of the last two decades. I first met him when I was a research fellow at the Brookings Institution in the early 2000s, at a time where he was really best known as an analyst of European politics.

But in the wake of 9-11, like many in Washington, his interest and attention increasingly focused on the Middle East. Phil, given his background, is not a trained Middle East analyst. He doesn't speak the languages, hasn't lived there for long periods of time.

No one says you have to have that experience in order to be the national security advisor. His book on regime change in the Middle East betrays someone who comes from the liberal internationalist background, but who has grown skeptical of the use of American power in order to fundamentally change governments and societies. I think that that's a prudent perspective. I've written a book on a similar topic.

And I think the evidence would suggest that the United States trying to affect regime change in countries far, far away that it doesn't have a lot of interest in, nor does the United States have a lot of staying power, given our politics, is really the definition of folly in foreign policy. So what we can expect from a Harris administration, at least if we imagine that Phil will be her national security advisor or some other very senior official, is

is a more careful use of American power in the region. I think we'll see something similar to what we see in the Biden White House, which is pursuing deals. And that's sort of gotten that's part of the tension between the United States and Israel right now is that the Israelis vowed very early on after the October 7th attacks that

to change the rules of the game, whereas the Biden administration, for all of their support for Israel, has sought diplomatic solutions to these problems. A ceasefire in Gaza that would essentially leave Hamas there or some return the Palestinian Authority, which are things that are unacceptable to the Israelis. They want a ceasefire and a halt in place in Lebanon, but not the destruction of Hezbollah, which so vexes Israeli security in the north.

So I think we'll expect to see more of that and thus more tension in the region. When you move and look at the Gulf, I think Phil is a well-known person in the Gulf, but I think that Gulf leaders are somewhat skeptical of Democratic administrations because the Obama administration and Phil was the senior person on the Middle East during the Obama administration when the JCPOA was signed in 2015.

So that's not to suggest that a Harris administration will go back into the region seeking a JCPOA. I think that Sanem is 100% right that...

Vice President Harris has moved to the right on Iran and identifying Iran as a primary strategic threat to the United States and its allies in the region. But nevertheless, the perception in the region is that a Democratic president tends to be more open to negotiation and a new relationship with the Iranians, whereas Republicans don't. That's not necessarily true. I think that President Trump was interested in a deal.

But nevertheless, those are the perceptions in the region. And you are listening to Foreign Policy Live. Remember, you can catch these conversations live and on video on foreignpolicy.com. Subscribers get to send us questions in advance, which we often use, in addition to a range of other benefits, including the magazine. Sign up.

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So now, Trump's foreign policy is often described as transactional. Do leaders in the Middle East want a transactional leader in the White House? In other words, someone who's less focused on human rights and democracy and the rhetoric that goes with all of those things and more on deals and business? I mean, short answer, I think yes. I think there is a certain relief that, well,

Washington and both Republicans and Democrats are moving away from the values-based approach that they took abroad. The war in Ukraine, followed by the war in Gaza, exposed the United States to a lot of criticism of hypocrisy. It's not the first time.

But there's a bit of relief that the finger wagging on human rights is now perhaps done in sort of quiet closed door conversations, if at all.

And for most Middle Eastern leaders, that is important. They want to be taken seriously. They want to be considered as equals, serious players. But at the same time, many American partners in the region are concerned and remain concerned that the U.S. is going to continue the deprioritization of the Middle East,

Certainly over the past year, the U.S. has marshaled unprecedented level of military support for Israel, has for the time being prevented this wider regional war from really breaking out. And many Gulf leaders in particular are looking for stronger security relationships with Washington. And that has really underpinned

US Saudi talks and conversations for a defense agreement that, of course, is tied to perhaps normalization and recognition of Israel. So while they appreciate the transactionalism, they're ultimately seeking stronger and longer relations with the United States in the region.

Let me jump around a little bit more. Stephen, let's go to Turkey. I'm just fascinated by how Erdogan tries to play all sides. So, you know, he runs a country that is a NATO member, and he showed up last week at the BRICS summit in Kazan in Russia, and he said, you know, I'm just fascinated by how Erdogan tries to play all sides.

Do you detect any clear US strategy on how to manage Ankara and whether, again, there's any clear difference that we know of between Trump and potentially Harris?

Well, first, let's let's take this one piece at a time. We have to understand that the Turks as a NATO ally want to be a NATO ally. They want to be integrated in in Western security structures, but they also want strategic autonomy. That leads them to want to be a part of the BRICS and cooperate with the Russians, while at the same time, you know, being part of the NATO consensus on Ukrainian sovereignty, you know,

whatever that means. Turkey sees itself as a country on par and equal to its other NATO allies and a swing state in particular because of where it is located. So it is a European power. It's a Middle Eastern power. It's a Mediterranean power. It's a power in the Caucasus.

And it sees that its national interest is served by being a player in all of those arenas and having good relations with all in all those arenas, with certain exceptions, of course. Cyprus is currently Israel, although rapprochement between Ankara and Jerusalem was well underway when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

The United States doesn't seem to have a policy towards Turkey. We have often pursued a policy that can best be described as you get what you get and you don't get upset. So to the extent that the Turks are willing to cooperate with the United States on a range of issues, that's great. And oftentimes those are the big, most important issues. And on the issues where we differ,

the United States is often willing to look the look the other way. We do know that President Trump had a very good personal relationship with President Erdogan. The only reason why there are American sanctions on Turkey over Turkey's acquisition of the Russian S-400 air defense system is because the Congress put it in the National Defense Authorization Act, which President Trump was no way going to veto. But he was not. He opposed a

applying those sanctions on Turkey because of his relationship with President Erdogan.

I'm not aware that Vice President Harris has a relationship with President Erdogan. We know that President Erdogan and President Biden have had a frosty relationship going back to the time that the president was vice president to President Obama. And going back to our discussion about Phil Gordon, we know that during the early part of the first Obama administration, Phil was, of course, the assistant secretary of state for Europe, which Turkey is...

as part of that bureau in the State Department and that Phil very much sought a new and better relationship with Turkey. But of course, world events got in the way of that.

Sanam, as we float around the region, we were discussing the Gulf earlier and I'm curious how energy fits into US policy towards the region. I mean the US now of course is the world's biggest oil producer. How much does it need the energy capacity of the Middle East in the future and how does that affect democratic or republican policy making? Is there a difference?

Well, you know, it's an interesting question, of course. Certainly, the U.S. position as the largest energy producer today has in some ways rewritten the dynamics between itself and the Gulf states and rewritten

written the foundation of that relationship, those relationships that have been so fundamental. But nevertheless, I would say that still maintaining access, global access to energy is important for the United States, it's important for its partners and allies in the world. Keeping prices stable are also very important.

And this is an area where the US has long cooperated with from both administration sides with its partners in the Gulf. I would say, though, that obviously, democratic administrations have and particularly here

Both historically and thinking about Vice President Harris, I would imagine she would continue to take this forward. There's going to be much more attention devoted to climate change and decarbonization. And this is, of course, a priority for Gulf states, but one where Gulf states in particular are looking to be the producers, producers.

as long as they can. They want to drag this process out and monetize it for as long as possible. They are trying to diversify their economies, although it's a sort of generational project. They're investing in renewables. They're developing a private sector. But again, it's not going to happen overnight, and they have to make the best of what they can for as long as possible. There is, of course, an expectation that Trump, with his sort of particular viewpoint on climate change, is

going to reduce those pressures. It's important to remember though that Gulf economies are very much hinged and oriented towards the east and towards China and all of Middle East energy resources at this point, aside from some gas, really goes towards the east.

And so, you know, the U.S. remains the principal security guarantor in the region, trying to maintain regional security, maritime security. And it helps ultimately to make sure that these resources are exported as best as it can. So these dynamics are important to understand, despite the shale revolution and shifts in the U.S.

Stephen, I'm going to try and close with where we began. The idea that the US foreign policy establishment has for so long wanted to be less mired in the Middle East. What is the longer term trajectory of America's policy towards the Middle East? Where do you see it going? What are the trend lines? And again, in the theme of this discussion,

Is there that much room between Harris and Trump to shift that trajectory?

Yeah, it's a terrific question. And again, I'm not sure that I detect so much of a difference between the two of them. Of course, President Trump, to the extent that he has a worldview, it is MAGA, it is America first. And that would suggest that there would be less focus on the region and bringing Americans home from the region, which he did do. But he also sent Americans back to the region when he was the president of the United States.

I would say, you know, at the moment, we're so focused on the conflict between Israel and Hamas and the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and waiting for what will happen between Israel and Iran. But I don't think that those are the those are the issues that are really going to set American policy in the region going forward. And I do think it's going to be this overall overarching issue of how we manage our relationship with the Chinese.

We already see some of this in American policy. The effort on the part of the Biden administration to hammer out a security pact with the Saudis has to do with the American desire to outmaneuver the Chinese in the Gulf and the Saudi desire to have some protection from the Iranians. And that's where our national interests cross with the Saudi national interest. And there is a deal to be done there that binds us to the Saudis.

over a long period of time. And I think that it's those kinds of issues are going to be the ones that are going to drive American policy and American thinking. And despite...

kind of, you know, pivot to Asia and, you know, America first and so on and so forth. This is a big, and I don't have to say it to you or Sanem or anybody who's listening and watching this, that this is a big interconnected world and that the Middle East is genuinely in the middle, especially if you look at certain maps and Beijing is in one place and Washington is really in the middle. And,

And in the abstract, there is an overlap of interest between China and the United States in the Middle East. But we also have the structural issue of a status quo power of the United States and China arising ambitious power in the region that might lead to competition and even conflict. And the Middle East will absolutely be in play there just fundamentally.

Look at the waterways, the energy resources, the ideas, the competition over technology that's underway in the Gulf right now. Israel being a powerhouse in technology. All of those things are going to really shape Israel.

the overall American approach to that part of the region. And then, of course, we'll be putting out fires like conflicts between Israelis and its neighbors. Those are things that I think we're unlikely to get away from, even as our politics around the region change. And even if we make huge jumps in terms of alternative energy, we're not going to completely decarbonize our economies and our major trading partners aren't either. And that's why, even though we're the big dogs in terms of producing oil and gas,

the Gulf will remain extremely important to the health of the American economy and the health more broadly of the global economy, which of course is connected to the American economy. Fascinating. We could have gone on a lot longer, but we'll have to leave it there. Stephen Cook, Sanam Vakil, thanks very much for joining us.

And that was Sanam Vakil, who leads Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa program, and Stephen Cook, who in addition to being a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is a columnist for Foreign Policy.

Thanks for tuning in to the first episode of our special election series, America Votes, What It Means for the World. Tomorrow, we'll be releasing our episode on Europe and the pretty significant differences in how Trump and Harris want to manage the transatlantic relationship. And then onwards to Africa, Latin America, and on Friday, finally, Asia.

As always, if you have guest suggestions, feedback or ideas, we love hearing from you. Contact us at live at foreignpolicy.com. And remember, use the code FP100 for $100 off your first annual payment on a subscription to FP. Go to foreignpolicy.com slash subscribe. This is a limited time offer, just one week to go.

FP Live, the podcast is produced by Rosie Julin and the executive producer of the show is Dana Schoen. I'm Ravi Agrawal. I'll see you next time.

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