Middle East in the New Trump Era: Russia’s Foreign Policy Dilemmas

The spectacular comeback of Donald Trump to the White House will undoubtedly have a profound impact on the US overall international positioning, as well as on specific dimensions of the US approaches to various regions of the world. Of course, the US foreign policy has a bipartisan nature, it is devised and managed not only by the executive, but also by the legislative branch of power and the role played by the American Deep State in the foreign policy making should not be underestimated either. Yet, it is the President, who calls the tunes and who leaves a deep personal imprint on the set of foreign policy priorities, major decisions and the overall relations with allies, partners, adversaries and foes of the United States.

During his first term as US President Donald Trump displayed his ability to make abrupt and highly personal decisions like withdrawing from the multilateral Iran nuclear deal in 2018 or assassinating of General Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Quds Force, in Baghdad in 2020. Given the unpredictability of the 47-th US Commander-in-Chief, it might still be too early to properly assess the likely shifts in the US approaches to the Middle East region. However, some changes are easy to predict.

First, the US support for Israelis going to get even stronger than it has been under the Joe Biden Administration, the ongoing Washington’s criticism of Israeli military actions in Gaza, in the West Bank or in the South of Lebanon are going to be softer. Second, the US positions on Iran are going to get even tougher, which means that JCPOA will not be resurrected from its grave and the US sanctions against Tehran will not be lifted. Third, Trump is clearly committed to continue his efforts to promote the Abraham Accords further assisting Israel in building relations with major Arab states, including Saudi Arabia. Trump will also try to sell more US-made arms to affluent nations of the Gulf, to undermine the OPEC+ global oil prices regulative mechanism and to advance a Middle East version of the NATO Alliance to counter security challenges coming from the Islamic Republic of Iran and the radical Shia groups supported from Tehran.

At the same time, the second Trump Administration is unlikely to increase the US military presence in the MENA region. On the contrary, it might pursue the strategy of a gradual withdrawal of US forces from places like Iraq and Syria, especially if the threats of direct attacks on the US military personnel increase. Such withdrawal, if it takes place, would lead to new vacuums of power and an overall decline of the US influence in the region. Finally, the overall Trump’s foreign policy transactionalism is going to manifest itself in the MENA region as well: the new Administration is likely to focus on getting immediate gains through concluding specific ‘deals’ rather than on building long-term strategic partnerships; this approach is going to create additional challenges for the sustainability of the US present positions in the Middle East.

What do these coming changes mean for Russia’s policies in the region? How could Moscow respond to new challenges that the United States is going create for the Kremlin in the region? Are there any opportunities for even a very limited US-Russian cooperation or coordination in the Middle East? Will Russia continue its “business as usual” aimed at maintaining the existing status-quo or will it be forced to review and to revise its positions towards Israel, Palestinians, Iran and its main partners in the Arab world?

Trump is likely to block all the UN Security Council resolutions condemning Israeli authorities’ actions in Gaza and in the West Bank, to assist Israel in countering possible Iranian strikes against Israel and to continue providing Israel with massive military assistance. This approach may bring down Israeli incentives to keep strong relations with Moscow, but will not eliminate them altogether. Though many in Israel call for a “reassessment” of the bilateral relations accusing Moscow of explicitly siding with Hamas, the odds are that despite continuous tensions and despite an even heavier reliance of Israel on the United States under the second Trump Administration, both sides will try hard to avoid further deterioration of their bilateral relations and to limit the already inflicted damage to the extent possible.

So far, it seems that Russia’s efforts to consolidate diverse Palestinian group, like similar efforts by China, had only very modest, if any success. Still, the meeting in February demonstrated that the Kremlin maintained its leverage with major Palestinian groups and that Russia could not be completely marginalized in or easily excluded from a future Palestinian settlement. Given the approaching generational change in the Palestinian leadership with Mahmoud Abbas turning 90 in 2025, this leverage should not be underestimated.

The second Trump Administration is not likely to energetically promote any plans for a full-fledged Palestinian state or to exercise strong pressure on Israel in this direction. Neither it is likely to put more emphasis on gross violations of human rights or alleged war crimes in Gaza or in the West Bank. It is also worth noting that back in 2018, Trump canceled U.S. funding for the UN’s Palestine refugee relief agency, UNRWA, which Biden partially resumed in 2021. The odds are that the second Trump Administration will severely limit or even cancel altogether the US support for UNRWA that would question the ability of the agency to continue providing support to Palestinians (in later October, 2024 the Israeli parliament passed a law terminating all the activities of UNRWA on the territory of the country by the end of the year). This apparent unwillingness of Donald Trump to stand up for Palestinians despite a strong public support of the Palestinian rights inside the United States implies that Moscow can gain more attention and appreciation in the Middle East region by positioning itself as a strong champion of the Palestinian cause.

Of course, Trump will try to do his best to avoid getting the United States into a direct military confrontation with Iran. Still, this option cannot be ruled out—the Israeli leadership might push hard the United States in this direction. A lot will depend on who exactly will handle the Trump Iranian portfolio—with hawks like Mike Pompeo or Robert Greenway in charge the risks on a large-scale regional conflict will go higher. In theory, one could imagine Donald Trump entering a direct negotiation with Iran in order to reach a comprehensive agreement with the Islamic Republic, but right now such a scenario looks very unlikely.

It would be logical to predict that under such circumstances the alliance between Moscow and Tehran will continue to deepen though some wrinkles on this relationship will need ironing. For instance, the two sides have demonstrated somewhat different attitudes to the so-called Zangezur Corridor linking Azerbaijan and its exclave of Nakhchivan. This cooperation will also continue within multilateral bodies like SCO and BRICS. Only some very dramatic political changes either in Russia or in the Islamic Republic could create challenges to this cooperation. However, at this point such changes are very hard to imagine.

The second Trump Administration will be interested in limiting the Russian-Arab cooperation to the extent possible. It will work hard to close any loopholes in US sanctions that creates opportunities for Moscow to use Gulf States, particularly—UAE, as international financial hubs to circumvent Western sanctions. It will try to erect various obstacles on the way to more active Russian-Arab military cooperation by offering attractive alternatives to its partners in the Arab world (for instance, dealing with UAE, Trump is likely to get back to previously stalled deals for the sale of F-35 fighter jets and armed drones). It will ignore or criticize any regional security proposals that might come from Moscow.

However, the US abilities to block further Russian-Arab cooperation are not limitless, and major Arab nations will continue to diversify their foreign policy portfolios. Another complicating factor for Trump’s relations with the Arab world is his first term alleged Islamophobic rhetoric and his anti-immigration policies, such as his two Muslim Travel Bans. Finally, there are many doubts in the Arab world about the sustainability of the US security commitments in the region that create additional incentives to diversify political investments by reaching out to Beijing and Moscow. This diversification, aside from the regional agenda, also includes efforts by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar to position themselves strategically as key interlocutors on the Russia-Ukraine confrontation—the role that they will try to maintain in future.

The spectacular comeback of Donald Trump to the White House will undoubtedly have a profound impact on the US overall international positioning, as well as on specific dimensions of the US approaches to various regions of the world. Of course, the US foreign policy has a bipartisan nature, it is devised and managed not only by the executive, but also by the legislative branch of power and the role played by the American Deep State in the foreign policy making should not be underestimated either. Yet, it is the President, who calls the tunes and who leaves a deep personal imprint on the set of foreign policy priorities, major decisions and the overall relations with allies, partners, adversaries and foes of the United States.

During his first term as US President Donald Trump displayed his ability to make abrupt and highly personal decisions like withdrawing from the multilateral Iran nuclear deal in 2018 or assassinating of General Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Quds Force, in Baghdad in 2020. Given the unpredictability of the 47-th US Commander-in-Chief, it might still be too early to properly assess the likely shifts in the US approaches to the Middle East region. However, some changes are easy to predict.

Regional Trends in the Middle East: Political and Economic Dynamics. RIAC Report

First, the US support for Israelis going to get even stronger than it has been under the Joe Biden Administration, the ongoing Washington’s criticism of Israeli military actions in Gaza, in the West Bank or in the South of Lebanon are going to be softer. Second, the US positions on Iran are going to get even tougher, which means that JCPOA will not be resurrected from its grave and the US sanctions against Tehran will not be lifted. Third, Trump is clearly committed to continue his efforts to promote the Abraham Accords further assisting Israel in building relations with major Arab states, including Saudi Arabia. Trump will also try to sell more US-made arms to affluent nations of the Gulf, to undermine the OPEC+ global oil prices regulative mechanism and to advance a Middle East version of the NATO Alliance to counter security challenges coming from the Islamic Republic of Iran and the radical Shia groups supported from Tehran.

At the same time, the second Trump Administration is unlikely to increase the US military presence in the MENA region. On the contrary, it might pursue the strategy of a gradual withdrawal of US forces from places like Iraq and Syria, especially if the threats of direct attacks on the US military personnel increase. Such withdrawal, if it takes place, would lead to new vacuums of power and an overall decline of the US influence in the region. Finally, the overall Trump’s foreign policy transactionalism is going to manifest itself in the MENA region as well: the new Administration is likely to focus on getting immediate gains through concluding specific ‘deals’ rather than on building long-term strategic partnerships; this approach is going to create additional challenges for the sustainability of the US present positions in the Middle East.

What do these coming changes mean for Russia’s policies in the region? How could Moscow respond to new challenges that the United States is going create for the Kremlin in the region? Are there any opportunities for even a very limited US-Russian cooperation or coordination in the Middle East? Will Russia continue its “business as usual” aimed at maintaining the existing status-quo or will it be forced to review and to revise its positions towards Israel, Palestinians, Iran and its main partners in the Arab world? Let us have a look at the most important pieces of the rich and diverse Middle East mosaic, namely—on Israel, Palestine, Iran and the Arab Gulf states.

Israel

The Russian-Israeli relations started experiencing problems long before the US 2024 elections. In particular, the launch of the special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 had a significant impact on the Israeli public opinion and on the country’s leadership, particularly during Yair Lapid's tenure as Prime Minister (the second half of 2022). However, despite a strong pressure from the West and a rise of pro-Ukrainian sentiments at home, Israel chose not to subscribe to US or EU sanctions imposed on Moscow and decided against direct deliveries of Israeli-made lethal arms to Ukraine (though the official explanation of the latter decision offered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was linked not to Russia’s interests, but rather to concerns that weapons transferred to Ukraine might fall into Iranian hands, reverse engineered and used against Israel in future).

After the terrorist attack on October 7, the Kremlin promptly condemned the Hamas strike and stated that Israel had the right to defend itself, but later on took a very critical position towards the subsequent Israeli military actions in Gaza, in the West Bank and in the South Lebanon. Speaking of the Israeli plans in Gaza at an early stage of the Tzahal ground operation, Vladimir Putin even referred to the Nazi siege of Leningrad during the Second World War, warning about the prospect of an excessive or nondiscriminatory use of military power by Israel as a potential explicit violation of international law. On many occasions Russia demanded an immediate ceasefire and a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and supported relevant drafts of the UN Security Council resolutions, most of which were vetoed by the United States. In its turn, Russia blocked US proposed Gaza related resolutions claiming that the United States was not really interested in exercising an appropriate pressure on Israel that would lead to a lasting ceasefire in Gaza.

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Yet, Moscow has never been ready for a complete breakdown of its relations with Israel or even for lowering the level of its diplomatic presence in Tel Aviv. Though the Russian-Israeli trade experienced significant decline over last couple of years, the Jewish state remains visible as a trade and investment partner. Approximately 1.3 million former citizens of Russia and the Soviet Union now reside in Israel, making up 15% of the nation’s population. Right after a high-level delegation from Hamas visited Moscow in the end of October, 2023, the Russian Foreign Ministry in a special briefing expressed its confidence that the bilateral relations with Israel would continue to develop further in various areas.

The Russian-Israeli communication experienced a number of setbacks: for instance, in fall of 2023 Israel stopped to warn Moscow in advance about its planned airstrikes in Syria. However, until now Israeli officials continue to underscore the importance of the bilateral relations fundamental disagreements between the two sides notwithstanding. We can assume that active Russia-Israel contacts (including military and intelligence communication links) continue in various formats and at various levels.

The second Trump Administration is likely to be even more supportive of Israel than the Biden Administration was. It is not accidental that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cheerfully endorsed Trump’s victory referring to it as “a new beginning for America and a powerful re-commitment to the great alliance between Israel and America”. Netanyahu had complicated relations with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, so the return of Donald Trump to the White House is predictably welcomed in the Israeli leadership. It should be noted that Trump has never been particularly specific on how he would approach the Israel-Hamas war or on how his policies would differ from predecessor Joe Biden’s. On can only predict that he will urge Israel to “finish the job” in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank as soon as possible to avoid more collateral damage to the Israeli international reputation. However, if “finishing the job” includes annexation of parts of the West Bank, such actions by Israel are unlikely to meet a lot of opposition or resentment in Trump’s White House. After all, it was Donald Trump, who back in 2019 proclaimed U.S. recognition of the Golan Heights as a part of the State of Israel, making it the first country to do so.

Trump is likely to block all the UN Security Council resolutions condemning Israeli authorities’ actions in Gaza and in the West Bank, to assist Israel in countering possible Iranian strikes against Israel and to continue providing Israel with massive military assistance. This approach may bring down Israeli incentives to keep strong relations with Moscow, but will not eliminate them altogether. Though many in Israel, including the above mentioned Yair Lapid, call for a “reassessment” of the bilateral relations accusing Moscow of explicitly siding with Hamas, the odds are that despite continuous tensions and despite an even heavier reliance of Israel on the United States under the second Trump Administration, both sides will try hard to avoid further deterioration of their bilateral relations and to limit the already inflicted damage to the extent possible.

Palestine

Moscow always boasted of having close contacts with many Palestinian groups in Gaza and in the West Bank. After October 7, 2023 the Russian approach to Palestinians included two main lines. First, the Russian leadership on many occasions expressed its strong support of the Palestinian people and reiterated its commitment to the two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Though Moscow condemned the October 7 terrorist attack, its contacts with Hamas never stopped and Russia did not add the organization to its list of terrorist groups (one should note, however, that Russia’s relations with Hamas have never been completely cloudless: for instance, in the beginning of the civil war in Syria Russia stood on the side of Bashar al-Assad, while Hamas tilted to the Syrian opposition).

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In August 2024, Vladimir Putin met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, marking their first in-person meeting since 2021. This meeting seemed to be mostly symbolic, aimed at reconfirming Russia's positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and critical assessment of the Israeli operation in Gaza. The Kremlin also committed itself to providing humanitarian assistance to the civilian population of the sector. In October, 2024, Mahmoud Abbas was invited to Kazan for the XVI BRICS Summit hosted by Russia and had an exclusive meeting with Vladimir Putin on the margins of the Summit.

Second, Moscow continued to position itself as a potential mediator in Palestinian affairs. In late February, 2024 it arranged an intra-Palestinian meeting involving 14 various factions, including Hamas and Fatah, aiming to foster political unity among Palestinians amid the ongoing conflict. It was not the first meeting of this kind, Russia hosted similar events at least four times since 2011. However, the recent meeting was very special, given the challenging security environment in and around Palestine. Most of analysts expressed their doubts about any significant progress that could be reached in such a format. The complexities of intra-Palestinian politics have not disappeared after October 7, and Russia’s influence over many Palestinian factions remains limited.

So far, it seems that Russia’s efforts to consolidate diverse Palestinian group, like similar efforts by China, had only very modest, if any success. Still, the meeting in February demonstrated that the Kremlin maintained its leverage with major Palestinian groups and that Russia could not be completely marginalized in or easily excluded from a future Palestinian settlement. Given the approaching generational change in the Palestinian leadership with Mahmoud Abbas turning 90 in 2025, this leverage should not be underestimated.

The second Trump Administration is not likely to energetically promote any plans for a full-fledged Palestinian state or to exercise strong pressure on Israel in this direction. Neither it is likely to put more emphasis on gross violations of human rights or alleged war crimes in Gaza or in the West Bank. It is also worth noting that back in 2018, Trump canceled U.S. funding for the UN’s Palestine refugee relief agency, UNRWA, which Biden partially resumed in 2021. The odds are that the second Trump Administration will severely limit or even cancel altogether the US support for UNRWA that would question the ability of the agency to continue providing support to Palestinians (in later October, 2024 the Israeli parliament passed a law terminating all the activities of UNRWA on the territory of the country by the end of the year). This apparent unwillingness of Donald Trump to stand up for Palestinians despite a strong public support of the Palestinian rights inside the United States implies that Moscow can gain more attention and appreciation in the Middle East region by positioning itself as a strong champion of the Palestinian cause.

Iran

The Israeli-Palestinian escalation coincided with continuous attempts by Moscow and Tehran to bring their relations to a new level. The Israeli military operation in Gaza that soon proliferated to the Southern Lebanon, as well as Israeli strikes of targets in Beirut, Damascus and Tehran itself seriously jeopardized the positions of the Islamic Republic in the region and motivated the Iranian leadership to seek closer links to Russia. In particular, Tehran is interested in getting more access to advanced Russian military hardware, such as such as Su-35 fighter jets and the S-400 defense missile systems. Russia, in its turn, put more emphasis on its relations with Tehran even earlier: after the beginning of its special military operation in Ukraine it started actively upgrading its political, economic, infrastructural and security ties to the Islamic Republic with an expectation to turn these relations from an alliance of convenience into a strategic partnership.

The accidental death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash on May 19, 2024 slowed down for while further rapprochement between two nations and arguably delayed finalizing a new Russian-Iranian agreement, on which the two sides had worked for some time, but did not change the direction Though newly elected President Masoud Pezeshkian emphasized his intention to reach out to Iran’s Arab neighbors and to the West, these opportunities turned out to be quite limited and the Islamic Republic continues its long-term drift towards Moscow and Beijing.

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In August of 2023, at the fifteenth BRICS summit meeting in Johannesburg Iran was formally invited to join the group, which it did in early 2024. Vladimir Putin and President Pezeshkian met twice in October of 2024—first at an international conference in Ashgabat—the capital of Turkmenistan, and once again at the BRICS summit in Kazan. The long-awaited new bilateral agreement on strategic partnership between Russia and Iran should be signed soon, though over last year there were many delays and procrastinations allegedly caused by the change in the Iranian leadership and initial expectations within the Pezeshkian team about opportunities to relaunch Islamic Republic’s relations with the West that finally failed.

Though some hawks in Moscow might look forward to a major war between Israel and Iran, the official Russian position remains cautious. In the end of October Vladimir Putin stated once again that strategically Russia had nothing to gain, but would encounter additional problems in case the current Israeli-Iranian confrontation evolves into a major regional war. A wider regional instability might, of course, send the global oil prices going through the roof, but this instability would also have unpredictable political and economic consequences—most likely, detrimental to long-term Russia’s interests.

The second Trump Administration is going to take a tough approach to Tehran. We can expect more sanctions related to the Iranian nuclear program, more pressure on Iranian regional partners and proxies, more support for the Iranian political opposition with the ultimate goal of a regime change in the Islamic Republic. Though one cannot completely rule out a transactional deal between Washington and Tehran under the second Trump Administration, the chances for such a deal are not high. Moreover, it is very likely that Trump will exercise a lot of pressure on the US European allies in order to prevent any meaningful rapprochement between Iran and Europe. As a part of the overall US anti-Iranian strategy, one can predict even harder moves on Houthis in Yemen—authorizing massive strikes against the Houthis political leaders and their military infrastructure. Economic sanctions against Houthis are likely to expand, and the severe humanitarian crisis in Yemen is likely to be ignored by the White House.

Of course, Trump will try to do his best to avoid getting the United States into a direct military confrontation with Iran. Still, this option cannot be ruled out—the Israeli leadership might push hard the United States in this direction. A lot will depend on who exactly will handle the Trump Iranian portfolio—with hawks like Mike Pompeo or Robert Greenway in charge the risks on a large-scale regional conflict will go higher. In theory, one could imagine Donald Trump entering a direct negotiation with Iran in order to reach a comprehensive agreement with the Islamic Republic, but right now such a scenario looks very unlikely.

It would be logical to predict that under such circumstances the alliance between Moscow and Tehran will continue to deepen though some wrinkles on this relationship will need ironing. For instance, the two sides have demonstrated somewhat different attitudes to the so-called Zangezur Corridor linking Azerbaijan and its exclave of Nakhchivan. This cooperation will also continue within multilateral bodies like SCO and BRICS. Only some very dramatic political changes either in Russia or in the Islamic Republic could create challenges to this cooperation. However, at this point such changes are very hard to imagine.

The Arab world

For a long time, Russia recognized the importance of maintaining friendly relationships with the Gulf states, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE. These relationships were not directly affected by the cautious response from the capitals of these states to the Israeli-Palestinian escalation though in Moscow they might have expected a stronger reaction. In any case, in December, 2023 Vladimir Putin visited Saudi Arabia and UAE, where the sides confirmed their commitment to continue cooperation on managing the global oil prices as well as to further promote bilateral trade and investment.

Both KSA and UAE were invited to join BRICS, and the 7th Russia-GCC Ministerial Meeting for Strategic Dialogue held in Riyadh in September of 2024 confirmed that the Russian and the GCC approaches to the Israeli-Palestinian escalation have a lot in common. Both KSA and UAE participated in the XVI BRICS Summit that took place in Russia’s Kazan in October of 2024, though Saudi Arabia was represented by its foreign minister and claimed the status of an ‘invited guest’ rather than that of a full-fledged BRICS member.

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It seems that in Moscow they understand very well the limitations of opportunities that Russia has in dealing with GCC states and also the limitations of the impact of the Israeli-Palestinian escalation on strategic priorities of these states. The predominant assumption in Moscow is that the progress in Abraham Accords will continue though at a slower speed than it did before the Gaza crisis. On the other hand, Donald Trump may be ready to invest more of his political capital into the Abraham Accords than his predecessor in the White House did. Of course, a Middle East NATO uniting major Gulf Arab states and Israel in their common deterrence of Iran is the last thing that Moscow would like to see emerging in the region, but Russian experts take a rather skeptical view on the ability or political will of major regional actors to move fast in this direction, given multiple strategic, geopolitical, organizational and other obstacles on this way.

At the same time, the Russian leadership does not want to get too much involved into Arab-Iranian disputes, since such an involvement would inevitably limit Moscow’s freedom of action in the region. Besides, the nature of Russia’s relations with the GCC group is very different from its relations with Iran: in case of the Islamic Republic the drivers of cooperation are common security concerns and a degree of complementarity of their respective defense sectors, in case of GCC states cooperation is based more on economic, educational, and other “soft power” factors. One can predict that in its policies in the Gulf area and in the Arab world at large Moscow will continue to pursue a “business as usual” approach trying to maximize investment opportunities, promoting trade, minimizing the negative impact of Western sanctions and stabilizing the global hydrocarbon prices.

Donald Trump has always paid a lot of attention to build stronger ties to rich Arab nations of the Gulf. It is worth noting that he chose Riyadh for his first foreign visit as president in 2017 and firmly stood by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during the crisis surrounding the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents back in 2018. However, Trump’s continuous affection towards affluent Arab nations of the Gulf apparently does not extend to the Arab world at large—a re-elected Trump would also likely make significant cuts to the US foreign aid budget, which would have serious implications for countries such as Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. This highly selective approach to the Arab world displayed by the Trump Administration may create windows of opportunity for other international actors, including Russia.

The second Trump Administration will be interested in limiting the Russian-Arab cooperation to the extent possible. It will work hard to close any loopholes in US sanctions that creates opportunities for Moscow to use Gulf States, particularly—UAE, as international financial hubs to circumvent Western sanctions. It will try to erect various obstacles on the way to more active Russian-Arab military cooperation by offering attractive alternatives to its partners in the Arab world (for instance, dealing with UAE, Trump is likely to get back to previously stalled deals for the sale of F-35 fighter jets and armed drones). It will ignore or criticize any regional security proposals that might come from Moscow.

However, the US abilities to block further Russian-Arab cooperation are not limitless, and major Arab nations will continue to diversify their foreign policy portfolios. Another complicating factor for Trump’s relations with the Arab world is his first term alleged Islamophobic rhetoric and his anti-immigration policies, such as his two Muslim Travel Bans. Finally, there are many doubts in the Arab world about the sustainability of the US security commitments in the region that create additional incentives to diversify political investments by reaching out to Beijing and Moscow. This diversification, aside from the regional agenda, also includes efforts by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar to position themselves strategically as key interlocutors on the Russia-Ukraine confrontation—the role that they will try to maintain in future.

Since these days the Russian leadership is clearly preoccupied with the conflict in Ukraine, it would be hard to imagine any ambitious, far-reaching initiatives on the Middle East security or development to come from Moscow anytime soon. The absence of active and substantive consultations with the West, above all—with the United States—is another complicating factor limiting a more strategic long-term approach to the region. However, the Russian leadership will definitely try to keep its foot in the doorway of the very complicated and highly volatile Middle East politics.

First published in the Guancha.