President Trump’s Middle East Blind Spot
President Trump’s Middle East blind spot presents a fundamental problem when dealing with the broader Islamic world.
Trump approaches foreign policy as a deal-maker. His instinct is to identify the other side’s interests, put a price on the table, and negotiate a deal. That approach can work when dealing with rational actors whose primary objective is political or economic advantage. But it becomes dangerously inadequate when dealing with regimes and movements driven by religious ideology, historical grievance, and the belief that they are conducting the will of Allah.
Deal-making assumes that self-interest imposes limits on political behavior. But what happens when an adversary believes martyrdom is preferable to compromise—and that destroying its enemies is not merely a political objective but a religious obligation?
The Islamic Republic is not simply another government looking for a better economic deal. Its leaders have repeatedly demonstrated that negotiations can be used to advance the regime’s strategic objectives. An agreement can provide sanctions relief, stall, divide the opposition, allow military capabilities to be rebuilt, and leave Iran stronger than it was before. To assume that an agreement changes the regime’s underlying ambitions is to confuse a tactical pause with a strategic surrender.
Iran thinks in decades and centuries. It is willing to play the long game because its revolutionary ideology transcends individual leaders and even generations. American presidents, by contrast, operate within four- or eight-year political cycles. That asymmetry matters enormously.
Trump’s approach also risks failing to appreciate the significance of Iran’s relationships with Sunni Islamist movements, including elements of the Muslim Brotherhood network. The Sunni and Shi’ite branches of Islam are hardly identical, and their ideological differences are real. But ideological differences do not prevent strategic cooperation when there is a common enemy. They can share a hostility toward Israel, the West, and the existing political order.
The Muslim Brotherhood is particularly important because its antisemitic ambitions extend far beyond any single election or government. Its various offshoots and affiliates have pursued different strategies, from political participation to revolutionary violence. Antisemitism is a hallmark of that organization and ubiquitous within their ranks. It would be extremely foolish to ignore the ideological connections and historical continuum within modern Islamism. It would be a strategic blunder were America to mistake accommodation for moderation.
For radical Islamists, Israel is not simply another country. It is both a symbol and a strategic obstacle. Its destruction would fundamentally alter the balance of power in the Middle East, strengthen Islamist forces, weaken Israel, America’s principal democratic ally in the region, and provide a psychological and political victory of enormous magnitude. Israel therefore cannot be treated as a disposable bargaining chip in some grand American effort to achieve a regional accommodation.
The United States must also understand that Islamist movements do not necessarily view negotiations, elections, political participation, or democratic institutions the way Western democracies do. A movement can participate in democratic institutions without embracing the liberal principles that make democracy work. Elections can become a means of acquiring power rather than a commitment to political pluralism.
Therefore, there is a potential strategic blindness America must avoid. The issue is whether the United States can distinguish between ordinary Muslims, political Islamists, Islamist organizations, and violent jihadist movements—and formulate a strategy based on those distinctions rather than treating every adversary as a potential partner in a grand bargain. Unfortunately, the current approach risks doing precisely the opposite.
America should negotiate from strength, not from the assumption that every conflict can be resolved through a mutually satisfactory deal. Some adversaries genuinely want a deal. Others want time. Others want legitimacy. And some want nothing less than the eventual destruction of the political order with which they are negotiating, America, and the elimination of Israel as the only Jewish state in the world.
The United States therefore faces a fundamental strategic error that goes far beyond Iran: it risks embracing, legitimizing, or accommodating forces that should instead be contained and neutralized.
And when an adversary is motivated by a religious ideology that regards compromise as temporary, victory as divine, and death as martyrdom, the most dangerous mistake America can make is assuming that everyone wants the same thing: a deal.
Trump understands power. He understands force. He understands leverage. He understands that weakness invites exploitation. But understanding power is not enough. Strength is not merely the size of America’s military or the magnitude of its economic power. Real strength requires something more fundamental: understanding the enemy.
It means understanding what motivates him, what he believes, what he is willing to sacrifice, how long he is prepared to wait, and what he intends to achieve. Without that understanding, American power can become a tool in the hands of those who know how to manipulate it.
One can only hope that President Trump’s blind spot is strategically feigned—that he fully understands this distinction. Because in the Middle East, the ability to make a deal is valuable. But knowing when the other side is deploying that deal as a weapon to defeat you is markedly more important.
