What does Trump’s National Security Strategy mean for Israel, Iran, and Gaza?
The strategy doesn’t concern itself much with the Middle East. This is interesting because Trump has focused much of his doctrine in the first year of his second administration on the region. He bombed Iran and helped end the 12-day war between Jerusalem and Tehran. He pushed for the Gaza ceasefire and also worked with the UN to get a resolution supporting it. He has also worked with the Saudis and the new Syrian government.
As such, one might get the impression that the White House is intensely focused on the Middle East. For a decade, US policymakers, going back to the Obama administration, have tried to wind down the US role in the region. This is a result of a kind of hangover from the Gulf wars and the Global War on Terrorism.
“On my first day in office, we restored the sovereign borders of the United States and deployed the US military to stop the invasion of our country. We got radical gender ideology and woke lunacy out of our Armed Forces, and began strengthening our military with $1 trillion of investment,” Trump wrote in the new strategy.
“In Operation Midnight Hammer, we obliterated Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity. I declared the drug cartels and savage foreign gangs operating in our region as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. And over the course of just eight months, we settled eight raging conflicts – including between Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, the [Democratic Republic of Congo] and Rwanda, Pakistan and India, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and ending the war in Gaza with all living hostages returned to their families. America is strong and respected again – and because of that, we are making peace all over the world.”
US wants Israel to be secure, take responsibility for its own policies
The US wants Israel to remain secure. But it also wants Israel to be able to take responsibility for its own policies. That means the US can’t always step in to help Israel deal with Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, or Iran. The US also wants peace in the region, not more wars. Israeli leaders tend to hint at more wars with Iran, Hezbollah, or Hamas.
The new strategy says “conflict remains the Middle East’s most troublesome dynamic, but there is today less to this problem than headlines might lead one to believe. Iran – the region’s chief destabilizing force – has been greatly weakened by Israeli actions since October 7, 2023, and President Trump’s June 2025 Operation Midnight Hammer, which significantly degraded Iran’s nuclear program.”
In addition, it notes that “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains thorny, but thanks to the ceasefire and release of hostages President Trump negotiated, progress toward a more permanent peace has been made.”
The section on Syria is interesting, calling the country a “potential problem,” which is less upbeat than Trump’s recent statements about Damascus. The strategy calls for Arab countries, Israel, and Turkey to support stabilization in Syria. The White House has not been happy with Israel’s bombing and incursions into Syria.
Overall, the administration believes that the US doesn’t have the same historic reasons to be focused on the Middle East today.
“Instead, the region will increasingly become a source and destination of international investment, and in industries well beyond oil and gas, including nuclear energy, AI, and defense technologies. We can also work with Middle East partners to advance other economic interests, from securing supply chains to bolstering opportunities to develop friendly and open markets in other parts of the world, such as Africa.”
For this to happen, conflict can’t underpin the region.
The US wants to make sure that Gulf energy supplies continue to flow and the “Strait of Hormuz remains open.” The Red Sea will also need to be free from attacks on shipping. The US wants Israel to remain secure, but the document is light on other details. “We also have a clear interest in expanding the Abraham Accords to more nations in the region and to other countries in the Muslim world,” it says.
At the end of the day, the administration doesn’t want the region to dominate the US foreign policy focus. It dominated in 2025. The administration has done much for Israel.
The White House wants to see the region flip into an area for “partnership, friendship, and investment – a trend that should be welcomed and encouraged. In fact, Trump’s ability to unite the Arab world at Sharm el-Sheikh in pursuit of peace and normalization will allow the United States to finally prioritize American interests.”
Clearly, the White House will not welcome more wars between Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, or Iran. This means that when politicians in Jerusalem talk and boast about disarming Hezbollah in another military campaign, or claiming the IDF will go back into parts of Gaza where two million people live, there is not going to be a lot of welcome for this in Washington.
The question is whether the strategy will be fulfilled as part of the “Trump Doctrine,” or whether the White House will continue to try to manage various issues in the region.
Seth J. Frantzman