EXPERT INTERVIEW / PERSPECTIVE – The Middle East has changed dramatically over the past four years, creating both extraordinary challenges and opportunities for the region and for regional partners like the United States.
Among the most obvious regional challenges, the launch of a deadly terrorist attack inside of Israel on October 7, 2023 by Hamas - a well-documented proxy of Iran - and the subsequent declaration of war by Israel that has taken an enormous toll on Gaza and has prompted more aggressive Israeli actions against Hezbollah to the north, another group backed by Iran.
The region remains fraught with fragile, failed states which according to many terrorism experts, continue to serve as breeding grounds for extremism. But expert analysts focused on the region also see incredible opportunity for the U.S. in those challenges.
“From the Maghreb to the Levant to the Gulf, the U.S. remains the region's dominant and preferred strategic partner,” Norm Roule, former National Intelligence Manager for Iran at ODNI told The Cipher Brief. “The failure of China or Russia to play any meaningful role in recent regional events stands in stark relief to the role played by Washington to ensure the stability and security of the region.
The Cipher Brief spoke with Roule in an exclusive one-on-one interview about the opportunities and challenges facing the incoming administration in the Middle East.
The Cipher Brief: What are some of the priority challenges and opportunities facing the new administration as we consider this new political and economic landscape in the Middle East that is so vastly different from where it was four years ago?
Roule: The Middle East of 2025 represents a different and far more complicated dynamic from January 2021. In many ways, the changes result from American decisions to engage or not in this strategic geography over the past two administrations. Let me start with some of the positive developments since it is here that the Trump administration will find opportunities.
From the Maghreb to the Levant to the Gulf, the U.S. remains the region's dominant and preferred strategic partner. The failure of China or Russia to play any meaningful role in recent regional events stands in stark relief to the role played by Washington to ensure the stability and security of the region.
China may be the region’s largest commercial partner, but its political influence pales compared to our own. The Comprehensive Security Integration and Prosperity Agreement (CSIPA) between Bahrain and the U.S. (and later the UK) represents one powerful example of one Middle Eastern country’s willingness to work with the U.S. to act as a regional anchor for security and economic cooperation. CSIPA is likely to add further members in the coming years.
The Abraham Accords survived the challenge of the Gaza War with member states balancing support for Palestinians with their diplomatic relations with Israel. Saudi Arabia remains committed to diplomatic and economic ties with Israel once an irreversible, two-state political process is achieved between Israel and the Palestinians. The willingness of regional states to form an ad hoc defensive coalition against Iranian missile attacks was not lost on Iran and represented years of U.S. political and military investment.
Israel’s devastation of Hamas and Hezbollah and its extraordinary demonstration of military strength over Iran have created a new regional security chemistry. The election of Lebanon’s new president and prime minister and the collapse of the Asad government would not have happened without these achievements. The Levant now has an unprecedented opportunity to free itself from Iranian influence and return to the Arab fold.
Regional leaders routinely demonstrate leadership in ways congruent with our interests and international norms. The social and economic developments in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have succeeded to an extent that few could have predicted. Each country has successful space programs that have put its citizens in space. Riyadh has already launched a female astronaut; an Emirati craft now orbits Mars. NASA launched Abu Dhabi’s most recent satellite on January 3. The regional push for women’s rights, interfaith engagement, green energy investment, and an ambition to impact the Global South all offer areas where the U.S. can partner. The United Arab Emirates management of the United Nations Climate Conference (COP28) won praise for its attention to Global South issues and its effort to bring together energy producers and climate activists.
In terms of current trends, three issues come to mind. First, the planned extraordinary investments in artificial intelligence between the U.S. and the Gulf will likely seismically impact U.S. and Middle Eastern societies. Moving West, Morocco will welcome U.S. support to open the Sahel to Atlantic trade and the construction of energy pipelines along the West African Coast. Last but not least, multiple Arab states have demonstrated an interest in assisting in Syria's political and economic recovery and will likely play a positive role in post-conflict Gaza.
But the region’s challenges for the incoming administration are no less extraordinary.
The Middle East stands unique in the world with its substantial number of strategically located, fragile, and failed states that seem to defy solutions. These countries are breeding grounds for civil wars, extremism, and instability even beyond their own borders.
The people of Gaza and Syria face a hard, uncertain, but expensive recovery that will likely take years and billions of dollars of aid from regional and international donors. International donor fatigue is real and exacerbated by Ukraine, Yemen, and Sudan demands.
The region’s failed states will remain breeding grounds for a new generation of militias and terrorists. Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah will aim to survive and reorganize. The past year has seen a disturbing increase in ISIS activity in Syria. The Houthis are more influential than ever. Sudan’s civil war has opened opportunities for Iran, Russia, and the Houthis, as well as creating a seldom-reported humanitarian catastrophe.
Iran pays no price for the actions of its carefully groomed proxies. Tehran now routinely produces 60% enriched uranium using advanced centrifuges in facilities that look exactly like what one would build for weaponization. Iran now behaves exactly like a country doing everything possible to achieve nuclear weaponization quickly, should it decide to do so, and the international community is behaving as if it has little interest in preventing Iran from doing so.
Last, the prestige of international institutions in the region is at a low point not seen since the 1930s. The United Nations (UN) Security Council and European Union often appear irrelevant in the region’s conflicts and against Iran. UN humanitarian efforts increasingly seem irreparably politicized. The performance of NATO naval assets in the Red Sea was thin. This dynamic will complicate the Trump administration’s efforts to build a coalition of likeminded partners to constrain Iran and its proxies.
The Cipher Brief: You describe the Houthis as being more influential than ever. Do you believe it’s possible to deter the Houthis from attacking Israel, Saudi Arabia, and international shipping?
Roule: The short answer is yes, but doing so requires a crisp definition of the specific behavior we seek to deter, multilateral commitment to the actions required to reshape Houthi decision-making, and strong intelligence. The Houthis have claimed they will end their attacks if the ongoing cease-fire holds. Even if they do, they are now a regional disruptor that requires attention. Deterrence does not, and should not, mean direct US involvement in the Yemen civil war. However, it does mean protecting our partners from Houthi attacks and enabling the internationally recognized government of Yemen to stand up against the Houthis.
This Red Sea conflict has become an unacknowledged “forever naval war” involving a witch’s brew of unclear objectives, U.S. personnel in sometimes daily combat conditions, and a drain on forces required in the Pacific. The Biden administration’s efforts have focused on a largely successful campaign of defense and degrading Houthi capabilities, hoping that an end to the Gaza war would end Houthi attacks. This campaign has saved lives and protected the global economy. This achievement can’t be ignored. Yet despite its successes, the courage of our warfighters, and the strength of our military leadership, this strategy has also put US personnel at extreme risk in an open-ended mission. Houthi missiles and drones routinely target American ships. Houthi attacks against Israel have fallen sharply but continued, and it is too early to say whether they will stop. Many of the world’s shippers avoid the Red Sea. The financial cost of the operation has been vast in a campaign that effectively protects Russian and Chinese shipping in a waterway that is far more important to Europe and regional partners than the U.S. The Houthis are now a long-term threat with growing connections to China and Russia. When we depart, Iran will be able to replenish and refine Houthi weaponry and assist their efforts to expand their aggression in the Indian Ocean and East Africa.
A successful strategy to deter the Houthis will likely be similar to that which has been successful against Iran, al-Qaida, and ISIS. Existing diplomatic, financial, and weapon interdiction efforts should continue, but reliance on these efforts has not prevented Houthi violence and will remain insufficient. The idea that the Houthis can be deterred by diplomacy, better sanctions enforcement, or the interdiction of a few weapons shipments from Iran is as unrealistic as the application of such measures against the Houthis to date. One of the most significant challenges is the scale of the battlespace: the land and water territory we must monitor is enormous, a tremendous strain on finite surveillance and interdiction tools.
In the end, we cannot change adversary behavior unless we take the fight to the adversary’s leadership.
In the case of Yemen, this must include Iranian and Hezbollah personnel on the ground who are directing lethal operations against U.S. personnel. To those who find this last point extreme, there is history to consider. The Trump administration's killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi Kata’ib militia leader Abu Mehd al-Mohandis ended a regional Iranian threat against U.S. personnel. The Biden administration’s killing of two senior Kata’ib Hezbollah personnel in Iraq also reduced, at least temporarily, KH attacks on our personnel in Jordan and Syria. Israeli attacks on Iranian and Hezbollah personnel in Syria over the past year seriously degraded Hezbollah's operations against Israel and contributed to the collapse of Hezbollah and the Asad regime. Lethal operations against Quds Force personnel conducting operations against Americans will likely be the most effective way to constrain that group’s malign international impact. Failure to do so means hoping that the same mix of failed measures will somehow work in the future. Adversaries will undoubtedly try to test our fortitude. Iran attacked our personnel after the killing of Soleimani. Iran launched an unprecedented missile attack against Israel. These responses were tests of U.S. and Israeli resolve. The more we demonstrate our determination to severely punish those behind attacks on our people, the more likely the adversaries won’t undertake such operations.
The Cipher Brief: Let’s move to Iran. What have been the continuous elements of that challenge, and what is the incoming Trump administration likely to face?
Roule: The key elements of the relationship between Iran and the outside world have involved a number of constant elements that President Trump’s administration must address. Let me name a few.
The absence of a consistent policy approach due to a belief that Iranian and proxy hardliners can be convinced to adopt normative international behavior through negotiations: From the first days of the Iranian revolution, the West has whipsawed between the policies of engagement to encourage traditional political behavior and pressure to constrain aggression. These inevitable shifts play to the advantage of Iran, which believes it can outlast pressure campaigns or use the process of engagement to fracture coalitions, whittle away at Western demands, create debates within our societies so that we negotiate against ourselves, and ultimately soften international economic pressure without making permanent concessions. This dynamic isn’t unique to Iran. American’ policy towards the Soviet Union followed a similar path in the 1920s and 1930s.
The role of intermediaries between the U.S. and Iran and Iranian proxies has been and will likely remain a constant. Algeria played a significant role in the Carter-era hostage negotiations. France and Germany played a significant role in the Reagan efforts to release hostages in Lebanon. Oman was important to the Obama and Biden administration’s nuclear and hostage talks. Qatar has become the main interlocutor with Hamas. During times of tension, a variety of interlocutors conveyed U.S. warnings to Iran.
Hostage-taking has been one of the Islamic Republic’s most important political tools throughout its history. Beginning with the U.S. embassy seizure, Iran and its proxies have taken hostages to squeeze political and economic concessions from Western countries. In two cases, hostage-taking shifted U.S. domestic politics. The Carter administration’s political troubles from the Embassy hostage crisis were followed by the Iran-Contra hostage crisis by the Reagan administration. The Bush administration saw the beginning of Iran’s cruel duplicity of the Robert Levinson case. President Obama’s administration began with the detention of U.S. hikers by Iran and closed with a controversial hostage deal that some believe raised the cost of future releases. The Trump administration and Biden administration's regional diplomacy has been dominated by the need to free hostages and detainees held by Iran, Hamas, Iraqi militias, and the Houthis.
Tolerance of Iran’s creep towards nuclear weapons capability. If the good news is that Iran has no nuclear weapon, the bad news is that it has successfully used past years to move much closer to weaponization at little long-term cost. Iran is likely to refrain from weaponization until it believes it can do so without facing military action, but it will undoubtedly use its nuclear weapons potential as a shield against pressure resulting from its other malign behaviors.
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Refusal to deal with the Quds Force as a terrorist organization. Throughout the past forty years, policymakers routinely ascribed proxy capabilities and Iran’s international terrorism to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force. But until the U.S. killing of Qassem Soleimani and the Israeli elimination of multiple Quds Force officers, the global response has been limited to tough statements and symbolic sanctions. Unsurprisingly, the extent of Quds Force operations has extended from the U.S. and Latin America to Africa, from East Asia to the Middle East. Iran is alone in the world with its employment of this state terror machine. Until the international community treats the Quds Force as a state version of al-Qaida and Iran faces direct action for proxy operations, there will never be a debate within Iran’s leadership as to whether they should cease Quds Force operations.
Reliance on economic pressure as the sole coercive tool against Iran. There is no question that sanctions have slowed and constrained Iran’s nuclear, missile, and regional militia programs. However, sanctions stopped neither the programs nor Iran’s willingness to resource the same.
The narrative on sanctions – which I have watched up close from their initiation - has changed over the years. No policymaker ever thought sanctions alone would halt Iran’s actions. The idea was that sanctions would ignite a debate among Iran’s leadership as to whether a nuclear, missile, or militia program was worth regime-destabilizing pressure. Sanctions also were meant to push Iran towards negotiations, which they did in 2013.
The maximum pressure campaign of the Trump administration had an undeniable impact on Iran’s foreign exchange reserves and, if extended, likely would have compelled Iran to consider seeking relief through negotiations. The challenge does not appear to be too few or even too many sanctions against Iran but rather too many symbolic sanctions, too little sanctions enforcement, and a view that sanctions should be the sole coercive tool in our policy toolkit.
A refusal to undertake military action against Iran following lethal attacks and threats against Americans and the Homeland. Iran’s history of lethal direct and indirect lethal operations against Americans has been well-documented since the early 1980s. No country has been more aggressive at grey zone operations; Iran’s defense doctrine focuses on asymmetric and unconventional actions. Lebanese Hezbollah, Palestinian militants, Iraqi militias, and, more recently, the Houthis have killed and threatened Americans and many nationals, including those from their home countries. Yet, the idea of military action against Iran has been seen as anathema. This paradigm has provided Iran with an extraordinary shield that will likely puzzle future historians.
The Cipher Brief: What are your thoughts on the elements that would constitute an effective strategy for the region - as the incoming Trump administration considers its options?
Roule: Four ideas come to mind.
First, the administration needs a strategy that prevents inevitable Middle East crises from dominating our foreign agenda without putting at risk other initiatives. The region operates on the reverse of Las Vegas rules: What happens in the Middle East never stays in the Middle East. The Biden administration first thought it could minimize its approach to the region. Then, it felt it could engage the region selectively on green energy and high tech. The administration seemed to cede the initiative to partners and adversaries as crises appeared. The Biden team leaves office with the Middle East in greater turmoil than any of its predecessors. The Trump administration will need to build and empower a policy architecture capable of managing the region’s challenges without requiring frequent intervention by White House personnel who are required to juggle multiple competing priorities.
We need partners who can help with burden sharing and who will remain steadfast on transformational goals. This will require engagement, and hard conversations, especially with Europe. The United States can’t be expected to risk lives and treasure endlessly in such places as the Red Sea and Syria, which are arguably more important to European security than our own, without Europe adopting a more consequential position against Iran. Sadly, history has repeatedly shown that a Europe that sometimes messages that it is willing “to do more” against Iran is rather a Europe that defines “more” as endless talks, symbolic sanctions, and vague threats.
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The Quds Force can’t be ignored. Iran’s proxies have been well-known for decades. These groups have killed many hundreds of U.S. personnel. All of Iran’s proxies rely upon funds, training, weapons, and political support from the Quds Force. No other country in the world is allowed a machine that literally exists to grow militias and terrorists. We need a strategy that relies on more than symbolic sanctions to stop this terror machine. As long as the Quds Force exists, Iran’s malign adventurism will continue.
The intelligence community and its partners need to maintain a strong focus on Iran’s nuclear program and must develop a better understanding of Iran’s proxies. No administration can create a policy regarding Iran’s nuclear program without the assurance that we and our partners will know when Iran begins nuclear weaponization. More work needs to be done against Iran’s proxies. Why were we surprised by Hamas's October 7 attack? Is our coverage of the Houthis or Iraqi militias any better than Hamas?
The Cipher Brief: In the wake of Israel’s devastation of Hezbollah and Hamas, the collapse of the Asad government, and Israel’s destruction of Iran’s air defenses and critical missile facilities, Iran is increasingly described as weak. Do you believe this is the case?
Roule: Iran’s ability to project power has diminished significantly, and it certainly is exposed to further attacks by Israel or the U.S. The regime is increasingly unpopular, and the economy is poor. If that’s your definition of weakness, then Iran is weak. If you mean regime stability and whether Iran feels compelled to make strategic concessions to survive, the evidence doesn’t suggest that it has reached that point. As a result of the Biden administration’s decision not to enforce oil sanctions, Iran’s accessible foreign reserves are much higher than the estimated $4 billion at the end of the last Trump administration. It will take even robust sanctions enforcement some time to reach this previous low point.
In some ways, this is the third time in the last 20-plus years that Iran has confronted a similar set of circumstances: possible threat to regime survival by an external power beyond Iran’s capacity to oppose, a lack of strong external allies, recent major unrest and a disgruntled population, a poor economy and rising inflation, a need to deflect sanctions pressures, fractures among the Great Powers, European eagerness for negotiations, and U.S. moving towards direct military action but looking for a way to avoid a conventional conflict in the Middle East. If one compares events from 1999-2003 and 2009-2013 to today, a pattern does appear. The primary difference between these past periods and today is Israel’s demonstration of its military superiority over Iran.
In the past, Iran made substantial nuclear concessions, halting its weaponization program in 2003 and accepting the nuclear deal restrictions of the Obama era. In return, Iran gained relief from regime-threatening actions, fractured adversary coalitions, and deflected sanctions to sustain the economy. If the past is prologue, an intense pressure campaign led by the U.S. will likely bring Iran to the table looking for a nuclear deal while rebuffing constraints on its missile programs and efforts to develop regional hegemony. Iran’s first move will likely be to engage Europe and then see what deal is available from the U.S., and how its exploration of a deal can dissipate pressure without making advance concessions. It followed this strategy with the Europeans two decades ago and with the Biden administration more recently.
The Cipher Brief: And just as importantly, what does Tehran hope to achieve in negotiations?
Roule: Broadly, the regime needs time to complete its transition to a new generation of leadership while fending off any threats from the incoming Trump administration. Talks need to overcome diplomatic and economic isolation and provide sufficient economic relief to maintain regime subsidies and key imports. Iran has had four red lines on its nuclear program: no requirement that it admit past nuclear weapons activities, retaining its right to industrial enrichment operations in its civilian nuclear program, no closure of nuclear facilities, and the right to continue nuclear research and development. Last, Iran needs time to revitalize its regional proxies. Can it rebuild Hamas and Hezbollah? What can it do with the Houthis to expand their influence? What is the potential in Africa as the next arena for Iran’s adventurism?
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