Syria, Gaza and the Shifting Middle Eastern Order
Together, they will define the limits of U.S. retrenchment.
By: Kamran Bokhari
At a time when postwar Gaza is grabbing most of the headlines, the meeting reflected Washington’s belief that stabilizing Syria is essential to restoring the region’s fractured balance of power.
It also underscored Trump’s conviction that local actors, even former adversaries of the U.S., must bear the primary burden for keeping the peace.
After the meeting, al-Sharaa declared on Fox News that Syria “is no longer looked at as a security threat” but is now “a geopolitical ally.”
He dismissed the possibility of direct negotiations with Israel, but in a nod to the Trump administration’s approach, he suggested that U.S. mediation might eventually make them possible.
Trump, in turn, portrayed al-Sharaa as a pragmatic leader who could make Syria “very successful.”
Underscoring his reliance on personal diplomacy to advance rapprochement among rival states, Trump said al-Sharaa “gets along very well” with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (whom Trump called “a great leader”) and concluded, “We’re working also with Israel on getting along with Syria, getting along with everybody.”
For Washington, the Levant is the critical corridor connecting the eastern Mediterranean to the Gulf, and the place where Turkish, Israeli and Arab interests intersect.
The Trump administration’s wager is that a reconstructed Syrian state, aligned loosely with the U.S. and its local partners, can contain Iran’s influence and anchor a new security framework in the Middle East.
This localized burden-sharing model would enable U.S. retrenchment without creating a vacuum.
The difficulty, however, lies in managing the overlapping ambitions of those very partners.
Among them, Turkey wields the greatest leverage.
It was Turkish backing, after all, that enabled al-Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham insurgency to topple the Assad regime last December – an indirect but consequential outcome of Israel’s defeat of Hezbollah, which broke Iran’s decades-long hold on the Levant.
Thus, when Trump brought up Erdogan during his meeting with al-Sharaa, he revealed how deeply Washington’s strategy now depends on Ankara.
In essence, the U.S. has delegated the task of building a coherent Syrian polity to Turkey, effectively tying itself to Turkey’s regional strategy.
It’s a risky play, especially since Ankara’s ambitions extend beyond stabilization to restoring its own regional primacy.
But the pool of reliable partners is limited, and the U.S. views Turkey as indispensable.
All things considered, the U.S. would like to partner with a state where Arabs constitute a plurality.
The obvious candidate is Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude producer and a central actor in the Arab and Muslim worlds.
Yet despite its vast wealth, the kingdom lacks the military capacity and strategic agility to uphold regional stability on its own.
Its reliance since World War II on American protection and regional policing underscores that reality.
Nevertheless, Saudi Arabia remains an essential pillar in any Middle East strategy, and it has taken steps to address its limitations.
Shortly after Washington expressed its desire for local actors to manage the Middle East, Saudi Arabia finalized its Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement with Pakistan, its longtime ally.
The pact gives Riyadh access to Islamabad’s military expertise, offsetting its weaknesses – a critical step if it hopes to prevent Ankara from dominating the region.
For the U.S., the Saudi-Pakistani pact is precisely the sort of arrangement it wants to see as evidence that regional actors are internalizing the burden-sharing model, thereby reducing America’s financial and strategic exposure and freeing up resources to focus on the challenges posed by China and other global risks.
For the model to work, however, the U.S. must reconcile the divergent priorities of its key partners – nowhere more so than between Turkey and Israel.
The Trump administration has invested considerable effort in steering both toward a functional modus vivendi.
Earlier this month, Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to the Levant, expressed optimism at a security conference in Bahrain that Turkey and Israel could establish a workable equilibrium despite their tensions.
For Israel, the prospect of sharing a border with a Turkish-backed Sunni regime in Damascus is alarming.
Similar concerns shape Israel’s opposition to Turkish participation in the International Stabilization Force planned for postwar Gaza.
While the U.S. views Ankara’s ties to Hamas as potentially useful in neutralizing the group as a fighting force, Israel sees them as a liability.
Fundamentally, although the U.S. and Israel agree on countering Iranian influence in Syria and Gaza, they sharply differ over Turkey’s role; the U.S. views Turkey as a tool of containment against Iran, whereas Israel perceives it as a new vector of risk.
If Syria is the keystone of the Trump administration’s Middle East strategy, Gaza is its proving ground.
The immediate priority is operationalizing the ISF, which will require at least eight states with competing interests to work in concert, under U.S. guidance.
There is no precedent for a large-scale Arab and Muslim joint task force stabilizing an insecure environment without active U.S. involvement, making Gaza a litmus test of the region’s capacity to assume even temporary security responsibilities.
The obstacles are formidable: disarming Hamas, training a new Palestinian security apparatus and supporting the creation of a functional governance structure.
The greatest challenge, however, will be executing these objectives while coordinating with Israel, whose relationship with many ISF participants is either fraught or nonexistent.
Yet the alternative – continued Israeli occupation of Gaza – carries even higher political, economic and security costs.
Success in Gaza would do more than stabilize a war-torn enclave.
It would validate Washington’s strategy, strengthen U.S. leverage and potentially create a model for regional burden-sharing.
Failure, by contrast, would expose the limits of regional stakeholder cooperation and reinforce skepticism about the United States’ ability to withdraw without destabilizing the region.
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