As a Naval Intelligence Officer, the Middle East was a central focus of my military service. I’ve walked the ground there and felt the weight of its history and heartbreak. I witnessed the aftermath of the 1983 Beirut bombing that killed 241 U.S. Marines. I’ve traveled through Israel and the West Bank, observing the fragile layers of conflict and coexistence firsthand, and visited Israeli naval ships. During the first Persian Gulf War, I served in the Pentagon, tasked with developing strategic targets and assessing bomb damage against Saddam Hussein’s regime.
I have never been as optimistic about the future of the Middle East as I am now.
That may sound surprising, even naive to some, especially given the current headlines. But I believe we are witnessing a moment of realignment—one that could finally weaken the forces of extremism and unlock a more prosperous and peaceful future for the region. Much of this hope stems from the disruption of conventional, often failed, foreign policy approaches. For that, I give significant credit to President Donald Trump. Whatever one thinks of him, it was his willingness to break with the stale orthodoxy of Middle East policy that created the conditions for the Abraham Accords—and for what might now follow.
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| President Donald J. Trump, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bahrain Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Foreign Affairs for the United Arab Emirates Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyani sign the Abraham Accords Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2020, on the South Lawn of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour) |
What comes after the war between Israel and Iran?
That is the question we must now ask, even as the Israeli Air Force continues to dismantle Iran’s missile infrastructure and its deeply buried nuclear capabilities. The strategic reality in the Middle East is changing—perhaps more quickly than most anticipated. The war that many feared might explode into a regional inferno has instead begun to extinguish the fire at its source. Iran, long the arsonist of the Middle East, is weakened—militarily, diplomatically, and perhaps most importantly, internally.
This moment did not arrive suddenly. The trajectory began with the brutal October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians. This horror reawakened the world to the cost of appeasing extremists and ignoring the malign influence of Tehran. What followed was not merely a war in Gaza, but a global reassessment of Iran’s destabilizing role, and an opening to reorder the region around a more stable axis: peace, prosperity, and moderation.
When I wrote last year that Hamas’s attack might inadvertently lead to long-term gains for peace, it was not an idle hope. It was a recognition that Iran had overplayed its hand. The Abraham Accords—those groundbreaking agreements between Israel and Arab states—were never just about diplomacy. They were about the region's future, and Iran knew it. Its proxies—Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis—exist to forestall that future. But now, those proxies lie in ruin. Israel has systematically degraded Hamas in Gaza. Hezbollah’s effectiveness is blunted. The Houthis are isolated. And now Iran itself finds its air defenses shattered and its nuclear program under direct assault.
Israel, perceiving an existential threat and an opportunity, has taken bold and unilateral action. It did so not out of bravado, but necessity. It perceives Iran’s progress toward nuclear weapons—paired with a growing arsenal of long-range ballistic missiles—as a point of no return. The world should not be surprised that Israel acted. What is surprising is the remarkable success of operation Rising Lion. With no direct U.S. military involvement, Israel has achieved near-total air supremacy over Iran. It has neutralized key launch sites and decimated command-and-control nodes and leadership. Iran, despite decades of bluster, has been unable to mount a credible defense, and its indiscriminate missile attacks on civilians are diminishing daily as Israel destroys each launcher that fires a ballistic missile.
Donald Trump, aligned with Israel's strategic thinking, tried for sixty days to reach a peaceful dismantling of Iran’s nuclear activities. When diplomacy failed, Israel waited one more day—and then acted. That action may be remembered not just as a military strike, but as the beginning of the end for the radical Shiite regime that has strangled Iran’s great civilization and tormented its neighbors for over forty years.
Here lies the opportunity. If Iran’s theocratic regime cannot recover, or if it loses legitimacy among its people, the regional order will no longer revolve around a belligerent, revolutionary state. Even if the mullahs survive, the damage done to Iran will create an extended period of opportunity for the region to coalesce around the moderate powers of the Middle East—Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, and Israel—each of which has a vested interest in security, economic development, and regional integration.
The Abraham Accords were not a historical anomaly. They were the first genuine framework in decades that acknowledged the failure of the old paradigms: the illusions of a peace process held hostage by maximalist demands and the fantasy that terror groups would moderate with power. Instead, the Accords moved beyond grievance and ideology, embracing opportunity and coexistence.
In early June 2025, Donald Trump made a high-profile visit to the Middle East, meeting with leaders in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Qatar. His purpose was to reassert the foundational principles of the Abraham Accords and emphasize that regional stability, mutual security, and economic development are the driving interests uniting moderate nations. By engaging both longtime allies and key regional players, Trump reinforced the idea that lasting peace comes not through appeasing extremists, but by empowering those committed to modernization and cooperation.
If Iran’s military and nuclear capabilities are neutralized—and if the regime itself begins to falter—it will send a powerful message: that exporting terrorism and pursuing extreme ideologies is not a viable path. For Iran’s people, it may offer an opening to reclaim their nation from the clerics who hijacked it in 1979. For Lebanon, it may offer hope of a future not controlled by Hezbollah. For Yemen, a reprieve from endless war. For Iraq and Syria, the potential to rebuild sovereign politics not beholden to Tehran’s influence.
For the Palestinians, this could be the moment to reset their future as well. With Hamas diminished and Iran no longer funding rejectionism, space may open for pragmatic leadership in both Gaza and the West Bank—leaders who reject the nihilism of “resistance” and seek a real path to nationhood within a shared regional vision. Further still, imagine Iran’s brilliant youth free to contribute to this vision, rather than being conscripted into martyrdom by decrepit clerics. Imagine a regional security framework that finally isolates the remaining extremists, rather than empowering them.
Of course, none of this is guaranteed. As all military planners know, the enemy gets a vote. Could Iran take dramatic action and launch a ballistic missile with a dirty bomb at its tip filled with radioactive materials and escalate the violence? Chinese transport planes are landing in Tehran. Are they evacuating their citizens, or providing additional support to the Iranian regime, or helping them to contain nuclear materials? We do not know. History rarely moves in straight lines. But moments like this—moments of transformation—do not come often. They are born of painful clarity. They require courageous leadership. And they depend on the will of nations to align their futures not with the slogans of the past, but with the possibilities of tomorrow.
The United States must recognize this inflection point and act accordingly. There is an understandable reluctance among many Americans—particularly among a growing populist branch of the MAGA movement—to engage in yet another Middle Eastern conflict. These Americans, wearied by two decades of "forever wars," see no benefit in extending U.S. power abroad. Tucker Carlson has emerged as the most vocal advocate of this view.
Their skepticism is not without merit. They watched the chaos of Iraq, the futility of Afghanistan, the lies that led to both, and they are right to demand prudence and accountability. But what is unfolding today is not Iraq or Afghanistan. This is not nation-building, nor is it a vague war on terror. This is a targeted campaign by a regional ally, Israel, against the most dangerous state sponsor of terrorism on the planet—a regime racing toward nuclear weapons and committed to the destruction of both Israel and American influence in the Middle East. A regime that plotted the assassination of President Trump.
Donald Trump understands this distinction. Though he rightly ran against the globalist mindset that dragged America into endless wars, he also knows that strategic disengagement is not the same as strategic blindness. His Abraham Accords were not born from idealism but from a realist’s understanding of opportunity. A secure, integrated Middle East—bound by shared interests, economic development, and deterrence of Iranian aggression—was the vision. The current Israeli campaign, ironically, may make that vision even more attainable.
Trump is not likely to align himself with the isolationist wing of the MAGA base on this issue. He gave diplomacy a genuine chance, offering Iran a two-month window to avoid this escalation. When that failed, he understood what Israel had to do and signaled quiet support. Though there is no direct US military action in Iran, the US is likely sharing intelligence and is probably integrating its missile detection capabilities with the Israelis. However, there are only minimal reports of the use of US defense missile systems, whether ground-based THAAD or sea-based systems. US bunker buster bombs may be needed to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities deep in underground bunkers at Fordow.
If the Abraham Accords can be expanded in the aftermath of the war—if Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and others can stand firmly together with Israel in a post-Iran future—it will be one of the most significant geopolitical transformations in the modern era. And if Trump is the architect of that shift, history will remember him not just as a disruptor, but as a statesman who redrew the map of the Middle East without the need for American boots on the ground.
What comes after this conflict may be something no one thought possible just a few years ago: a Middle East not dominated by jihadist ideologies or cold war politics, but by shared prosperity, modernity, and mutual security.
May we seize the moment while it is still in our hands.
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