The Trump administration has begun developing a post-war Middle East strategy built around containing Iran, advancing settlements in Gaza and Lebanon and expanding the Abraham Accords, including a potential normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
The Trump administration has begun designing a broader Middle East strategy for the period after the Iran war, with officials working on a plan that would link Iranian containment, Israeli-Arab normalization and efforts to resolve conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon into a single regional framework.
The emerging strategy remains in its early stages but is being developed simultaneously among senior administration officials and across federal agencies, according to an Axios report.
President Donald Trump has held at least two meetings with senior advisers in recent weeks about the initiative and has told members of his team that he is working on “something much bigger” in the Middle East.
The administration is expected to develop the strategy more fully within the next several weeks.
Three major objectives are taking shape.
The first would establish a regional alignment designed to contain Iran, with the United States serving as a guarantor.
The second would seek to advance the next stage of the 20-point Gaza reconstruction plan while pursuing a lasting peace arrangement between Israel and Lebanon.
The third would attempt to expand the Abraham Accords, with normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia representing one of the most significant potential additions.
“The idea is to tie a whole lot of things in the region together—how you create a regional alignment after the war. It is still unclearif all U.S. allies in the region will be on board,” a source said.
The concept reflects an effort to move beyond managing individual conflicts separately and instead establish a broader regional structure after hostilities with Iran eventually end.
A U.S.-backed coalition intended to limit Iranian influence would form one component of that structure, while diplomatic agreements between Israel and neighboring Arab countries would form another.
The administration also wants to move beyond the current phases of conflict in Gaza and Lebanon rather than allow those disputes to remain unresolved after the Iran war.
The plan’s ultimate shape, however, could depend partly on political developments inside Israel.
Israel is scheduled to hold elections in October, and U.S. officials hope the government formed afterward will be willing to cooperate with the developing American strategy.
Administration officials nevertheless say Trump intends to pursue the regional plan regardless of the composition of Israel’s next government.
Normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia would represent a particularly consequential expansion of the Abraham Accords.
The agreements established during Trump’s first administration normalized relations between Israel and several Arab governments. Bringing Saudi Arabia into that framework has remained a considerably larger diplomatic objective because of the kingdom’s economic, political and religious influence across the region.
The new strategy would attempt to connect such normalization directly with the security order that emerges after the Iran conflict.
At the same time, Washington is signaling that its planning for a post-war regional system does not mean military pressure on Tehran has ended.
Trump renewed his warning Friday that the United States could strike Iran’s deeply buried Pickaxe Mountain nuclear facility if activity there indicates Tehran is attempting to restore its nuclear capabilities.
“We know everybody that’s moving at Pickaxe. We know everybody that’s moving everywhere all over Iran,” Trump said.
“And if anything goes bad, we hit them. We hit them hard.”
Trump made similar comments one day earlier during an interview with Britain’s GB News, saying U.S. surveillance capabilities allow Washington to closely observe activity at Iran’s major nuclear facilities.
“We have cameras on every major area of the first three. And we also have cameras on Pickaxe Mountain,” Trump said, referring to Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan, the three Iranian nuclear sites struck by the United States last year.
“We know everybody that walks in and walks out,” he added.
Pickaxe Mountain is located near Iran’s Natanz nuclear complex and contains deeply buried infrastructure designed to make the facility difficult to reach militarily.
The location has drawn increased attention because intelligence indicates that Iran transferred thousands of advanced centrifuges there last fall.
Centrifuges can be used to enrich uranium, and the presence of large numbers of advanced machines could provide Iran with the capacity to restart enrichment activities if the equipment remains operational.
Trump has repeatedly said Iran will not be permitted to acquire a nuclear weapon and has warned that Pickaxe Mountain could be attacked if Washington determines Tehran is attempting to resume a nuclear-weapons program.
The site’s depth and fortification make it one of the most difficult Iranian nuclear facilities to destroy.
That challenge has made surveillance of activity around the complex especially important to the administration’s approach.
Trump characterized the current confrontation with Iran Friday as an “intermittent military conflict,” indicating that Washington does not believe it must conduct uninterrupted military operations to maintain pressure on Tehran.
Instead, the administration’s position is that U.S. forces can continue monitoring Iranian activities and strike particular targets when officials determine military action is necessary.
“I can’t tell you, but we’ve already won the big thing,” Trump said.
“There’s not going to be a nuclear weapon.”
That approach forms the immediate security backdrop to the administration’s longer-term diplomatic planning.
The developing Middle East strategy assumes that the Iran war will eventually give way to a new regional arrangement, but administration officials are simultaneously attempting to ensure that Tehran cannot use an end to sustained hostilities to rebuild capabilities Washington considers unacceptable.
Containing Iran would therefore remain a central objective even after the current military phase ends.
The proposed regional alliance would seek to coordinate U.S. partners around that goal, with Washington acting as a security guarantor.
At the same time, the administration would attempt to reduce other sources of regional instability by moving the Gaza reconstruction initiative forward and securing a durable arrangement between Israel and Lebanon.
Expanding normalization between Israel and Arab governments would provide the diplomatic component.
Taken together, the three elements would attempt to establish a regional order in which Iran is constrained, Israel’s conflicts with neighboring territories and governments are reduced, and diplomatic and economic relationships between Israel and Arab states deepen.
Significant uncertainties remain.
The administration has not finalized the plan, and it is unclear whether all U.S. partners would accept the proposed alignment.
The outcome of Israel’s October election could also affect how readily its next government participates.
The future course of the Iran conflict remains another variable, particularly as Trump continues threatening additional strikes against Iranian nuclear infrastructure.
For now, officials are developing the strategy before the fighting has ended, with the objective of having a framework ready for the environment that follows.
If completed as envisioned, the plan would represent an attempt to connect several of the region’s largest unresolved issues — Iran’s military and nuclear capabilities, Gaza’s reconstruction, Israel-Lebanon relations and Arab-Israeli normalization — rather than addressing them through separate diplomatic tracks.
The administration’s immediate challenge remains the war itself.
Its longer-term objective is now taking shape around what comes next.
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