Nikita Smagin
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This week’s summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh looks like nothing short of a triumph for the United States in the Middle East. U.S. President Donald Trump met with representatives of thirty countries, and the declaration signed there to end the war in Gaza stands in stark contrast with the Kremlin’s failed attempts to hold its own summit with Arab states in Moscow at around the same time.
Yet behind this picture of Russia’s apparent failure and the Trump administration’s success in the Middle East lies a more complex reality. In the last two years, the Middle East has undergone a profound transformation that has created uncertainty and fault lines that Moscow will try to use to its advantage.
One watershed moment came in late 2024 with the collapse of Syria’s Assad dynasty, which had ruled the country for over half a century. The new authorities in Damascus are pro-Turkish, making Ankara one of the key powers in the region.An equally significant change is a radical decline in Iran’s influence in the region, brought about by Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, the strikes against the Houthis in Yemen, the defeat of Hezbollah’s military wing in Lebanon, and the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, not to mention Israel’s bombing of Iran itself this summer.
The Middle East is also changing under the influence of Israel’s new, far more militant course, upon which it embarked following the terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has become determined to eliminate the enemies that surround it, eliciting major concerns in most of the region’s states. Those concerns reached a new level after the Israeli strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar in September, which was unanimously condemned by the Gulf states.
The reverberations from these changes in the Middle East have altered Western perceptions of the region. Criticism of Israel’s actions has led to a wave of leading EU countries officially recognizing Palestine and even to the imposition of targeted European sanctions against Israeli individuals. As a result, the Israeli leadership is beginning to assume that the country will not be on good terms with much of the West for a long time to come. Even if the Gaza peace agreement is fully implemented, Israel will continue to fight in Lebanon and Syria, and with Iran.
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