President Trump’s Middle East Trip: An Opportunity to Reset Relations

Middle East Eye

Heritage  "President Trump has an opportunity to reset relations with key Middle Eastern allies and restore confidence in American leadership. He can capitalize on the fact that Israel and the Sunni Arab gulf states, alarmed by what they regarded as the Obama Administration’s feeble and disastrous policy toward Iran, found themselves cooperating under the table to protect their own security. The President should use this Middle East trip to repair bilateral relationships undermined by his predecessor and build multinational coalitions to unite Arab leaders against ISIS, al-Qaeda, Iran, and other Islamist totalitarian threats.
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"President Trump has an opportunity to reset relations with key Middle Eastern allies and restore confidence in American leadership. He can capitalize on one of the Obama Administration’s legacies: Israel and the Sunni Arab gulf states, alarmed by what they regarded as a feeble and disastrous U.S. policy toward Iran, found themselves cooperating under the table to protect their own security. The President must use his Middle East trip to repair bilateral relationships undermined by his predecessor and build multinational coalitions to unite Arab leaders against ISIS, al-Qaeda, Iran, and other Islamist totalitarian threats." 

James Phillips is Senior Research Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy, of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullum Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, at The Heritage Foundation.