FPI / December 11, 2025
Though Iran remains the Middle East’s “chief destabilizing force,” it has been “greatly weakened by Israeli actions since October 7, 2023, and U.S. President Donald Trump’s June 2025 Operation Midnight Hammer” and thus has been downgraded in Trump’s latest National Security Strategy.
The new strategy document, released on Dec. 5, states that “conflict remains the Middle East’s most troublesome dynamic, but there is today less to this problem than headlines might lead one to believe.”
Attacks by Israel and the U.S. “significantly degraded Iran’s nuclear program,” the document adds.
“In Operation Midnight Hammer, we obliterated Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity,” Trump writes.
The Middle East doesn’t get as much attention in Trump’s new strategy after the U.S. president focused a great deal of his foreign policy doctrine in the first year of his second administration on the region.
Trump bombed Iran and helped end the 12-day war between Jerusalem and Teheran. He pushed for the Gaza ceasefire and also worked with the UN to get a resolution supporting it. He has also worked with the Saudis and the new Syrian government.
The strategy states that the Trump Administration wants Israel to remain secure, but also wants the Jewish State to be able to take responsibility for its own policies, meaning the U.S. can’t always step in to help Israel deal with Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, or Iran.
“The U.S. also wants peace in the region, not more wars. Israeli leaders tend to hint at more wars with Iran, Hizbullah, or Hamas,” The Jerusalem Post’s Seth J. Frantzman noted.
In addition, the strategy notes that “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains thorny, but thanks to the ceasefire and release of hostages President Trump negotiated, progress toward a more permanent peace has been made.”
The section on Syria calls for Arab countries, Israel, and Turkey to support stabilization in Syria. The White House has not been happy with Israel’s bombing and incursions into Syria.
Overall, the administration believes that the U.S. doesn’t have the same historic reasons to be focused on the Middle East today.
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Iran and region’s ‘conflict dynamic’ downgraded in new National Security Strategy added by Editor Two on
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