Sarah Leah Whitson is the Executive Director of DAWN.
Published in American Prospect, September 27, 2024
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, if elected, are sure to produce vastly different outcomes on nearly every domestic issue in contention: women's reproductive rights, taxation, public education, corporate regulation, the environment, and immigration. There's far less divergence, however, on foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East. Like the Biden administration before it, a Harris administration may be softer around the edges, a "Trump lite" if you will, with rhetoric and sentiments favoring human rights and international law but no policies to back them.
There are two principal reasons for this. First, Harris and Trump's worldviews are grounded in an article of faith that has undergirded America's post–World War II foreign policy: maintaining U.S. hegemony and supremacy. There is full agreement, as Kamala Harris recently declared at the Democratic convention and reiterated in her debate with former President Trump, that the U.S. must have the "most lethal" military in the world, and that we must maintain our military bases and personnel globally. While Trump may have a more openly mercenary approach, demanding that the beneficiaries of U.S. protection in Europe and Asia pay more for it, he is a unilateralist, not an isolationist. At bottom, neither candidate is revisiting the presuppositions of U.S. primacy.
Second, both Harris and Trump are subject to the overwhelming incentive structure that rewards administrations for spending more on the military and selling more weapons abroad than any other country in the world. The sell-side defense industry has fully infiltrated the U.S. government, with campaign donations and a revolving escalator to keep Republicans and Democrats fully committed to promoting their interests. The buy-side foreign regimes have gotten in on the pay-to-play, ensuring handsome rewards to U.S. officials who ensure weapons sales continue. And all sides play the reverse leverage card: If the U.S. doesn't sell weapons, China and Russia (or even the U.K. and France) will. There is no countervailing economic pressure, and little political pressure, to force either Harris or Trump to consider the domestic and global harms of this spending and selling.
In the Middle East, the incentive structure is at its most powerful, combining the influence of the defense industry and the seemingly bottomless disposable wealth of the Gulf States. And there are two additional factors—the unparalleled influence and control of the pro-Israel lobby, which rewards government officials who comply with its demands and eliminates those who don't; and Arab control over the oil and gas spigots that determines the prices Americans pay for fuel. As a result, continued flows of money, weapons, and petroleum will ensue, regardless of who wins in November. Within these confines, there are some marginal differences in how Trump and Harris will approach specific issues in the region, but it is doubtful they will be significant enough to be dramatically consequential.
LET'S START WITH ISRAEL. Democrats have become increasingly divided over the Biden administration's "unconditional," "ironclad" support for Israel in the face of its yearlong onslaught in Gaza. It has forced self-proclaimed Zionist Joe Biden to throw a few bones to progressive and Muslim American voters, with heightened rhetorical criticism of Israel's indiscriminate bombardment, a brief delay in restocking Israel's diminished supply of bombs, and even sanctions against "bad apple" Israeli settlers who have terrorized Palestinians in the West Bank. A strong majority of Democratic voters now oppose military aid to Israel and support Palestinian rights and freedom.
Harris no doubt feels pressure to promise some recalibration of Biden's policies, but she has largely confined this to expressions of sympathy for Palestinian "suffering." She has reiterated the Biden team's pleas for a cease-fire, but refused to support conditioning aid to Israel to achieve this. Her representatives at the Democratic convention went out of their way to make clear that there will be "no daylight" between her and Biden's policies on Israel, and that like Biden, she will stick to "frank conversations" with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And like every administration before hers, she will feel the sway of her pro-Israel donors much more than her voters once elected, making it unlikely that her policies will shift away from Israel to any consequential degree. There's no reason to believe she will walk back Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, or Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights, as the Biden administration has failed to do.
The Biden administration prioritized securing more Abraham Accords, a series of normalization measures between Israel and surrounding Arab states, in lockstep with Trump administration efforts. Whether Harris will continue this remains to be seen. But neither she nor her chief national security adviser, Phil Gordon, has said anything to suggest moving away from this goal. The war in Gaza has crushed Secretary of State Antony Blinken's dream of delivering Saudi normalization for Israel; but for Netanyahu's savagery, his persistent rejection of a cease-fire, and his declarations that he will never agree to a two-state solution, this would already have been achieved. Both Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may be saving such a deal as a bargaining chip with the next administration, but under these circumstances, the Saudi price will now be much higher.
The Biden team has already agreed to two outstanding demands: a bilateral U.S.-Saudi security agreement, and construction of a civilian nuclear plant, with enrichment to take place inside Saudi Arabia. But without tying them to Israeli normalization, it's doubtful that the Senate will approve these terms. It's conceivable that Trump will actually take a tougher line with Netanyahu than Harris, forcing him at least to accept a cease-fire, though not a "pathway" to Palestinian statehood, to secure Saudi normalization. But it's just as conceivable that Trump pushes for a separate stand-alone deal with Saudi Arabia, as the Saudis have proposed.
THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE IN ISRAEL-PALESTINE where Harris and Trump will likely differ is on the move by Israel to formally annex most or even all of the West Bank. David Friedman, who served as ambassador to Israel in the prior Trump administration, has openly endorsed Israeli apartheid and proposed annexation of the West Bank, minus political rights for Palestinians living there. Friedman has stated that he plans to closely consult with Trump on this "One Jewish State" solution. Trump delivered everything else on Friedman's wish list—including Jerusalem, Golan, the Abraham Accords, and moving Israel under the U.S. Central Command—the last time he sat in the Oval Office. He has also made clear that he sees Israel-Palestine not as a struggle to end apartheid and occupation, or to establish Palestinian self-determination, but as a real estate dispute between Jews and Arabs. "Israel is a tiny little spot compared to these giant land masses … I actually said, 'Is there any way of getting more? It's so tiny,'" Trump has said. It stands to reason that he would ultimately support Israeli annexation of the West Bank, as well as Israeli demands that "other Arabs" take in the Palestinian population.
A Harris administration, in classic Democratic fashion, would wring its hands, wag its finger, and ramp up rhetorical condemnation of Israel were it to move on annexation. But it's doubtful that it would stop arms transfers or support U.N. Security Council sanctions for such an unlawful and dangerous act. If the horrors in Gaza have not been enough to persuade candidate Harris to demand even a mere suspension of U.S. weapons transfers to Israel, it's doubtful that annexation would persuade a President Harris to do so.
Sadly, international law prohibitions on acquiring territory by force are now greatly eroded, thanks in no small part to the United States. The Trump administration not only recognized smaller Israeli annexations of Palestinian territory but Morocco's annexation of Western Sahara. The U.S. has completely ignored the International Court of Justice ruling that Israel's occupation is illegal and that it must remove its forces and citizens from the occupied Palestinian territories, so it's hard to see how even more "illegal acts" would tip the Harris administration into abiding by international law.
Harris should have sufficient support to try to dissuade Israel from moving forward with annexation plans. Netanyahu may calculate that he can afford to be in the Harris doghouse for a few years until annexation becomes old news, and the forced displacement of Palestinians, alongside the accompanying humanitarian catastrophe, becomes the new news. It's much easier politically to remedy humanitarian harms with aid than it is to fight and punish violations of a severely eroded law.
Harris and Trump will also have different strategies to deal with the International Criminal Court's ongoing prosecution of war crimes in Gaza. The ICC has indicted both Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, but has delayed issuing arrest warrants against them. Like he did before, Trump will move again to sanction the court's prosecutor, staff, and their families, and may escalate further by demanding that other countries sanction the court, and even push them to withdraw from the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC. Harris, like Biden, is unlikely to take action against the court, but also like Biden, is likely to exert maximal pressure behind the scenes to stymie the prosecution. Trump would definitely, and Harris most likely, refuse to arrest Netanyahu should he arrive in the U.S. after an arrest warrant is issued, further diminishing the court's standing as a global court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
NEITHER THE BIDEN NOR THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION achieved any of their oft-stated goals to "withdraw" from the Middle East and "pivot" to Asia. But Trump may be the stronger candidate in his ability to avoid broader entanglement in a regional war, given his willingness to act as the boss of the Middle East. He refused, for example, to come to Saudi Arabia's defense after the massive 2019 attack on its oil facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais. A small group of Muslim American voters have said they will vote for Trump specifically because they believe that he alone can bring Netanyahu to heel and avoid a war with Iran.
While Biden notably ended the war in Afghanistan and has finally secured an agreement to remove U.S. forces from Iraq, he has entered into a new war footing in Yemen, attacking Houthi forces for blockading and raiding ships headed to or from Israel. Biden also massively expanded the deployment of American military forces to the region, and suffered numerous attacks on U.S. troops in Jordan, Syria, and Iraq, primarily on behalf of Israel. And of course the Biden team has put the finishing touches on the defense agreement for the Saudi regime, prepared to deliver for free what Trump would likely extract more concessions for.
Where both administrations will converge is on continued arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, and Israel. While the Biden administration initially promised to halt weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, it caved to the built-in incentive system. While Trump has made clear his enthusiasm for maximal weapons sales for maximal profit, the Harris team, like the Biden team before it, will speak more softly but deliver similar results. Such weapons sales and support for abusive regimes in the region are perceived as a cost worth paying in the shared worldview that prioritizes U.S. military domination of the Middle East.
What remains a toss-up is policy on Iran. Harris's lead national security adviser, Phil Gordon, played a leading role in supporting the nuclear deal with Iran during the Obama administration, and has written extensively on the failures of regime change efforts in the Middle East. Harris supported the Iran deal, condemned Trump for canceling it, and would likely want to pursue it again. But extreme anti-Iran sentiment among both Republicans and pro-Israel Democrats would pressure her against moving forward, particularly if the conflict between Iran and Israel continues to flare up. For now, at least, candidate Harris is treating any less pugilistic policy on Iran as an opening for political attack; on September 5, she criticized Trump on X for suggesting he would consider lifting sanctions on Iran. (His reasoning was that sanctions hurt the U.S. economy, encouraging de-dollarization.)
Assuming Trump remains guided by anti-Iran extremists, he will continue to oppose the nuclear deal, reinvigorate his "maximum pressure" policies, and likely support further surprise attacks on Iranian facilities and targets—like the extrajudicial execution of IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani and nine others—and even a low-level state of war. If Trump continues to free himself from extremists like John Bolton, however, he may well pursue an agreement with Iran, if only to prove he's the president who can deliver the best deals.
But it may not be up to either Trump or Harris to choose a course of action on Iran, if Israel's efforts to escalate to war succeed. If tensions in the region spiral, there will be no room for a new nuclear deal, and the only question will be whether or not the U.S. steps in to fully back Israel. For both candidates, that remains unclear.
In September 2020, on the eve of the presidential election, I wrote a similar piece evaluating what a Trump or Biden presidency would look like, writing that "Biden is expected to return to a more moderate, but fundamentally unchanged approach of prior administrations, which centres on close ties to Israel and arms sales that fuel the region's arms race." Four years later, with the very same values and incentives at play, a Harris term appears poised to follow the same course.
Foreign policy largely remains the province of an elite clique of decision-makers. None but the tiniest segment of the electorate prioritizes foreign-policy issues in their voting choices. But changing course from normalizing America's very abnormal policies in the Middle East isn't impossible. Legislative reforms can and should tackle the malign influence and infiltration of the defense industry and foreign states, just as open debate can reform outdated ideological commitments. Public opinion clearly desires a new approach; the only challenge that remains is forcing our own government to comply with the will of the people.
Sarah Leah Whitson is the executive director of DAWN. Previously, she served as executive director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa Division from 2004 to 2020.
