Analysis
Trump already shaking up Mideast diplomacy on Iran
Tehran is scrambling diplomatically to head off ramped-up sanctions in an expected revitalized campaign of maximum pressure.
US President-elect Donald Trump is raising the bar, and expectations, for US diplomacy in the Middle East, and he’s not even in office yet.
US partners in region are hopeful about Trump’s return. They may not say it outright, because of diplomatic niceties, but that’s the vibe behind closed doors.
Biden and his diplomatic team, as Aaron David Miller put it in September, had become part of the “political furniture” in the region — always present and widely ignored. That chapter is closing fast.
Iran, for its part, is scrambling diplomatically to head off ramped-up sanctions in an expected revitalized campaign of maximum pressure under the Trump administration.
