While Americans will likely be concerned with mostly domestic priorities in the US presidential race, one major question looms abroad: would US Vice President Kamala Harris or former president Donald Trump be better as far as US foreign policy is concerned?

The question has been a matter of profound discussion worldwide, and some governments have even formed “crisis groups” to review and prepare for the scenarios that could materialise after the US presidential elections on 5 November.

Much of the debate centres around the effects that the elections could have on decisions made by countries around the world, especially on matters of geopolitics, trade, and economies.

Opinion polls in the US indicate that Harris and Trump are locked in a tight race, as voters remain focused on divisive domestic issues while foreign policy does not seem to be high on the agenda in the election campaigns.

In the Arab world, there have also been few public efforts made in speculating about the future of relations with the United States, as it is accepted that there is no reason to expect changes in Washington’s Middle East policies after the presidential elections.

Yet, there is much at stake for the Arabs in the 2024 elections, held as the Middle East is entering a new phase in the wake of the Israeli war on Gaza and Lebanon.

The Biden administration’s policy towards the war has generally been seen as a dismal failure in the Arab world. Its unwavering support for Israel has brought the Middle East to the brink of all-out war.

While paying lip service to regional and international efforts to press Israel to end its war on Gaza and Lebanon, the administration has supported Israel’s campaigns, including by providing massive military aid.

Instead of facilitating a peaceful settlement, the Biden administration has fuelled the conflict by supplying the arms that have allowed Israel to level neighbourhoods across Gaza and Lebanon and kill tens of thousands of civilians.

Since the war started the administration has provided billions of dollars-worth of weapons to Israel. It has approved $20 billion in arms sales to Israel, including scores of fighter jets and advanced air-to-air missiles for the next five years.

The recent delivery of the sophisticated THAAD anti-missile defence system to Israel along with the troops needed to operate it is the culmination of the Biden administration’s involvement in the war in support of Israel.

Though Harris has pledged that her presidency, should she win in November, “will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency,” given the special relationship between the US and Israel there will not be a major difference in the policies of a Harris administration, which will most likely uphold the same line of unconditional support for Israel.

The contours of Harris’ likely Middle East policy are not clear, however, and they may be being kept deliberately obscure in order to circumvent a backlash from groups opposed to Biden’s Middle East policy, not just Arab and Muslim Americans but also young and progressive Americans of every background.

Harris has upheld Biden’s rhetoric about a ceasefire and hostage-release deal and suggested that “more must be done to protect Palestinian civilians and to deliver humanitarian assistance, and international humanitarian law must be upheld.”

But she has also been clear that her priority will remain to defend Washington’s main ally in the Middle East and to oppose cutting off the sale of weapons to Israel, something that Arab, Muslim, and many progressive voters want.

The implications of a Trump victory in the November elections for the Middle East, meanwhile, might not be radically different, but there could be some room for surprises in line with what has become known as his unpredictability in foreign relations.

Since the elections campaigns started, Trump has not spelt out his position on main foreign-policy issues. He has left it open-ended what he would do if the Israel-Gaza war is still on if and when he becomes president for a second time.

The former president has often described himself as the “best friend that Israel has ever had,” and while in office he unambiguously favoured the country. Trump ordered the moving of the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and he sponsored the normalisation of relations between several Arab countries and Israel.

Yet, he has remained inconsistent and evasive in many of his statements on Israel, including by saying recently that “Christians love Israel more than Jews,” apparently referring to American Jews who are traditionally Democratic Party supporters.

There is plenty of scepticism, however, about either a Harris or a Trump administration taking a new approach to the conflict or being open to challenging Israel.

Neither candidate has outlined how they believe peace might be achieved or what they envision for the region on the day after the guns fall silent and whether they see a state for the Palestinians as being at its core.

Much depends, of course, on whether the next US president will have the will or the courage to end the Israeli war on Gaza, which has now extended to Lebanon. But if the past of US-Israel relations provides any clue, changing US policy towards Israel will be politically hard to contemplate.

With the Israeli war of aggression on Gaza and Lebanon bringing the Middle East to the brink of all-out war, the question now is what the next US administration will do in the light of the far-reaching geopolitical shift created by the conflict.

The Middle East is fraught with apparently unending conflicts, pitting ambitious regional rivals against each other in vying for advantages and power. The expansion of the Israel war suggests that the Middle East’s place in the world will undergo profound changes.

Both US allies and adversaries are looking forward to seeing how the next administration will respond to these changes, which are widely expected to re-shape the future of the Middle East and create a new security order.

To a large degree, the US is expected to further lose credibility as a result of its failure to restrain Israeli decision-making since the 7 October attacks last year. Israel’s quest for military dominance in the region will not only make peace with the Arabs elusive but will likely spike an anti-American backlash.

There is an urgent need, therefore, for the next administration to look again at how the US approaches its overall Middle East policies. These policies are pretty clear in their goal to integrate Israel into the region, but they have not worked well in doing so.

The US will certainly find itself in a tight spot in a post-Gaza Middle East, facing a new modus operandi with huge challenges and perspectives fraught with uncertainties.

One of the major features of the new Middle East will be the emergence of Iran as a new regional superpower embracing a far-reaching outlook and projecting itself more assertively in reshaping a post-Gaza order.

Iran’s growing regional influence, mostly through Shia proxies and Palestinian radical groups, is coupled with advances in its nuclear technology and hypersonic and drone weapons, which are regarded as game-changers in the regional military balance.

Not only should the next US administration think long and hard about Iran’s rising power, but it should also look at two aspects of the geopolitical shifts in the region: the increasing gap between the US allies and the Islamic Republic and Tehran’s growing embrace of China and Russia.

Contrary to Israel’s wishful thinking, Iran will not be defeated and the pro-Iran axis in the region cannot be expected to wane, regardless of who wins or loses in the ongoing confrontation.

Iran is expected to benefit from the widening global rift between East and West, expanding its strategic ties with China and Russia and building alliances aiming to decouple the US from the regional sphere for the foreseeable future.

Against this background, it is unclear what the next US administration intends in terms of policies that could deal with these changes in the Middle East, because neither Harris nor Trump has been discussing them in public.

One key question that should be in the forefront of the minds of politicians, strategists, and observers now is whether the region can afford to descend into further chaos, inevitable if the next US administration keeps its Middle East policies as one-sided and myopic as they have hitherto been.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 24 October, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly