When world leaders, security officials, and academics gathered last week in Munich for the German city’s annual Security Conference, a key report titled “Under Destruction” set the tone for their deliberations about the world’s affairs.
The report labelled US President Donald Trump as one of the most prominent “demolition men” of the existing world order, blaming him for challenging its rules and institutions.
The bombshell report set the prestigious gathering’s agenda, with issues dear to Europe like Europe detachments, Indo-Pacific region, the global economy, migration, development, and humanitarian assistance all being discussed.
The discussions over the three days of the conference shone further light on the priorities shaking Europe’s security architecture and the future of the trans-Atlantic alliance.
Yet, the report, which portrays “a world in the midst of a far-reaching political, economic, and security upheaval” had little to say about the Middle East, where one of the major disruptions of Trump’s “wrecking ball” has been set in motion.
A frank and serious discussion of Trump’s “bulldozer politics” in the Middle East has also been absent from regional diplomatic platforms addressing the escalating tensions and conflicts in the region, which has been severely impacted by Trump’s shattering approach to politics.
The implications of this absence are unsettling, as it is generally acknowledged that the seismic events set in motion by the Israeli war on Gaza since 2023 have reshaped the Middle East and point towards even greater risks of chaos.
The US attacks on Iran in June last year, which led to immediate regional retaliation and a subsequent military buildup, have significantly reshaped Middle Eastern security and diplomatic dynamics affecting core elements of the regional order.
The Trump administration’s recalibration of US approach to the Middle East, an adjustment which is giving way to a more radical restructuring strategy, has been manifested in cosying up to Tel Aviv’s Greater Israel plans and a maximalist policy towards Iran.
The effects of this Israeli military-expansionist campaign that encompasses fleshing out its imperial outreach and mounting threats against Iran point towards even greater risks of far-reaching political, economic, and security upheavals in the Middle East.
Where is Trump’s controversial policy of “sweeping destruction” portrayed in the Security Conference report more evident than in the Middle East?
For Trump, “tremendous progress is being made in Gaza and the region in general.” However, this looks like his typically sweeping rhetoric about peacemaking when conditions on the ground have proven this to be grandiose fantasy.
Gaza, where Trump has crowned himself as peace-builder, is sure evidence of the unfolding fiasco of stabilisation that the US president has sought to establish after two years of Israel’s brutal war, but to no avail as the Israeli army continues to carry out near-daily attacks across the Strip.
Four months after Trump launched his “big beautiful Gaza Peace Plan,” regional and global leaders remain sceptical about his initiative and about whether the “Board of Peace” he has established will bring peace and stability to the enclave or assist in its rebuilding.
The Trump team’s appointments to key Gaza peace process institutions have not yet produced significant momentum towards permanent stability and reconstruction in the enclave.
Instead, Trump’s initiative has stoked controversy about such key issues as the mandate of the board, its composition, and its finance, as well as, most importantly, putting the rebuilding plan at the centre of a pro-American-Israeli regional architecture.
Many of the world’s major powers believe that the body is a personal vehicle for Trump that has no accountability to the Palestinians or the United Nations. They are sceptical since the board’s charter makes no direct reference to Gaza.
Arab governments have discreetly emphasised the need for a “holistic approach” to a lasting solution that should include both Gaza and the West Bank as well as “the right of the Palestinians to self-determination,” a step on the road to Palestinian statehood.
In the latest sign of Israel’s determination to annex the West Bank, its security cabinet has decreed the cancellation of a decades-old prohibition on the direct sale of Palestinian land to Israeli Jews and the declassification of local land records.
The measures, which amount to the de facto annexation of the West Bank, were announced three days ahead of a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump in Washington last week.
Trump has said that he will not allow Israel to carry out the annexation of the West Bank, but there has been no word that the US president, who prides himself on being “a true friend of Israel,” is backing up his opposition by stopping Israel from carrying out measures to seize Palestinian land.
Trump’s attempt to force Iran into strategic submission is another disturbing sign that the fragile Middle East order is being actively dismantled by the world’s “disruptor-in-chief”.
Since he assumed office for his second term, Trump has been bellicose on Iran, with leading lights of his policy now warning that he is barreling towards war if a bargain with Tehran on his conditions fails.
For weeks, Trump has been talking tough on Iran while bolstering US forces in the Middle East with aircraft carriers and strike groups intended to intimidate the Islamic Republic into making a nuclear and ballistic-missile deal.
However, his tactics remain dubious. He veered away from diplomacy with Iran into war when he ordered US air force and navy attacks on the country’s nuclear facilities as part of the Iran-Israel conflict in June last year.
The US bombings did not destroy the core components of Iran’s nuclear programme, but Israel struck some of its surface-to-air missile batteries as well as top Iranian generals in the 12-day campaign.
Iran retaliated with waves of long-range and ballistic missile and drone attacks against cities across Israel. Iran’s bombing of “dozens of targets, military centres, and air bases” in Israel were reportedly effective in leaving human casualties and significant material destruction behind it.
It was an Iranian retaliatory strike on the largest US air base in the Middle East that forced Trump and Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire brokered by Qatar, saving the region from further consequences.
Trump now apparently sees in this standoff an opportunity to squeeze an Iran weakened by economic sanctions and growing anti-regime protests. He may even be imagining that a new US military campaign will bring regime change to Iran.
However, the consequences of a war with Iran could be devastating for the entire region. Iranian leaders have warned that any attack on Iran this time round will be met with retaliatory and even preemptive strikes targeting countries hosting US troops.
Iran’s Supreme Spiritual Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sent his staunchest warning on Tuesday threatening sinking American warships assembled in the area as the US continues its military buildup ahead of planned talks with Iran in Geneva. Iran’s leader on Trump’s threats: He boasts of ‘strongest army,’ but even the strongest can receive a slap so hard it never recovers. More dangerous than the warship itself is the weapon capable of sending it to bottom of the sea. You, too, will fail to destroy Islamic Republic.
There is already no shortage of conflicts and volatility in the Middle East, some of it fuelled by Trump’s attempts to transform the region in a recipe for further regional chaos.
The Islamic State (IS) terrorist group remains an existential threat to Iraq, for example, where the Trump administration has moved thousands of the group’s jailed members to the politically volatile country.
It has also ordered US troops to withdraw from a strategic military airbase in Syria, creating a huge void that will cause massive ramifications for counterterrorism, regional politics, and security.
Tensions and violence in Syria persist despite a deal with the disgruntled Syrian Kurds after Washington shifted away from Kurdish-led forces administrating their enclave in the northwest of the country.
Any flare-up there would further undermine the chaotic transition of authority in Syria and could also engulf the Kurds in neighbouring Iraq.
As tensions continue to simmer between Washington and Tehran, Iraq is feeling the heat as Trump has stepped up efforts to reduce the Iranian influence in the beleaguered country, which is navigating one of its worst political crises.
Trump had earlier warned Iraq over any reinstatement of Nouri Al-Maliki as the country’s prime minister, saying that Iraq had “descended into poverty and total chaos” under his previous leadership in 2006 to 2014.
Al-Maliki rejected what he called “blatant American interference” in Iraq’s internal affairs, and the ruling Shia alliance in Iraq refused to drop him from the recent elections. The row has left the formation of a new government in Iraq at a standstill three months later.
Other proxy battlegrounds between Iran and the United States in the Middle East concern the Lebanese Hizbullah group and the Yemeni Houthis, which the Trump administration considers to be regionally destabilising elements.
While the European leaders’ instinct for action at the Munich Conference remained forcefully directed to the Western hemisphere, they also need to focus on their southern backyard and gain insights into where the region may be heading next as a result of Trump’s recalibration.
If Europe wishes to remain secure and influential on the global stage, it cannot be a passive observer in its own southern neighbourhood, which is undergoing a period of transition marked by significant risks.
This is also true for Arab governments, which must be aware of the dangers involved in breaking down the existing regional order via “wrecking-ball politics” in order to clear the way for Israel to build its own Middle East.
The Arab world should express its worries about Trump’s approach to reshaping the regional order by examining the impact of the US president’s policies in Gaza, Iran, and other regional issues on its own security and the well-being of its people.
If the Arab world does not move fast to create a constructive and operational framework, the security costs will be enormous, and the existing system will be knocked down by “wrecking-ball politics” in which sweeping destruction becomes the order of the day.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 19 February, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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