I am writing this article two days before the American people head for the voting booths on 5 November to elect their next president for the coming four years of 2025 to 2029.

This is one of the most consequential US presidential elections in modern times, not only for the American people, but also for many other peoples and countries around the world. It is also particularly important for the Middle East, a region that has been ravaged by the Israeli wars on Gaza and Lebanon for more than a year now.

According to the latest polls, the two candidates in the US elections, the Republican former president Donald Trump and the Democrat Kamala Harris, currently also the US vice president, are running neck and neck. The chances of winning for both candidates are well within the margins of error declared by the polls.

However, by the time you read this article the American people and the world will know which of the two candidates has won the trust of the majority of Americans and got at least 270 votes in the Electoral College that elects the US president. 

A repeat of the results of the 2016 US presidential elections, in which Democrat Hillary Clinton stood against Republican Donald Trump, where the former won the popular vote and the latter became president because he got the needed 270 Electoral College votes, should not be ruled out. 

Whatever they may turn out to be, the results of the elections will have far-reaching consequences in terms of international peace and security in Europe and the Middle East. During the outgoing US Biden administration the world went up in flames, notably in Ukraine and the Middle East. The security environment in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait could now become an even more dangerous flashpoint between the US and China.

In Europe, the main question is how the US will deal with the war in Ukraine if Trump is re-elected president. He is on record as saying that he will end the war if he is elected and will do his best to help find a way to bring peace between Russia and Ukraine.

In the worst-case scenario, he will reduce US assistance to Ukraine, if not stop it altogether. The Europeans have set up a “War Room” to look into their options if the US under Trump withdraws its generous military and economic assistance to the Kyiv government in Ukraine.

Would Harris, if elected, continue the present strategy of the Biden administration towards Russia and the war in Ukraine? Judging from her declarations, the odds are that she would continue on the same path, though this would not preclude the search for an honourable end to the war through a peace conference or direct negotiations between the belligerents.

What is of more interest and concern for the regional powers in the Middle East and the Palestinians in particular is how the next US president will deal with the wars in the region, including how he or she will deal with the extreme right-wing Israeli government led by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At present, the Biden administration is not in a strong position to persuade the Israelis that its wars should stop, and there is not enough political will to put pressure on the Israeli government to accept a ceasefire deal in Gaza and Lebanon. For domestic political considerations in an election year, the US administration has preferred not to take risks. There are no indications that the next administration will tread a different path.

Consequently, Netanyahu has seized the opportunity to keep the war going until the November US presidential elections. Depending on who is the winner of these, he will then decide his next steps and the conditions he will try to impose for a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon. The odds are that the new US administration will oblige him.

 Regardless of who the winner of the presidential elections is, the right of Israel to “self-defence” will remain an essential element of US policy in the Middle East together with an “iron clad commitment on the part of the United States” to the security of Israel. 

On 3 November, for example, the US announced that B-52 strategic bombers have arrived in the Middle East to provide security to Israel. In the meantime, the administration has also told Iranian officials, directly according to press reports, that if Iran attacks Israel for the third time Washington will not be able to restrain Israeli counter-attacks.

In the context of the ongoing Iranian-Israeli confrontation, we should not expect significant changes in the US position vis-à-vis Iran. Instead, the major difference between the two candidates will be on how to deal with the Iranian nuclear programme.

Harris will probably resume talks with Iran via the European Union to rejoin the nuclear agreement of July 2015 from which the Trump administration withdrew in May 2018. A new term in office for Trump will not see him pursuing different policies towards Iran to those he pursued from 2017 to 2021.

The other Middle Eastern questions that matter most to the Arab countries and the Palestinians are the future of Arab-Israeli relations and the Palestinian question. 

I presume that there will not be major differences between a Republican administration and a Democrat one on either of those – there will only be a difference in degree in their respective claims for a two-state solution and how far they will try to appease their Arab allies and partners.

The last eight years of the Trump and Biden administrations have proved, if we needed proof, that the US has offered the Arabs and the Palestinians only sweetened Israeli draft agreements while the increasing annexation of the West Bank has been taking place. This means from a geographical point of view that the US and Israeli talk about a “Palestinian state” is nothing more than a chimera.

The question for the next four years is whether the Arab countries will carry on falling into this trap.

Whoever wins on 5 November, neither candidate will make a significant difference as far as US foreign policy in the Middle East is concerned. After all, the winner will be announced just a few days after US Central Command announced on 3 November that B-52 bombers have been deployed in the Middle East. We cannot expect them to return to their bases anytime soon.

As long as the balance of power in the region favours Israel under the umbrella of the US military, the Palestinians must wait for a miracle to happen. From the standpoint of Arab and Palestinian interests and concerns, I doubt if the next four years of a new US president will make any major difference.

Our expectations of both candidates in this regard should therefore be down to earth.

* The writer is former assistant foreign minister.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 7 November, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly