ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
For decades, one foreign policy challenge every incoming president has had to deal with is Iran. During his first term in the White House, President Trump took a hard-line approach with Iran. He's not yet said what his plans are for his second term, but, as NPR international affairs correspondent Jackie Northam reports, the dynamics in the Middle East are very different this time around.
JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: During his first term in office, President Trump made good on a campaign promise to pull the U.S. out of a six-nation agreement aimed at curbing Iran's nuclear program. His administration also imposed stringent sanctions on the country - all part of a so-called maximum-pressure campaign to change Iran's behavior. Trump himself hasn't revealed his plans for Iran during his second term, but those around him are giving some indications.
DANA STROUL: They certainly are talking about wanting to impose overwhelming sanctions to cripple Iran's economy.
NORTHAM: Dana Stroul is the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East in the Biden administration, now with the Washington Institute for Near East policy. She says the maximum-pressure campaign is a tactic and that the Trump team hasn't articulated its endgame with Iran.
STROUL: Do they want to dismantle the nuclear program, stop Iran's march towards a nuclear weapon capability, compel Iran to stop investing in terrorist actors across the Middle East? Those are the real unanswered questions.
NORTHAM: Brian Katulis, a senior fellow with the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C., says the Mideast is a much different place than when Trump was last in office, what with wars in Gaza and Lebanon and Israel and Iran exchanging missile strikes. Katulis says reinstating the maximum-pressure campaign could hit headwinds this time around.
BRIAN KATULIS: Maximum pressure 2.0 could produce a lot of turbulence for some of these Arab Gulf countries focused on reforming their economies and trying to integrate with the rest of the global economy.
NORTHAM: Gulf nations have been trying to diversify their economies away from oil, into more things like renewable energies and AI.
KATULIS: And the last thing they want is another dollop of uncertainty in this part of the world.
NORTHAM: During Trump's first term, there was a much more confrontational relationship between Iran and its neighbors, particularly the Gulf States - not anymore, says Suzanne Maloney, an Iran specialist at the Brookings Institution.
SUZANNE MALONEY: And what we've seen since that time is an effort to really build a kind of rapprochement between particularly Saudi Arabia and Tehran.
NORTHAM: Maloney says there's an effort now by the Gulf powers to coopt Iran.
MALONEY: They recognize that they don't want to be in the line of fire if Iran comes under greater pressure, and so they have been looking for ways to deescalate.
NORTHAM: The major powers in the Gulf region also remember that the U.S. did not come to their defense during the Trump administration, says Dana Stroul with the Washington Institute.
STROUL: For example, when the UAE suffered attacks from Iranian attacks on its commercial oil tankers and the incident in 2019 in which Saudi oil infrastructure was attacked by Iran - and, again, Trump, at the time, declined to use military force.
NORTHAM: Geopolitics have also changed since Trump was last in power. There's a much closer alignment now between Iran, China, Russia and North Korea. Still, Maloney says there appears to be a readiness by Iran's leadership to test the waters with the next administration, if only as a way of buying time.
MALONEY: But the reality is, an Iranian commitment to scale back its nuclear program as well as its regional aggression seems almost inconceivable for any Iranian leadership. The diplomacy that we may see in an early phase of the Trump administration - I'm very skeptical it will lead to any kind of lasting bargain.
NORTHAM: There are reports that Trump adviser Elon Musk made an unofficial visit to Iran's U.N. ambassador. Tehran denies the reports, but the Middle East Institute's Katulis says anything is possible.
KATULIS: And I actually think it's a 50/50 chance that a second Trump presidency would see him either bombing Tehran or flying to Tehran to meet with the Supreme Leader to get a grand deal.
NORTHAM: Katulis says that uncertainty is deeply unsettling as the Middle East gears up for a second Trump administration.
Jackie Northam, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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