Trump Must Shatter Fraudulent Middle East ‘Neutrality’ Trap
Several Arab states are adopting false neutrality stances that effectively empower the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran while Turkey rebuilds radical Islamist forces in Syria, warns a security scholar.
Syria, Egypt, Jordan, and Kuwait are increasingly embracing what amounts to a fraudulent “non-aligned” stance that claims independence while effectively tilting power toward Islamist and Iranian forces, warns Jose Lev Alvarez, an American Israeli scholar specializing in international security policy.
Recent Israeli tactical strikes on Syria’s Abu al Duhur airbase near the border with Turkey have exposed the depth of Ankara’s involvement in rebuilding radical Islamist military capacity. Turkish officers reportedly inspected the facility mere hours before the Israeli attack. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan‘s neo-Ottoman regime is now actively reconstructing a 200,000-strong Syrian army under radical Islamist command, Alvarez reports.
Turkey’s campaign enjoys diplomatic cover from Saudi Arabia’s August 7, 2026, Mecca mutual defense pact with Turkey and Pakistan. Meanwhile, Oman has entered joint management arrangements with Tehran over the Strait of Hormuz, effectively granting Iran operational control over half the world’s most critical energy chokepoint.
History demonstrates the dangers of artificial neutrality, which typically serves as cover for adversarial penetration. In 1955, Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser accepted a Czech arms deal under the banner of non-alignment; within years, Soviet advisers and doctrine completely dominated Egyptian forces. That supposedly neutral framework ultimately funneled Soviet weaponry into Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.
The contemporary version threatens to repeat this pattern. Any non-aligned scheme that accommodates the Muslim Brotherhood risks granting political Islam a permanent veto over regional stabilization. Turkey and Qatar currently supply the radical ideology and funding networks that sustain Hamas-style governance and Lebanese terrorism. Saudi and Pakistani actions, meanwhile, have emptied Riyadh’s anti-Muslim Brotherhood rhetoric of practical meaning, while Iran exploits Oman to regenerate proxy forces and formalize maritime leverage.
Three Uncompromising Steps
Washington must shatter this non-aligned trap before it hardens into permanent alignment, Alvarez argues. Three concrete moves can reverse the trajectory and transform the Abraham Accords into an operational regional alliance.
First, the United States must sever Turkey’s operational grip on Damascus. American policymakers should condition all Syrian reconstruction aid and sanctions waivers on the permanent expulsion of Turkish military trainers. Simultaneously, Washington must mandate that Emirati, Bahraini, and Moroccan officers deploy to jointly monitor Syrian Armed Forces, while forcing Damascus to integrate Israeli early-warning data as a non-negotiable price for any Western-backed military support.
Second, the Pentagon must weaponize infrastructure capital through a restricted “Abrahamic Logistics and Early-Warning Central Command.” Financing for dual-use rail, ports, radar networks, and training ranges should flow exclusively to partners who publicly renounce both the Mecca pact and Iran’s Hormuz arrangements. Jordan and Egypt would receive priority funding only after signing binding protocols that lock their defense systems into Israeli and Emirati networks. Kuwait faces the same binary choice: join this initiative or forfeit its major non-NATO ally privileges.
Third, Washington must designate any security forum featuring Turkey, Qatar, Pakistan, or Oman as incompatible with American basing rights. Kuwait, Jordan, and Egypt must decide within 90 days. States aligning with the Abrahamic framework will receive accelerated defense deliveries. Those clinging to false neutrality will permanently lose access to American weaponry.
Binary Choice for Middle Eastern Capitals
By deploying coercive levers, the Trump administration can puncture the comfortable delusions of regional neutrality. Washington must discard failed diplomatic orthodoxy that indulges double-dealing allies. The White House must force Middle Eastern capitals to recognize that American security guarantees are an earned privilege, not an entitlement.
America’s policy must present a brutal binary choice: absorb the Abrahamic framework or face strategic isolation. By starving the Muslim Brotherhood of partners and weakening Iran’s “Axis of Resistance,” Washington will effectively neutralize suspected turncoats before their trap is sprung.
Alvarez is a multilingual veteran of the IDF special forces and the U.S. Army who holds three master’s degrees and is completing a Ph.D. in Intelligence and Global Security in the Washington, D.C., area.
With information from Washington Examiner
