Trump's Plan to Remake the Middle East | Kamran Bokhari

What's up, everybody? My name is Demetri Kofinas, and you're listening to Hidden Forces, a podcast that inspires investors, entrepreneurs, and everyday citizens to challenge consensus narratives and learn how to think critically about the systems of power shaping our world. My guest in this episode of Hidden Forces is geopolitical analyst and forecaster, Kamran Bahari. Kamran is the senior director at the Newliones Institute for Strategy and Policy and has served at the US State Department and as a senior consultant with the World Bank. He first came on this podcast in the days after the October seventh attacks to help us understand the wider war taking place between The US, Israel, and Iran at a time when few were talking about it and how Hamas' attacks could serve as a catalyst for the remaking of the modern Middle East. In his subsequent appearances, he has provided us with important context for understanding US, Israeli, and Iranian strategic aims and limitations, and interests and constraints of other states in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey. For all intents and purposes, Israel has won its war against the Islamic Republic Of Iran, having decimated both its conventional and unconventional forces and revealed it to its proxies, affiliates, and supporters in the region, and even to its own people as a weak and tottering power. With the initiation of the Trump administration's recently announced 20 peace plan and the cessation of hostilities in the the Gaza Strip, we may be seeing the beginning of a new security order taking shape in The Middle East, one that relies more on regional stakeholders, allowing The United States to reduce its direct exposure and the commitment of US forces while still maintaining influence over the region's politics. Kamran and I spend the first hour of our conversation today recapping The Middle East's transformation over the last two years. We revisit Israel's systematic campaign against Hezbollah's leadership, the subsequent collapse of the Assad regime, and the consequences of US strategic strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. We also discussed the diplomatic fallout of Israel's most recent attacks in Qatar, prime minister Netanyahu's subsequent apology call from the White House, and Washington's push for an international stabilization force security architecture could look like and how US strategy is shifting from direct management to burden sharing among regional powers like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. We then explore the practical consequences of this new security arrangement for Gaza, including a discussion about an Arab Muslim stabilization force, governance over Palestinian territories, and a long reconstruction financed by Gulf international donors while while level setting expectations for the constitution of an independent Palestinian political entity over the next decade. We assess which country most stands to gain from Iran's retreat and the dissemination of its proxies and close with a frank discussion about America's polarized media ecosystem and the strong anti Israeli and antisemitic sentiments being expressed on both the American left and right. The second hour …