This article is an abridged excerpt from the Cambridge Middle East and North Africa Forum and the UK Abraham Accords Group’s recently published joint policy paper on Israel, Syria and Lebanon’s relations.
Five years have passed since the signing of the Accords during which the Middle East’s power framework has witnessed the most dramatic repositioning since the end of the Cold War – perhaps even since the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. Much like Sykes-Picot demarcated imperial spheres of influence, the post-2020 period has seen the erosion of inherited regional arrangements and the emergence of new security alignments. Unlike Sykes-Picot, however, this was shaped by local agency, rather than colonial design. Between roughly 2015 and 2025, the region experienced a competitive multipolar struggle in which global and regional powers repositioned themselves through wars, proxy conflicts, and the exhaustion of earlier security arrangements.
Four interlocking facets can be identified that enabled the historic signing of the Accords. This began in May 2018 during President Trump’s first term, who decided to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) of 2015 – widely referred to as the Iran nuclear deal – negotiated during the Obama administration. This was followed by the assassination of the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC), Qassem Soleimani, by the U.S. in January 2020. And finally, the American endorsement of the outside-in approach that prioritized Arab normalization over Palestinian self-determination during 2019. This reflected a growing frustration among several Arab governments – particularly in the UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia – with what they perceived as the paralysis of Palestinian leadership, the rejection of incremental diplomatic gains, and an unwillingness to adapt to shifting regional realities. Emirati officials, for instance, explicitly framed normalization as a means to “preserve the possibility” of a two-state solution rather than remain in the deadlock of stalled negotiations.[i] This was reinforced by the Trump administration’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017, signalling an unprecedentedly favourable American posture toward Israeli political claims.
The establishment of the Accords was followed by a period of retrenchment in the Middle East under President Joe Biden (2021-24), albeit he tried to carry the Accords further, with Saudi Arabia emerging as the focus of his administration’s expanded normalization efforts.
Despite Biden’s declarations, Washington shifted its focus to China; the war in Ukraine and the overwhelming threats posed by Russia; the COVID-19 pandemic; the disorganized withdrawal from Afghanistan, and a cautious approach towards Iran’s expansion. These constituent policies demonstrated the U.S. disengagement from the region and suggested that the U.S. is a superpower in demise. For Gulf states, this perceived disengagement was most acute in the security domain. Despite repeated Emirati and Saudi requests for formal defence guarantees, advanced air-defence integration, and clearer red lines against Iran, the Biden administration hesitated to extend a security umbrella comparable to NATO-style assurances. This ultimately reinforced Gulf leaders’ incentives to diversify their security partnerships – precisely the gap the Abraham Accords began to fill.
Against this background, international and regional actors reacted as follows:
In March 2023, China penetrated the vacuum, brokering a reconciliation agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia. This symbolic agreement underscored Beijing’s mediating capabilities without utilizing hard power (unlike the U.S).
Russia consolidated its military foothold in Syria through permanent basing at Tartus and Khmeimim, expanded its influence in Africa via security arrangements in Libya, Mali, and Sudan linked to the paramilitary Wagner Group, and deepened its strategic alignment with Iran through arms transfers, intelligence-sharing, and diplomatic coordination.
Turkey utilized the vacuum to extend its influence in the region and beyond from Libya, the East Mediterranean, from Somalia and Sudan to northern Syria and northern Iraq, all under its Neo-Ottoman approach.
However, the restructuring came to a stalemate after the Hamas massacre of 7 October 2023, prompting Israel to invade the Gaza Strip. What began with the war in Gaza expanded swiftly into six arenas: Hezbollah in Lebanon; Syria; the Houthis in Yemen; Iraqi Hezbollah, Iran, and the West Bank. This regional war arrived to its pinnacle moment after Israel and the U.S. attacked Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025. Israel’s Operation Rising Lion in Iran exposed the limits of Chinese and Russian aspirations in the region.
The return of President Trump to the Oval Office in January 2025 marked the return of the U.S. to the region, the revival of deterrence through military supremacy, and the intention of expanding the Abraham Accords. Washington’s old/new paradigm rests on four pillars: the decline of both Russian and Chinese involvement; the deterrents of Iran; the strong partnership with Israel and Turkey; and the incorporation of the Accords as the region’s central security and economic architecture. The main outcome is regenerated U.S. supremacy and centrality in the region and beyond.
Regional shifts in the aftermath of the war
The regional war between 2023 and 2025 transformed the Middle East’s strategic map, rendering it more fluid, transactional and structurally multipolar. There are three relevant clusters that are restructuring the new order, led by three regional powers.
The first is the surviving Abraham Accords axis, led by Israel. Despite the Gaza war and criticism from the public in several countries, the Accords axis endorsed by the U.S. has prevailed and even expanded its coordination and cooperation.[ii] According to leaked CENTCOM documents that were published in the Washington Post, even Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which do not have formal diplomatic relations with Israel, played an important role in the regional air-defence plan led by CENTCOM to combat Iran’s missiles and drones. That such coordination occurred even with states lacking formal diplomatic ties with Israel underscores how security imperatives have temporarily overridden political symbolism – while also highlighting the provisional, crisis-driven nature of this cooperation.
This multilateral cooperation framework did not emerge in a vacuum. Prior to the war, the United States had already maintained extensive bilateral security ties with Israel, Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco, including arms sales, joint exercises, intelligence sharing, and coordination on missile defences. However, these arrangements remained largely bilateral and fragmented. The war demonstrated both the utility and the limits of this model. While ad hoc coordination succeeded in intercepting Iranian attacks, Gulf leaders continued to signal that their long-term security concerns – particularly regarding missile defence integration and U.S. reliability – had not been fully resolved.
The second is the Axis in demise led by Iran. What started at the beginning of the war as a demonstration of power ended in Tehran’s drastic weakening. This began with Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah in September 2024, arguably the most prominent leader in the “Axis”. Combined with certain chain reactions in the region and the eventual collapse of the Assad regime in Syria in December 2024, Iran lost its overland supply route between Tehran and Beirut. Ultimately, these events enabled Israel to set back Iran’s “Ring of Fire”, its missile capabilities and, finally, its nuclear project. As Guzansky and Podeh note: Iran’s influence in the region “has shrunk from a network to a narrative.”[iii] Nevertheless, the Iranian threat is still very severe.
The third is the expanding pragmatic Islamic axis led by Turkey and Qatar. Turkey, supported by Qatar, has benefited mostly from the decline of Iran and the struggle of Israel. The collapse of the Assad regime in Syria enabled Ankara to enter this strategic arena much more prominently than before. Add to this Turkey’s endorsement of Hamas and its effective way of encouraging Hamas to sign the ceasefire agreement with Israel, augmenting its positionality in the eyes of the region and, more importantly, in the eyes of the Trump administration.
Anticipated patterns in the new order
Trade as it is facilitated by the Abraham Accords – mostly in the fields of energy and technology – is one of the core pillars of the new regional system of cooperation. The end of the war opens the door to the revival of the Negev Forum. The Negev Forum was launched at the Negev Summit in Israel in March 2022, with the foreign ministers from Israel, the U.S., the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, and Morocco meeting together for the first time.[iv] They launched the Forum with a steering committee and six working groups, covering security, health, water and agriculture, energy, education and coexistence, and tourism. The working groups were tasked with developing multilateral projects aimed at bringing the benefits of regional integration to the citizens of their countries.
Yet, as mentioned earlier, integration is uneven as the main beneficiaries are the high-tech industry and the elite circles in Arab countries. In order to counterbalance and expand inclusion, prioritizing investment in the fields of energy infrastructure, health, water, agriculture and education would be beneficial. The Cambridge Middle East and North Africa Forum (MENAF) and the UK Abraham Accords Group’s joint research project on “UK AI Diplomacy: Boosting British Influence in MENA and Strengthening the Abraham Accords”, published in April 2025, highlighted several concrete avenues for cooperation in the energy, health technology, education and governance sectors that could witness a more equitable distribution of the benefits of bi- and multilateral cooperation between participants to the Accords. This could enable a more inclusive attitude about the Accords while offering countries such as the UK an opportunity to export their soft power capabilities to broaden dividends. Rather than broad integration, post-war cooperation is likely to advance through sector-specific projects with visible domestic impact. These include cross-border electricity grids, desalination and water-recycling plants, joint vocational training programmes in renewable energy, and regional disease surveillance systems. Such initiatives are more likely to translate strategic normalization into everyday economic value.
If there is one component that serves as the threshold pre-condition for the survival and expansion of the Accords, it is in the security domain. The aftermath of the war illustrates more than ever the centrality of the CENTCOM defence architecture. Turning towards the future, there is an opportunity to increase the cooperation between the armies through joint exercises, intelligence sharing, and the establishment of operational joint command and control centres specializing in cyber and information warfare and maritime warfare. Some of these initiatives were already discussed in the leaked CENTCOM documents.
“A 2024 briefing document envisioned the creation of a “Combined Middle East Cyber Center” by the end of 2026 to serve as a headquarters for education and exercises on defensive cyber operations. Another document advocated for the creation of an “Information Fusion Center” for partners to “rapidly plan, execute, and assess operations in the information environment.”[v]
Yet these initiatives remain prospective rather than institutionalized. Gulf partners continue to lack binding guarantees regarding command authority, rules of engagement, and long-term U.S. commitment – gaps that leave space for the Accords to evolve further as a formalized security architecture.
To withstand the lack of public support, the Accords must generate benefits that are locally visible and politically defensible. These include subsidized student exchanges in applied sciences, jointly funded desalination plants employing local labour, cross-border pilgrimage corridors, Arabic-Hebrew media partnerships, and regional climate adaptation projects in agriculture. Such initiatives anchor normalization in daily life rather than elite diplomacy.
The war and its aftermath in sum
There is a consensus among scholars and decision-makers that the war has transformed the regional architecture, upgrading the Accords from a diplomatic brand to a stress-tested structure. They have endured a regional war, disinformation warfare, great-power rivalry and fractured public opinion. Yet, survival alone does not guarantee longevity.
Israel must recalibrate its Palestinian policy to rebuild Arab confidence, while Palestinian political leadership must decisively reject armed resistance and re-engage with diplomatic pathways enabled by the post-war environment. Only the consistent involvement of the U.S. in the region – combining diplomatic leadership with credible security partnerships and reassurance to Gulf states – can keep the Accords strategic rather than symbolic.
The war confirmed that security remains the threshold pre-condition for the survival and expansion of the Accords. Inclusivity is crucial in this regard. Governments must translate elite cooperation into tangible benefits for their citizens.
[i] Fakhro, E. (2024). The Abraham Accords: The Gulf States, Israel, and the Limits of Normalization, Columbia University Press
[ii] Kenner, D. (2025). “Arab states expanded cooperation with Israeli military during Gaza war, files show”.
[iii] Neurink, J. (2021). “Hebrew language in high demand in Gulf states”.
[iv] The U.S. Department of State (2022). “Negev Forum Steering Committee Joint Statement”, accessed on 8 November 2025, retrieved from: https://2021-2025.state.gov/negev-forum-steering-committee-joint-statement/.
[v] Kenner, D. (2025). “Arab states expanded cooperation with Israeli military during Gaza war, files show”.
