US MIDDLE EAST STRATEGY AMID REGIONAL INSTABILITY – DANA STROUL

Dana Stroul is Director of Research & Shelly and Michael Kassen Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. She rejoined the Institute after serving from 2021–2023 as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, the Pentagon’s senior civilian official for the region. In that role, she led US defense policy during a turbulent period. On a visit to Australia, sponsored by the the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), Dana Stroul addressed The Sydney Institute on Thursday 12 February 2026 to give a wide ranging and comprehensive analysis of US and Israeli strategy countering Iran and its proxies in the Middle East post 7 October 2023.

US MIDDLE EAST STRATEGY AMID REGIONAL INSTABILITY

DANA STROUL

Well, it’s a pleasure to be with all of you this evening, and a delight to be here hosted by AIJAC and a break from the Washington DC snow. So, thank you for the wonderful weather and the warm hospitality.

What I thought I would do tonight is share some observations about ways in which the United States is doing policy and how its approach in the Middle East has changed in the past couple years in particular. That is from before October 7, 2023 and that atrocious Hamas terrorist attack on Israel to after October 7. And then I shall share some reflections on the inflection points we find ourselves at in the Middle East in 2026 – in particular, where we are going in Gaza with the ceasefire, and where we are going with respect to Iran.

So first, let me start by sharing a little bit about how from my time in the Pentagon, my first tour, my second tour, my time on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I was in the Senate when the Obama administration was negotiating the Iran nuclear agreement with the Europeans, the P5+1, including Russia and China, and how we thought about military force. Every president since George W. Bush, up until the second Trump administration, said with respect to the ways in which Iran projected its power across the region, negotiations and diplomacy were preferred.

But there was always a credible threat of military force on the table. And when US policymakers thought about the ways in which Iran drove instability across the Middle East, they really thought about it in three categories. The first was Iran’s pursuit of an illicit nuclear weapons capability. The second was Iran’s expansive ballistic missile arsenal with ranges far beyond what a country would need for defence. And three was Iran’s cultivation of a network of proxies and terrorists across the Middle East. By this, of course, we have Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the militias in Iraq and Syria, the Houthis in Yemen. And then Iran’s once Arab state partner, Bashar Al Assad in Damascus, who willingly provided his territory in Syria for Iran to train fighters, move weapons, move money, et cetera. Through this network of influence, both its non-Iranian ground forces across the Middle East, its threat of using its ballistic missiles and the threat that it would cross the nuclear threshold and obtain a nuclear weapons capability, Iran and the Iranian regime was able to keep threats away from its own borders  – largely Israel, the United States, Arab partners, anyone who thought about the Middle East and was on the receiving end of Iranian force was fighting Iran on Iranian terms.

So, we were talking about defending US forces in Iraq and Syria. There were multiple rounds between Israel and Hamas. There were rounds between Israel and Hezbollah, but the war never went into Iran’s territory.

When US policymakers thought about or contemplated military force in particular against the nuclear program, which every president made sure there was a credible military option that was available to him. They generally thought about the risks of what Iran would do in response in several categories that are worth reflecting on. The first is that there wasn’t an exclusive military option available to a US president that could eliminate the entire nuclear program. Even if you use military strikes and force against aspects or elements of the nuclear program, including the very difficult challenge of using munitions to get at Iran’s enrichment facilities, which Iran, understanding they were vulnerable to strikes, buried deep underground inside mountains, you had the challenge of Iranian knowledge. That Iran and the Iranian regime have spent decades, even before the current Islamic Republic, perfecting the technology through nuclear scientists. And so, you cannot eliminate knowledge.

Second was, if you did use military force against the Iranian nuclear program, you would likely affect the decision making in the calculus of Iran’s leaders who would then choose to rush for a nuclear weapon, maybe in a covert way where we would not see it, maybe a small nuclear device. Once they cross that nuclear threshold, all US policy about Iran never obtaining a nuclear weapons capability has collapsed. And three was the threat of Iranian retaliatory actions. So, we worried about Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal, its cruise missile arsenal, its drones, not only against the five main air bases of the United States, across the Gulf region and Jordan, but there are thousands of US forces on the ground in Iraq and Syria, still to this day fighting ISIS, and all of those forces could be vulnerable to Iranian ballistic missiles.

Further, there was concern that Iran would likely activate its militia and proxy network, not only against United States forces and United States interests, even embassies, but also against Israel. And in a scenario in which Iran chose to activate its militias and proxies, to which it had been providing ever more sophisticated weapons, Israel’s air defences might be quickly overwhelmed before the United States could get there in station to support Israel’s defence.

So, for all of these reasons, most presidents looked at what could happen if military force against Iran’s nuclear program or inside Iran was directed and said: I prefer negotiations. Even if it’s an imperfect negotiation that cannot completely eliminate the nuclear program, cannot completely eliminate the ballistic missile program, and I don’t really see a military option where we can get rid of all of these proxies. So, we’re better off negotiating and addressing this through sanctions.

October 7 changed this scenario entirely. Since October 7, we have seen multiple thresholds crossed in terms of what military force can actually achieve, and we have seen a shift in fighting Iran on Iranian terms, which means fighting its proxies to actually fighting Iran itself. This is such a change, a dramatic change, in how we contemplate military force and the realm of the possible in terms of confronting Iranian destabilising activities, that it’s worth reflecting on this for a moment.

First, what Israel has achieved, both through its military capabilities, its exquisite intelligence penetration of both in Iran and Hezbollah is remarkable.

Hamas, so degraded and under military pressure, was compelled to give up all hostages and return them to Israel, both living and deceased, and agree to ceasefire terms. If the entire Trump 20-point plan were to be implemented, that is the end of Hamas as a resistance armed terrorist organisation. I said “if” the entire 20-point plan were to be implemented, and of course that’s a big if. In Hezbollah, significant enough pressure was applied that Hezbollah was compelled to agree to a ceasefire on terms favourable to Israel. The organisation is now under extreme pressure. It no longer controls southern Lebanon. We have new leaders in Beirut who say that all arms should be under the monopoly of the state. There should be Lebanese sovereignty. Hezbollah should not get a veto on the policies of the Lebanese Government. And you have the leadership in Beirut contemplating the potential for peace with Israel. This was made possible because Hezbollah has been significantly degraded on the battlefield. In Syria, Bashar Al Assad rushed off to Moscow after his forces collapsed in December of 2024, there is now a leader in Damascus, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who has directed his team to sit with Israel in negotiations and talk about non-belligerency. He does not want his territory to be used to threaten Israel. He has talked about the fact that Iranians will not be able to use Syrian territory permissively to threaten the Middle East. He has gone after Hezbollah networks, has gone after Iranian networks that are seeking to cross into Syria from Iraq. All of this again, made possible because of Israel’s willingness to use military force in ways that the United States, in my view, never contemplated.

We’ve also had three examples of interstate war. There was the worst-case escalation scenarios that Iran’s ballistic missiles would overwhelm capabilities across the Middle East, raining down on US forces and military bases, raining down on Israel, escalating into unmanageable war, like a World War III scenario. None of this happened. The first example was in April 2024 when Iran sent a mix of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones toward Israel, and Israel responded, within a US organised multinational air defence coalition that included Israel, included Arab partners and included Europeans, all working together, intercepting the majority, the majority of the Iranian complex attack.

Then again, in April 2024, we had an Iranian attack of only ballistic missiles. The Iranians realised that the mix of cruise, ballistic and drone missiles was ineffective. They decide to send a more lethal cocktail, this time only ballistic missiles.

Then in June 2025, last year, came the 12-day war. Here it is worth reflecting for a moment on the unprecedented way in which Israel was able to suppress Iran’s air defence, create an air super highway from Israel to Tehran – unchallenged in the airspace of any country, unchallenged by Iran – take out a significant proportion of Iranian air defence, Iran’s ballistic missile capability, so effective that the United States could execute what it has rehearsed for years, Midnight Hammer. This was a specifically designed military operation to take out the enrichment facilities buried deep inside Iran’s mountains. The United States could do that, and Trump could direct it. It was a capability that had been available to multiple presidents for multiple administrations, both Democratic and Republican. But Trump was able to do it because he was largely assured of no American casualties.

Not one aircraft was lost, not one American life was lost, and the nuclear program has been significantly  pushed back.

It is also worth reflecting on the fact that none of the ways in which the worst assumptions about escalation to World War III, massive loss of civilian life, civilian casualties, devastation to civilian infrastructure, the ways in which the Iranian regime might retaliate and respond, have come to pass. When we think about the Middle East today, all of the ways in which the Iranian regime projected power to keep the war away from their borders are degraded. The proxy network, the missile program and the nuclear program. The regime is at its weakest point in the history of the Islamic Republic.

Moreover, what we can now tell allies and partners, is that if they choose to work together militarily, share their air pictures, share their radars, work together in secure spaces, train together, exercise together, is proof of the concept that together we can defeat adversaries. This is not just about what the United States and Israel, working with allies and partners, achieved last year in Iran. Certainly the Chinese are taking note, and certainly the Russians are taking note that the United States, when it has the political will, it has the military capability and the resources to organise allies and partners that can defeat the bad guys.

Next, coalitions matter. How countries, militaries and governments are working together, is worth reflecting on how the Middle East has changed, and how the United States working within the Middle East has changed.

A great example of this is what the United States operates called the Combined Air Operation Centre. The CAOC in Qatar. Australia actually has a liaison there, and so do all of the other partners within the Middle East area responsibility for our military. This is a way where using the military platform focused not on high level political or policy matters, but objective in the military interest, more information sharing, more military engagements, improves integration, builds relationships which can ultimately facilitate integration. All of that work has continued between Israel and its Middle East partners and the United States from before October 7 through October 7. And the proof of the concept, of course, was the April 2024 multinational air defence cooperation.

It is also telling that the opposite coalition, the one that would like to see the United States fail, has in many ways been exposed as weak. I’m talking about China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and, until recently, Venezuela axis. When Iran came under attack in April 2024, in June 2024, in October 2024 and in June 2025 during the 12-day war, neither Russia nor China actually came to Iran’s aid. None stepped in, other than offering some heated rhetoric. There was nothing that either Beijing or Moscow did to support Iran’s ability to defend itself against the American and Israeli attacks. When it came to Bashar Al Assad in Damascus, neither Russia nor China nor Iran did anything to send him a life preserver when he was going down. All he is doing right now is hanging out in Moscow.

We could go on and on.  Even though these countries continue to maintain a presence and have influence, they are not affecting the strategic nature of the Middle East in the same way that the United States or Israel has in the post-October 7 environment. At the same time, we’ve seen the rise of what I would call middle powers incredibly more active in the Middle East. Take Turkey, Qatar and Egypt, for example. These three countries, working together without question, were instrumental in getting to the Gaza ceasefire and securing the release of the living Israeli hostages remaining in Hamas captivity, as well as sustaining pressure to ensure that every single deceased body was returned.

These countries have stepped up to join the Board of Peace and are working with the Trump team to move to the second phase of the ceasefire. Then we have the Saudi-UAE rivalry. This is an example not of a coalition, but of tension, which could also have significant impact on the Middle East and is an area to watch. Until this time, you’ve actually seen the Saudis and the Emiratis work together in concert to achieve different things. For example, at times supporting or criticising different moves with relation to Gaza, we’ve seen both of them want, and facilitate, engage the United States for a policy change in Syria, to lift sanctions, to give Syria a chance to reintegrate into the international financial system and receive reconstruction assistance. Right now, the tension between Saudi and UAE, the Saudi’s move to cooperate more with Turkey and Qatar, even Pakistan, has tremendous implications for an alignment that could affect outcomes in Yemen, Sudan and beyond in Africa.

Some of this is worth reflecting on. Why we’re seeing all these changes and coalitions, alignments and alliances. It might be because the Iran threat is receding. What united all of these partners before to work with the United States, and to look at Israel as a very necessary partner, was the shared sense of threat from Iran, that Iran was the driver of instability in the region. Now, with the perception of the Iran threat receding, it is unclear how the alliances, the partnerships and the alignments of the Middle East sort themselves out.

That brings me to inflection points. 2026 is, I think, going to be a critical year for the Middle East. There are multiple elections and governments to be formed. And I’m not only speaking about the United States. We also have an election coming up in Israel. We have elections coming up in Lebanon. We just had elections in Iraq, and the government is yet to be formed. In Iraq, what kind of government can be formed will be a litmus test for how much influence Tehran has versus the United States. In Lebanon, the elections will be a litmus test for how much the Lebanese perceive themselves to be able to self-determine, not be at the stranglehold of Hezbollah. We’ll see what the parliamentary makeup looks like there. And in Gaza, while there are not elections, we have the possibility of transitioning from kinetic operations, from military, from war to a political process. Unclear if it will happen. And of course, this hinges on whether or not Hamas can be compelled to disarm without more military operations.

This question of Hamas disarmament will hinge on everything else. And yet, in order to demonstrate that there is the potential for a non-Hamas future in Gaza, the United States is actively working with allies and partners to produce something else.

The Trump administration appears to be willing to test diplomacy for now, and Israel is willing to support the United States in testing the premise. So right now, Gaza is divided between the green zone where the Israel Defence Forces are present and the red zone, where Hamas is present. That red zone is 47 per cent of Gaza, with 88 per cent of the Palestinian population. Hamas, to this day, is diverting humanitarian aid, taxing commercial aid, torturing Palestinian civilians and shooting them in the street, can determine whether or not Palestinians get access to services, to medical care or to food or anything beyond a tent in the rubble.

There are efforts to see what could become of this international stabilisation force, this multinational force to which Indonesia appears to have committed up to 8000 forces, and whether or not there can be a better reality for Palestinian civilians in the green zone. The United Arab Emirates is ready to fund rubble clearance, ordinance clearance, and build a community and try to bring Palestinians in. Testing the waters of diplomacy for now.

And then Iran. The story here, I think, has gone from perceiving the nuclear program to be significantly pushed back, the missile program to be significantly pushed back, the terrorism program to be significantly pushed back. And reflecting again on last summer, none of the militias, or what remains of these militias, stood up to defend Iran when it came under attack from Israel and then the United States. We also know that the Iranian regime is the weakest at home than it’s ever been in the history of the Islamic Republic. It cannot stabilise its own currency. It cannot keep the lights on. It cannot provide electricity. Children cannot go to school five days a week. People cannot go to their offices five days a week. The regime has so mismanaged the water supply in Iran that there’s open contemplation of having to move the population out of Tehran.

The socioeconomic situation in Iran is so bad that we basically now have the pace of protests picking up. They’re geographically diverse, they’re socially diverse, and they’re economically diverse. There is nothing the Iranian regime can do by changing its own policies to change or affect this picture. It must receive sanctions relief in order to do this. And yet the way to receive sanctions relief would be to negotiate. Would be to join in a meaningful negotiation with the Trump team, who has extended its hand to test the waters of diplomacy. And the regime right now looks like it is in no mood to negotiate. And yet, this January, it committed the most horrific massacre against its own people in the history of the Islamic Republic, at a time that it cannot provide for the safety or security of its people at home, and its strategy abroad has failed.

In the context of all of this, the Trump administration is pressurising the environment and buying itself more leverage with a very significant military buildup. The challenge is that the objectives of using military force are not clear. Trump, earlier in January, said he would order military strikes to get the regime to back off the protesters. Earlier in January, when Prime Minister Netanyahu visited Trump, Trump said he would back Israel in taking more military strikes if the Iranians worked to rebuild their missile program. Now we are back to talking about an agreement on the nuclear program or else military strikes.

The irony of this is it’s unlikely that, absent regime change, the behaviour of the regime is going to change. This is a regime that, despite being the weakest in the history of the Islamic Republic, is trying to rebuild its proxies across the region, is receiving Russian and Chinese assistance to rebuild its missile program, and there should be no doubt that once it rebuilds its missile program, it will start working to dig out the buried uranium and reconstitute its nuclear weapons capability. And so, if Trump continues with negotiations, the regime could receive sanctions relief, which would actually enable regime survival.

And yet, with military strikes on the other side, there is no guarantee that this would deliver a better outcome for the people of Iran, for the Middle East, for Israel, for the United States. There just appears to be no credible opposition that could actually lead, that could be a regime that is not in aggression against the rest of the region. And I think these are the exact issues that Trump is wrestling with right now. Could there be a negotiation that prevents war? Certainly. The timelines are in conflict. For the United States, this military buildup cannot sustain itself for the next three years of Trump’s administration. There will be other crises. There will be other needs for the military capabilities that he has built up in the Middle East.

For Israel, the longer military action is not taken, and the longer negotiations do not address the missile program, the arithmetic of waiting is likely untenable. For Israel, the risk tolerance in a post October 7 environment is significantly lower. And for Iran, the incentive is to string out these negotiations as long as possible, to talk for talking’s sake, the longer you can talk and look reasonable, perhaps you can convince Trump of some sort of negotiation.

The regime did this before. It was the Iran nuclear agreement 10 years ago. The idea that the American administration would concede to a negotiation only on the nuclear program now, two and a half years after October 7 when the region has fundamentally changed, and the regime is weaker than it was in 2015 when Obama negotiated that deal, doesn’t really make sense. That we would only negotiate on the nuclear program and not the missile program, as what the Iranians insist leaves the region no more secure. These are the very issues that the Trump administration is wrestling with right now, and it’s why Prime Minister Netanyahu rushed to Washington for a meeting, that by my clock, ended about five hours ago. So, I shall be reading the newspapers tomorrow to see what the leaks are about what really happened and, with that, I look forward to your questions.