When Donald J Trump enters the Oval Office on Friday, he’ll find an in-tray bulging with briefs about burning Middle East issues that need his urgent attention. My guess is he won’t read any of them. Because the one thing we know with absolute certainty about Trump’s policymaking process is that it rests on a firm belief that Donald Trump always knows best.

This presents an unprecedented challenge for the cabinet members and advisors who will need swift decisions from the President to address a fractured, unstable Middle East beset by civil war and jihadi terrorism, a set of problems far worse than any of his predecessors had to contend with.

Trump’s Middle East plan is, like many of his policies, contradictory and confusing. On Iran, he wants to scrap the nuclear deal but also strictly enforce it. He wants to crush Isil by reaching an agreement with Russia, to trade the survival of the Assad regime for a joint effort against Islamic State. But Russia isn’t targeting Isil and neither is Assad. Trump also wants to limit Iran’s malign influence in the region and combat Hizbollah – correctly identifying them as the number one threat to key US allies such as Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. But a bargain that leaves Assad and his allies in place under a Russian umbrella is a seismic strategic victory for Iran, solidifying a Shia arc of influence and control stretching across Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

Read the full article at the Telegraph.