Former White House officials and Middle East experts are expressing concern over the Trump administration’s move to lift sanctions on Iranian oil sales through August, warning that Tehran will gain significant revenue it could use for malign activities before it demonstrates concrete progress on its diplomatic commitments.

On Monday, the U.S. Treasury Department issued a temporary 60-day license authorizing the production, delivery and sale of Iranian oil, lifting decades-old sanctions. The move was made in response to Tehran’s agreement to open the Strait of Hormuz and allow international nuclear inspectors into the country following weekend talks in Switzerland, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a claim which Iranian officials have denied.

Under the memorandum of understanding signed last week between Washington and Tehran, the U.S. agreed to authorize waivers allowing the export of Iranian crude oil, petroleum products and related derivatives, as well as associated services such as banking transactions, insurance and transportation. 

The temporary license is set to expire on Aug. 21 and represents a historic pivot in U.S. policy. It marks the first time since Washington imposed strict energy sanctions on Iran in the wake of the 1979 Islamic Revolution that Iranian oil can be legally imported into the U.S. and purchased using U.S. dollars. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action suspended certain secondary sanctions, allowing foreign companies to purchase Iranian oil, but it did not authorize imports of Iranian oil into the U.S.

Tehran has previously relied on a “shadow fleet” of aging oil tankers to move its crude abroad, funneling most of it to Chinese refineries. Under the new license, the Treasury Department said Iran may now lawfully sell oil from these previously sanctioned vessels, temporarily legitimizing that clandestine network. The waiver also shields Iranian entities, including the Central Bank of Iran, from nonnuclear sanctions tied to terrorist activity.

When asked whether the Iranians could use the profits from oil sales for malign activity, President Donald Trump said “they’re not supposed to be doing that,” and that Tehran is meant to use the income to purchase agricultural goods from the U.S. 

“We’ll see, but they’re supposed to use the money to buy food for their people,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. “They’re buying it exclusively from us … all that money is coming back [to the U.S.] in the form of purchase of food … largely to our farmers.” 

Meanwhile, foreign policy experts told Jewish Insider that Iran could use the money for malign activity, also expressing concern that Tehran is receiving revenue before proving it will fulfill its long-term obligations under the deal.

“It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to guess what this oil revenue will be used for,” Dan Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Barack Obama, told JI. “It won’t be used to benefit the Iranian people. This early concession is just further evidence of how badly the United States conceded leverage to Iran in Trump’s misguided war. We are paying dearly now just to get the Strait of Hormuz reopened.”

Elliott Abrams, who served as special envoy for Iran during the first Trump administration, similarly indicated that the regime would likely use the funds in ways contrary to U.S. interests.

“Why give them the money to stabilize the regime and start rebuilding their military before they have done anything at all on their nuclear program?” Abrams asked. “Why do we just get promises while they get billions?”

Miad Maleki, a former senior Treasury official, said that the sanctions relief “could be an economic lifeline for the Islamic Republic,” in a post on X on Monday. Maleki said the move “theoretically unlocks” around 67 million barrels of oil that are stranded in the Gulf, which he estimated would be worth roughly $8-9 billion, as well as another $10-15 billion in potential relief through the sale of petrochemical tons. 

“The license explicitly allows buyers to pay Iran — including the Iranian government and blacklisted Iranian entities — directly for the oil. This isn’t just permission to sell. It’s permission to get paid,” Maleki wrote. “And the payments can be made in U.S. dollars. The dollar is the backbone of global finance, and Iran has been largely locked out of it for years. Handing the regime dollar revenue restores access that sanctions were specifically designed to deny.”

He also noted that the Treasury Department’s authorization will allow Tehran’s “shadow market” to operate “cheaper, faster, and [be] dollar-denominated.”

“While major Western and new-market buyers won’t be rushing to do business with Iran, the license authorizes far more than Iran can currently produce, and there are more than enough willing buyers in China and across Asia to absorb every barrel and petrochemical ton Iran can move,” he wrote. 

Abrams also took issue with Iran appearing to gain notable benefits without yet complying with all the U.S. demands. 

“The benefits for Iran in the MOU seem to be frontloaded,” Abrams said. “That’s a mistake because to the extent that they benefit now, they have less and less incentive to comply with what we want.”

Abrams maintained that U.S. sanctions should continue even after the lifting of the U.S. naval blockade and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

Shapiro told JI he held similar concerns, particularly regarding how Iran is securing immediate relief without any concessions on its nuclear program and noted that the agreement “doesn’t even mention Iran’s ballistic missile program or support for terrorist proxies.”

Jonathan Ruhe, a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, argued that the move provides Iran “upfront sanctions relief,” while simultaneously requiring “fewer concessions” than the JCPOA signed in 2015 under Obama. 

AIPAC similarly compared the agreement to the JCPOA, which the group spearheaded efforts to oppose when it was signed.“This license is broader than the terms detailed in the MOU or what was included in the JCPOA,” AIPAC wrote on X on Monday. “Waiving sanctions on production will allow Iran to increase its output and gain increased revenues under the terms of the MOU.”

Ruhe noted that such a move sidesteps mandatory congressional oversight by granting immediate waivers before lawmakers have had a chance to formally review or vote on the arrangement.

“It also runs afoul of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA), which prohibits any sanctions relief until Congress can review the deal,” Ruhe said. “Iran’s regime should get sanctions relief only in exchange for meaningful concessions on its nuclear program, which it has not made, and congressional review of the deal, which has not happened.”

Experts said on Wednesday that the Trump administration has failed to adequately tap into pro-Western sentiment among the Iranian public following the regime’s violent crackdown on nationwide protests earlier this year, arguing that the White House is missing a key opportunity to cultivate internal pressure within Iran.

Robert Satloff, executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, argued that the Trump administration should expand U.S. broadcasting into Iran, improve internet access for Iranians and ease pathways for dissidents seeking refuge in the U.S. to “lay the groundwork for the day when it becomes a much more real possibility to have this sort of regime change.” Satloff outlined his proposals during a Wednesday town hall hosted by Iran International, a U.K.-based Persian-language news network. “None of [the Iranian people] are being invested in in any significant way by the Trump administration,” he said.

In February, PBS reported that over 7,000 Iranians were killed during the regime’s violent crackdowns on nationwide protests that began in December. President Donald Trump at the time urged Iranians to keep protesting, declaring that “help is on the way.” Recent surveys inside Iran have shown that roughly 89% of Iranians support a “democratic political system.” 

However, with Trump rarely bringing up the human rights abuses of the Iranian government as he seeks a diplomatic deal with the Islamic Republic, the protesters who Trump initially promised to help have been deterred by the Iran’s intensive crackdowns and the lack of a response to counter them. 

That vacuum, Satloff argued, is what Washington should be working to fill. He elaborated on the three proposals, each aimed at strengthening the U.S. relationship with the Iranian public.

First, Satloff said the U.S. would benefit from providing “better and more American broadcasting” to Iranians and ensuring that they “have internet access and that they cannot be denied this by their capricious government.” 

To accomplish this, the Trump administration should “work with private companies,” Satloff told Jewish Insider.

“Much of this requires a shift of policy, not an allocation of money,” Satloff pointed out. “That is, to embrace U.S. international broadcasting as an important asset, not to try to run it out of business, as has been the case in this administration.” Following Trump’s 2025 attempts to dismantle Voice of America, including its Persian broadcasts, a federal judge ordered more than 1,000 laid-off staff reinstated this past March. 

Satloff also argued that the U.S. should “change our visa and asylum regulations” to provide Iranians fleeing the regime with “a welcoming home” and a “base” to continue organizing against the regime.

Alex Vatanka, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, reaffirmed that the “Iranian public sentiment is anti-regime by and large,” during the panel, elaborating on the importance of the U.S. screening visa applicants carefully and avoiding becoming the “bad guys.” 

He called it “fair game” to deny a visa to someone with a background in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, but stressed the need for accuracy, warning that overbroad denials risk alienating the population the White House needs on its side. 

Panelists acknowledged that these measures won’t dislodge the Islamic Republic on their own. Satloff said that under the current state of affairs, “none of this is going to bring down the government.”

“I think the important thing for us is to change behavior,” Satloff continued, arguing that “as the Iranian people see the weaknesses of their own regime then maybe you will find more organized elements that come forward in leadership that challenges” its leadership.

“I don’t even see that foundation yet for us to work with,” he added.

Rachel Brandenburg, Washington managing director and senior policy analyst at the Israel Policy Forum, told JI that “among the reasons the U.S. would provide the Iranians with ways to circumvent an internet blackout” is to support their ability to “communicate with each other and with the world.” Brandenburg explained this is “among [the] tools that could help the Iranian people organize protests and other opposition to the regime, whether openly or privately.”

Satloff tied his proposals back to potentially dismantling the IRGC — a goal the administration has stated but, in his telling, done little to pursue. Without sustained engagement with ordinary Iranians, he argued, there may be no constituency for Washington to work with when the moment for a regime change comes.

“All of this would expand U.S. engagement with ordinary Iranians,” Satloff told JI, “which is a necessary prerequisite for any serious effort at empowering Iranians to do what President Trump said he hoped they would do — take back their country.”

Iranian attacks on Qatar could prompt Doha to reassess its regional alignment and relationship with Tehran, experts said, though they expressed skepticism that the strikes would change Qatar’s antagonistic posture toward Israel, its funding of anti-Israel media or its harboring of Muslim Brotherhood-aligned groups.

Prior to the Iran war, Doha and Tehran maintained close and pragmatic diplomatic relations centered on economic cooperation. In the leadup to hostilities, Qatar aimed to balance its ties with Iran and the U.S., however the conflict has brought to light the difficulty of this balancing act. 

Qatar has suffered severe damage to its civilian, energy and military infrastructure from Iranian strikes, launched as Tehran has targeted American allies in the region amid the war with the U.S. and Israel, including over $20 billion in lost revenue caused by a strike on Qatar’s liquified natural gas facility. 

“Iran’s strikes have created real fissures,” said Natalie Ecanow, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “For example, Qatar expelled Iran’s military and security attachés and cracked down on IRGC cells within its borders. Notably, Qatar’s prime minister called Iran’s strikes ‘a big sense of betrayal,’ which is language typically reserved for friends or partners, not foes. That tells you something about Qatar’s mindset before the war.”

Kristan Diwan, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, told Jewish Insider that the rift will likely push Doha closer to other countries in the region with aligned interests.

“I think we will see Qatar working even more closely in concert with the new ‘Sunni’ regional coalition led by Saudi Arabia with Turkey, Pakistan and perhaps Egypt and other Arab players,” Diwan said. “While not identical, their interests align,” Diwan added, on Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. “Working together will increase their impact while lessening the burden on any one state.”

But Diwan said that while Doha may distance itself from Tehran, it should not be mistaken for a more favorable posture toward Israel. She said the emerging coalition “shares a belief that the current Israeli government represents a threat to regional stability.”

“Unlike the UAE, these countries are likely to take up positions confronting both Iran and Israel,” Diwan continued. “This will allow for a more accommodating posture on Muslim Brotherhood-aligned groups and perhaps even a recalibration of hostilities toward other radical movements such as the Houthis and Hezbollah.”

Other experts warned that Qatar’s significant financial losses during the war are unlikely to alter Doha’s ideological posture toward Israel or its funding of anti-Israel antagonism. 

“Frankly it’s hard to imagine Qatar ever becoming less ideological or antagonistic toward Israel,” Jonathan Ruhe, a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, told JI. “Despite the Iran war’s economic toll, Doha still can afford to propagate anti-Israel, anti-Western extremism through Al Jazeera, the Muslim Brotherhood and other actors. And it still has every incentive to support Islamist groups and media to buttress its own credibility in the Arab and Muslim worlds.”

Additionally, Ruhe said there is little external pressure forcing Qatar to change course, pointing to the Trump administration’s favorable posture toward Doha.

“The war has not altered the Trump administration’s reliably favorable attitude toward Qatar,” Ruhe said. “Qatar’s relationship with Tehran is now severely damaged, but it can compensate through stronger ties with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, both of whom have been propagating anti-Israel rhetoric, and possibly Pakistan, too.” 

But Ecanow said the prospect of a full break between Qatar and Iran remains complicated by geography and shared economic interests. Qatar’s wealth is tied to the world’s largest natural gas reservoir, which it shares with Iran.

“Qatar’s wealth flows from sitting on the world’s largest natural gas reservoir — one it shares with Iran. That ostensibly gives Doha an economic interest in the regime’s survival because a regime that’s down but not out poses little competition for Qatar’s liquefied natural gas exports. Regime change may not be an immediate U.S. objective, but this dynamic inherently puts Qatar’s interests at odds with those of the United States,” Ecanow said.

The first round of direct talks between Israel and Lebanon has been received positively by diplomats, pro-Israel lawmakers and experts, who see it as a sign of Hezbollah’s waning influence in Lebanon. But despite the optimism surrounding the discussions, experts caution that disarming the terrorist group remains a daunting obstacle that stands in the way of any meaningful change — one that would require a significant shift from the Lebanese government and its armed forces.

On Tuesday, Israeli and Lebanese leadership convened at the State Department in Washington for the highest-level direct discussions in more than 30 years, aiming to outline a framework for “lasting peace” and a “permanent end” to Hezbollah’s influence, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.  

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) told Jewish Insider that “it is great” that talks are taking place, expressing hope that “the Lebanese government, the United States and the Israeli government make a deal, and collectively, they push Hezbollah out.”

“That way the Lebanese people can be freed from the Iranian extremism that they have in their country,” Moskowitz said. “The Lebanese people are being held captive by the Iranian government because of Hezbollah. It’s obviously good for the United States, it’s good for Israel, but more importantly, I think it’s good for the people of Lebanon. I think disarming Hezbollah is obviously key to all this.”

Moskowitz added that while the Lebanese government appears to want to disarm Hezbollah, “they probably need help.”

“It’s not going to happen overnight, but I think it’s historic, and this is what the entire region wants,” he said. “This is what the Gulf states want. Everybody wants to come out of the extremism and the terrorism that Iran is trying to spread in the region.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) similarly told JI that Hezbollah disarmament is an important factor in talks. 

“Why would you have talks if they [Hezbollah] are not going to disarm?” Scott said. “I’m not the prime minister of Israel but my condition would be that Hezbollah has got to disarm.”

Scott dismissed the notion that the Lebanese government and the Lebanese Armed Forces have not done enough to disarm the group, stating that the main problem is “not caused by Lebanon or by the military of Lebanon, it’s caused by Hezbollah.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said that disarming Hezbollah should be a “red line” for Israel in talks. He added that Israel “needs a buffer zone so Hezbollah can’t continue to rain down terror on Israelis.”

“Hezbollah has historically been the best trained, best equipped opponents to Israel,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) said. “Israel’s done a great job with them over the last two years, but they’re hardcore fervent believers in destroying Israel.” 

Experts similarly described the talks as a meaningful development. John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, called the discussions an “important breakthrough” and a sign of Hezbollah’s diminishing influence.

“Everyone should welcome the opening of a direct political dialogue between Israel and Lebanon,” Hannah said. “The fact that [the talks are] occurring at all is an important sign of Hezbollah’s declining hegemony over the Lebanese state.”

Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, described the talks as a “win-win-win” in a social media post, adding that Hezbollah emerged as a “big loser.”

“Today is a day to celebrate — we all saw a glimpse of what is possible after so much violence and conflict,” Satloff wrote on Tuesday. “That is a very good thing.”

Still, experts say disarming Hezbollah, which parties agree is necessary for any lasting piece, remains highly difficult and uncertain.

Even before Tuesday’s opening round of discussions, Hezbollah senior member Wafiq Safa said Hezbollah is “not bound” by any deals reached between Israel, Lebanon and the United States.

“It’s hard to be an optimist when it comes to the core question of Hezbollah’s disarmament,” Hannah said. “Even after all that’s been done over the past few years to weaken the group and its Iranian sponsors — including the loss of its legitimacy in the eyes of a majority of Lebanese — it’s not at all apparent that the raw balance of forces inside Lebanon has shifted sufficiently to favor Hezbollah’s near-term demise.”

Hannah described disarming Hezbollah as “worth trying,” but ultimately a “long shot.”

“Since the war against Iran broke out on Feb. 28, Hezbollah has shown through its sustained attacks on Israel that, while much diminished, its forces retain far more significant capabilities than many believed,” he said. “And in the wake of its battle against Israel, Hezbollah is making clear that if push comes to shove, it’s prepared to burn down the state before surrendering its weapons.”

Blaise Misztal, JINSA’s vice president for policy, said the task cannot be accomplished through Israeli military action alone and will ultimately depend on whether Lebanon and the LAF are willing to act.

“[Disarming Hezbollah] can only be fully done by a strong and committed Lebanese government,” Misztal said. “Israel can secure southern Lebanon with ground operations and strike Hezbollah sites in Beirut or the Bekaa Valley, but that will merely distance and degrade the threat, never fully remove it.”

“The question is whether the Lebanese government is, or can be convinced to be, strong and committed enough to take on the task of asserting its control over its own territory,” he added. “Thus far, it has failed to demonstrate either the political will or military capability to do so.”

Hannah similarly noted that “Israel is rightly unwilling to pay the necessary cost in blood, treasure and diplomatic opprobrium” required to fully dismantle Hezbollah, leaving the responsibility to Lebanon and its armed forces.

“The factor that has truly held Lebanon back from disarming Hezbollah has been Hezbollah’s retention of, as far as we can tell, overwhelming support among Lebanese Shiites,” David Daoud, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said. “Having retained that popular support, it can deter the government from pursuing forcible disarmament by dangling the threat of civil war.”

But experts weren’t optimistic that the Lebanese government and LAF are capable — or willing — to take on that role. Hannah said Lebanon’s military “doesn’t appear to have the stomach to truly confront Hezbollah and dismantle the group’s armed wing,” noting that it has already “failed” to disarm the group in southern Lebanon, “much less the rest of the country.”

“It seems even less likely than before the Iran war that the LAF would now be willing to take on the risk of massively confronting Hezbollah,” he said, “in spite of the misery Hezbollah’s unilateral decision to enter the conflict on Iran’s behalf is now inflicting on the rest of Lebanon.”

David Daoud, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, also said Beirut “ultimately holds the key” to resolving the issue of Hezbollah’s disarmament. He said that while Lebanon has taken “immense and commendable” steps in “proscribing Hezbollah’s military activities,” the country’s “unwillingness to act against Hezbollah has been missing from the equation” and has “allowed the group to regenerate in the past.”

He added that Hezbollah still “retains enough military strength to make disarmament daunting” for Lebanese forces and the LAF, and that the group continues to wield significant political power.

“The factor that has truly held Lebanon back from disarming Hezbollah has been Hezbollah’s retention of, as far as we can tell, overwhelming support among Lebanese Shiites,” Daoud said. “Having retained that popular support, it can deter the government from pursuing forcible disarmament by dangling the threat of civil war.”

Daoud also raised concerns about Lebanon’s intentions in negotiations, arguing that Beirut may not truly be seeking meaningful change.

“A good test will be the extent to which the LAF fulfills the Lebanese government’s order from early April to put all of Beirut under its full control,” John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, said. “Will the LAF truly confront and disarm Hezbollah in the capital or simply repeat the phony disarmament it claimed to have completed in the south?”

“Lebanon is seeking to use the negotiations to return to the status quo, and is willing to ‘pay the price’ of a joint photograph with an Israeli ambassador to achieve that objective,” he said. “This is because the situation in Lebanon is indeed dire — economic collapse compounded by war, the direct impact of the war itself and the emergence of sectarian tensions that could boil over into full-on conflict.”

If those dynamics remain unchanged, he warned that Hezbollah could indefinitely delay disarmament and eventually rebuild its strength.

“A good test will be the extent to which the LAF fulfills the Lebanese government’s order from early April to put all of Beirut under its full control,” Hannah said. “Will the LAF truly confront and disarm Hezbollah in the capital or simply repeat the phony disarmament it claimed to have completed in the south?”

Satloff said the challenge will ultimately require translating diplomacy into “practical steps,” including a shift in how the Lebanese military approaches disarmament.

“While some of this can happen in the negotiating room when the parties meet again, nothing can substitute for strong measures by the Lebanese state to isolate, weaken, delegitimize and disarm Hezbollah while promoting the idea of peace,” he said.

He suggested that turning Beirut into a “true weapons-free zone” is necessary “but not sufficient,” pointing to additional steps such as removing Hezbollah officials from government, expelling Iranian operatives from the country and shutting down the group’s financial and institutional networks.

The Trump administration’s conflicting posturing on the war in Iran — insisting on the one hand that a diplomatic deal is within reach while also threatening to escalate strikes and potentially deploy ground troops — has left experts and former administration officials uncertain about President Donald Trump’s next move.

The president threatened in a post on his Truth Social platform on Monday morning to “conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their electric generating plants, oil wells and Kharg Island” if current talks fall apart and “the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘Open for Business.’”

But he wrote in the same post that the U.S. is engaging in “serious discussions” with Iran’s current leadership, which he described as a “new” and “more reasonable” regime than its predecessor, and said that “great progress has been made.”

Reached for comment, the White House referred Jewish Insider to Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s remarks at Monday’s briefing where she defended the president’s approach and repeatedly stated that Trump and his advisors are merely ensuring he has “maximum optionality” as he considers next steps.

“With respect to forces that are on the ground in the Middle East, it’s the job of the Pentagon to create maximum optionality for the commander-in-chief. It does not mean the president has made any additional decisions,” Leavitt said, adding that Trump has “decline[d] to rule … out” the use of ground troops.  

On Capitol Hill, there are increasingly evident divides among Republican lawmakers about the prospect of boots on the ground. Some have argued that a ground operation would require explicit congressional authorization, and a number of otherwise-hawkish Republicans are hesitant about, if not outright opposed to, the idea of a ground operation.

In recent days, the U.S. has amassed over 3,500 more troops in the Middle East, including deploying the USS Tripoli aircraft carrier, which hosts around 2,500 Marines. Trump has also threatened to attack Iran’s oil and energy facilities and potentially escalate the war as a result of Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz — a vital passageway for the global oil trade. 

Elliott Abrams, who served as Iran envoy under the first Trump administration and is now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told JI that the president’s decision to move more troops to the region and not exclude ground operations from future military plans is an effort to “keep his options open.”

“The massing of ground forces near Iran is both preparation for their possible use and a means of pressuring Iran to make concessions in the negotiations,” Abrams said. “There is no way of knowing what Trump will do if the negotiations fail.”

The administration is considering multiple options for the use of ground troops, including the seizure of Kharg Island, a vital economic artery for Tehran that accounts for roughly 90 percent of the country’s crude exports. 

Cameron McMillan, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that targets could also include the “seizure of key terrain — including relevant islands — in and around the Strait of Hormuz and securing Iranian highly enriched uranium.” However, he remained unsure whether the Trump administration would carry out such operations. 

“Seizing or destroying the [highly enriched uranium] is a sensible goal if it is militarily feasible without too much risk,” Abrams said. “Taking the targets associated with the strait is, I think, both for bargaining purposes and perhaps meant to be given up only when traffic has moved through the strait freely for some time.”

Jonathan Ruhe, a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, said that there are “real reasons to think ground operations could end up taking place.” He said that Iran “refuses to entertain Trump’s demands,” which could compel the administration to use elevated means of force in order to seize Iran’s highly enriched uranium, reopen the Strait of Hormuz or take Kharg Island “or other assets as bargaining chips.”

“The past month reaffirms that standoff air and naval power are insufficient by themselves to neutralize these targets or convince Iran to give them up,” Ruhe said. “Trump’s tendency is to employ the forces that he deploys overseas, as seen in both the Venezuela operation and the start of the current conflict. And there’s an opportunity cost to letting such well-trained U.S. forces idle indefinitely in the Middle East after pulling them from the Indo-Pacific or the homeland.”

Daniel Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Barack Obama and deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East under President Joe Biden, said current talks between Washington and Tehran “look like a negotiation going nowhere.” He argued that Trump’s track record of pivoting to military action when diplomacy stalls, along with pressure to decide whether to use forces that cannot remain in the region indefinitely, suggest that ground operations could be looming.

“There is little chance that Iran, despite all punishment it has taken from U.S. and Israeli airstrikes, will make these concessions … If the [current] negotiations falter, it’s not hard to guess which way [Trump] will go,” Shapiro said. 

Shapiro said that the current moment has a “similar feel to the military build-up Trump ordered throughout February” before he launched the war at the end of the month. Shapiro cautioned that any use of ground forces would indicate a “longer war” and signal that the objectives of the war are expanding “far beyond what negotiations in February were seeking to achieve.”

“With the ground forces available, they can’t just park in the region for long. Trump will, sooner than later, need to decide whether to use them or send them home,” Shapiro added. 

Meanwhile, McMillan cautioned against ground operations, “especially those designed to secure and hold terrain.”

“I do not see any value in employing these forces to seize Iranian territory and would highly caution against ground operations,” McMillan said. “All of the desired objectives — with the exception of securing highly enriched uranium — can be secured through other means with substantially less risk. Seizing tankers is the most obvious if [the administration] is seeking to cut off Iran’s oil revenue.” 

He also warned that the current forces being deployed might “not be enough for any large-scale ground operations for any long duration.” 

“Simply deploying these units is unlikely to leverage Iran at the negotiating table, as the regime is fighting a total war that it views as existential,” McMillan continued. “Considering the profound impacts of U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran’s ballistic missile, drone and naval capabilities, as well as its senior leadership, it is unlikely that a few more American battalions in the region will change that view or their will to continue fighting.”

Ruhe noted that Trump could be overlooking the potential costs of ground operations. He said that the president “has not adequately anticipated Iran’s retaliation” and is “discounting the uncertainties and risks of rolling the iron dice with ground operations.”

“And even if Trump is clear-eyed about the risks, he may accept them because getting the highly enriched uranium [HEU] and reopening the strait are such important goals,” he continued. Ruhe noted that such operations would likely be very complex. 

“Seizing Iran’s HEU at Isfahan, Kharg Island or beachheads along the strait would be larger and more open-ended than raids on Maduro, al-Baghdadi or Bin Laden, which were in-and-out and occurred in much more tactically permissive environments,” Ruhe said. “Though Iran is being hit hard, it still has much greater military capabilities than ISIS, Venezuela or the Taliban.”

McMillan said that ground operations could also provide Tehran with leverage and risk further expanding the conflict. He also noted that any ground operation designed to seize and hold terrain in Iran is “more likely to become a liability than an asset and would draw the Trump administration closer to the war of attrition that it is trying to avoid.”

“Instead of the U.S. securing leverage, Iran would likely gain significant leverage against the U.S. by being able to employ a greater part of its arsenal against a vulnerable and isolated U.S. troop presence,” McMillan said. “If those troops were to take consistent casualties against threats that could not be removed from the air alone, expanded ground operations in the name of force protection would not be hard to imagine. That would require more forces, more resources and, in turn, likely more casualties.” 

However, Richard Goldberg, a former Trump administration official, said that the use of ground operations does not necessarily signal that there will be an expanded presence and scope of U.S. involvement. 

“People hear ‘boots on the ground’ and immediately think of Iraq, but we had boots on the ground in Venezuela as well — just in a very different way,” Goldberg said. “The U.S. would not be invading Iran in the sense of Iraq, but you could see a number of contingencies that might require special forces, airborne or marines for narrowly scoped missions with limited objectives, whether that’s securing nuclear material or neutralizing a threat that you can’t neutralize from the air for a variety of reasons.”

“It’s also important to remember that the military is preparing for contingencies, which may or may not ever be needed,” Goldberg added, noting that the U.S. “had Marines off of Venezuela but we didn’t use them.”

Jewish Insider’s senior congressional correspondent Marc Rod contributed to this report.

Leading Middle East foreign policy experts warned that Iran’s decision to expand its response to the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign by striking neighboring Arab states could prove to be a major strategic miscalculation — one that risks isolating Tehran further and potentially drawing Gulf countries to take action.

In the days following the launch of the campaign, Iran carried out widespread drone and missile strikes at multiple Arab nations, striking all members of the Gulf Cooperation Council — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE — as well as Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Oman.

Some Iranian strikes hit U.S. military installations in those countries, as well as the U.S. consulate in Dubai and the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia, in what analysts said was an apparent attempt to raise the costs for Washington and lead allies to pressure it to halt the campaign.

But Iran also indiscriminately struck civilian targets — including airports, hotels and major oil and gas infrastructure — causing damage that is sending oil prices soaring and could have lasting economic consequences for the region. Prior to the attacks, several of the affected Arab governments had publicly stated they would not allow their territory to be used to launch strikes on Iran.

On Sunday, the U.S. issued a joint statement along with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait, strongly condemning Iran’s “indiscriminate and reckless missile and drone attacks against sovereign territories across the region.”

The attacks have only continued and expanded since then: On Wednesday, Turkey’s Defense Ministry said that Iran had launched a ballistic missile towards its airspace that was intercepted by NATO defense systems. NATO spokeswoman Allison Hart condemned the incident, adding that NATO “stands firmly with all allies.” 

While Arab officials have sought to distance their countries from the conflict and have largely remained silent as they weigh their options, experts said Iranian attacks are a significant error from Tehran that risks pushing Arab states toward direct involvement.

Alexander Gray, a former National Security Council chief of staff under President Donald Trump and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told Jewish Insider that Iran’s decision to attack Arab countries was an “extraordinary strategic miscalculation.”

“Not only has Iran forced the region’s Arab states to openly support the U.S. and Israeli operation, but it has encircled itself far more effectively than any American diplomacy could have accomplished,” Gray said. “Over the long term, this unifying force may offer the U.S. a unique opportunity to return to the economic and diplomatic track of the Abraham Accords on a broader, regional basis after the conclusion of the military operation.” 

Michael Koplow, chief policy officer at Israel Policy Forum, echoed those sentiments, calling the action a “risky move at best.”

“Iran’s decision to attack neighboring Arab states was intended to impose escalating costs that would theoretically put pressure on the U.S. to bring the war to a halt,” Koplow said. “So far it has backfired as the U.S. and Israel show no signs of backing down, while there are reports that the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are contemplating taking their own action against Iranian missiles and launchers.”

He added that the latest missile fired toward Turkey is “a sign of Iranian regime desperation,” and follows a similar pattern. Koplow also noted that Gulf states are likely to have a “much lower tolerance threshold for Iranian attacks and provocations” going forward, warning that the result could be “an even more isolated Iran facing a regional coalition that takes a more aggressive posture toward its own defense.”

Hussein Mansour, a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, also said that Iran “catastrophically” miscalculated. “Iran created the conditions for the Gulf states to join the operation,” said Mansour. He added that Tehran’s decision to strike Arab neighbors destroyed “every diplomatic off-ramp it [Iranian leadership] had spent years cultivating.”

Dana Stroul, director of research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said “there is no question that Iran’s strategy of punishing U.S. allies and partners backfired.” 

“Gulf leaders are also making clear they maintain the right to defend themselves and are likely considering the proposition that, given Iran’s willingness to unleash its missile and drone arsenal, the best defense is a strong offense,” Stroul said. “It should not be a surprise if in the coming hours or days we see an expanded role for Gulf countries under attack.”

Amb. Dan Shapiro, a former official in both the Obama and Biden administrations, also told JI that the recent Iranian attacks increases the potential for Arab partners to get involved, noting that the situation underscores the value for Arab countries in “being part of a regional air defense network that includes the United States, but also includes Israel.”

“The Gulf states mostly wanted to stay out of this conflict,” Shapiro said. Now, ”there’s at least some possibility you see the UAE and possibly other Gulf states participate in some measure in operations against Iran.”

Mansour said the strikes have pushed the Gulf states further away from Iran and towards the West. 

“Last June, during the 12-day war, Qatar called Iran ‘the sisterly Islamic Republic,’ Kuwait accused the U.S. of violating international law, and Saudi Arabia called for ‘restraint,’” said Mansour. “Nine months later, Qatar is shooting down Iranian jets. Saudi Arabia has authorized retaliation and offered to place ‘all its capabilities’ at the region’s disposal. The UAE has shuttered its embassy in Tehran.”

Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former Trump administration official, told JI that he views Iran’s decision to attack Arab neighbors as more of a “reality of who the regime is” rather than a miscalculation. 

“The regime is fighting for its survival, it sees all of these countries hosting U.S. bases or otherwise aligning with the U.S. in strategic ways. It knows one of their only cards to play is both to drain air defense assets and spike energy prices, so it wildly attacks civilian and critical infrastructure across the region,” said Goldberg. “The regime sees most of these countries as complicit in the attack simply by enabling the U.S. to operate in the Middle East, and it knows that if it can hit enough energy targets hard enough it can increase the pain point for the West.”

Kristin Diwan, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, said that while Arab Gulf states are “furious with Iran,” there are reasons for them to refrain from entering direct conflict. 

“I suspect that [Arab states] not becoming a party to the war will be essential to negotiating workarounds with the Iranians,” said Diwan. “These will be necessary to get the breathing space in shipping and transport necessary to endure a long war.”

“This same logic will apply if Iran emerges from the war depleted but still dangerous,” Diwan added. “While America may depart the region, Iran will remain, and its Arab neighbors must find a way to live with it.”

Goldberg said that while there is “political benefit” for the U.S. in having Arab governments “endorse offensive military action against the regime,” he noted that “absent a major offensive military contribution to the war [from Arab states], the regime inflicts more costs on the region than it endures for doing so.” 

“The GCC states are now on an escalation ladder they did not choose and cannot easily descend,” said Mansour. “If Iran continues to target energy infrastructure, I imagine the Gulf will retaliate severely. The bigger question is what happens after the war stops, and this will largely depend on how the war stops.”

When Israel announced the day after Christmas that it would formally recognize Somaliland, making it the first country in the world to announce formal diplomatic relations with the secessionist region in the Horn of Africa, even some of Washington’s foremost foreign policy experts were sheepishly asking the same question: What, exactly, is Somaliland? 

There was no single event that led to Israel’s choice to recognize the sovereignty of Somaliland, which announced its independence from Somalia in 1991. The territory has functioned independently for 35 years; nothing in its governance changed last year. 

What changed was Israel — and its geopolitical calculus regarding regional security threats. 

“The Houthis didn’t used to fire missiles at Israel. That’s new, and Israel’s now trying to respond to a new situation,” said David Makovsky, the Ziegler Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “I have no doubt that this was driven by how to try to neutralize a threat from the Houthis that Israel takes very seriously.” 

Somaliland sits just across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen, from which the Iran-backed Houthis have fired drones and ballistic missiles at Israel following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in 2023. Allying with Somaliland could allow Israel to target the Yemeni militia from much closer range. Israel has also reportedly approached Somaliland about resettling Palestinians from Gaza there, although officials in the country have denied that such conversations took place. 

Somaliland also sits in a strategic location south of Djibouti and to the east of Ethiopia, and its coastland is close to where the Indian Ocean and Red Sea meet, making it a prime shipping location. 

“No one can ignore the strategic location of Somaliland,” Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, told The Wall Street Journal. “The straits are a strategic point.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar visited Hargeisa, Somaliland’s capital, on Tuesday to meet with President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi. It was the first visit by a foreign minister to Somaliland in its more than three decades of existence as a self-governing entity. 

The key question is whether Jerusalem’s recognition of Somaliland will prompt similar moves by other nations. Somalia, with which Israel does not have diplomatic nations, has slammed the move. The African Union on Tuesday called for Israel to walk back its recognition, saying the move “represents an unacceptable interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign Member State of the United Nations.” 

But even as Israel faces diplomatic pushback even from allied African nations, it has created an opening for Somaliland to press its case internationally. 

The region was a separate entity from Somalia beginning in the 19th century, when it was controlled by the British — in contrast to present-day Somalia, which was previously ruled by Italy. Today Somaliland is home to 6 million people, and it has held democratic elections throughout the past two decades. 

Washington has not recognized Somaliland, and a State Department spokesperson told Jewish Insider on Tuesday that no such announcement is forthcoming. 

“The United States continues to recognize the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Somalia, which includes the territory of Somaliland,” the spokesperson said. 

But at an emergency United Nations Security Council hearing last week, Tammy Bruce, the U.S. deputy representative to the U.N., defended Israel’s right to conduct diplomacy, and she called out the body’s “persistent double standards” in treating the recognition of Somaliland as different from states that have unilaterally recognized a Palestinian state.

“The Americans are engaging with the country. How quickly they move to recognize Somaliland, I don’t know,” said Max Webb, a Horn of Africa expert who works at Israel Policy Forum. “Somaliland has been a fixture of Republican politics.” 

“Israel has the same right to conduct diplomatic relations as any other sovereign state,” said Bruce. “Earlier this year, several countries including members of this council made the unilateral decision to recognize a non-existent Palestinian state, and yet no emergency meeting was called to express this council’s outrage.” 

Even though Washington does not recognize Somaliland, the region has a small diplomatic mission in the United States. In December, the top U.S. military official overseeing the Africa Command visited Somaliland and met with Abdullahi, its president.

“The Americans are engaging with the country. How quickly they move to recognize Somaliland, I don’t know,” said Max Webb, a Horn of Africa expert who works at Israel Policy Forum. “Somaliland has been a fixture of Republican politics.” 

The conservative Heritage Foundation first called for U.S. recognition of Somaliland in 2021. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) threw his support behind recognition last August, and he said in a post on X on Monday that Somaliland recognition “aligns with America’s security interests.” President Donald Trump told The New York Post in December that he wasn’t yet ready to recognize Somaliland but that he will “study” the issue. “Does anyone know what Somaliland is, really?” Trump said.

Taiwan, which is not a United Nations member state, has a representative office in Somaliland, but it has not formally recognized Somaliland as an independent state. A handful of regional powerhouses, including Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates, also have strong economic relationships with Somaliland. They have yet to establish full diplomatic ties, although Somaliland and Ethiopia — the second most populous nation in Africa — signed a major memorandum of understanding in 2024. There are larger geopolitical factors at play: Egypt is closely aligned with Somalia, while Egypt and Ethiopia have long been at odds over an Ethiopian hydroelectric project on the Nile River. Turkey and Qatar, both of which are close to Mogadishu, condemned Israel’s actions.

Somalia is a key counterterrorism partner for the U.S., particularly as the Islamist group al-Shabab has grown and become more deadly alongside a Somali affiliate of ISIS. Some worry that U.S. recognition of Somaliland could hamper that coordination. 

“Somaliland is on the map,” said Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “People who had never heard of Somaliland a week ago are suddenly reading up on its history and understanding its arguments.”

“I’m sure there are other countries as well beyond the U.S. that worry if they recognize Somaliland, then Somalia will have a full meltdown and will cut off counterterrorism cooperation, for instance, and then al-Shabab will make even further gains,” said Joshua Meservey, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute who has called for U.S. recognition of Somaliland. “Somalia’s dysfunction almost protects it, in a way, from Somaliland gaining wider recognition.” 

Over the past 10 days, no other states have followed Israel’s lead. But a diplomatic crisis has not emerged, at least not yet — and now, Somaliland is part of the global conversation in a serious way for the first time since it declared independence.

“Somaliland is on the map,” said Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “People who had never heard of Somaliland a week ago are suddenly reading up on its history and understanding its arguments.”

The run-up to next year’s Israeli election will be the first in which artificial intelligence tools to create images and videos and rapidly compose texts are easily accessible, and experts are raising red flags over the technology’s ability to influence voters and campaigns and the lack of regulations around its use. 

Israeli politicians have long been early adopters of technological tools to boost their campaigns, from bypassing traditional media through Facebook to using social media data to target key demographics before most liberal democracies were doing so, and AI will likely be no different.

Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, head of the Democracy in the Digital Age program at the Israel Democracy Institute, told Jewish Insider that Israel is one of the countries with the largest market penetration of AI in the world — 85% of Israelis have used ChatGPT and 76% use it frequently, according to a study by the Israeli Internet Association published in October  — so it is only a matter of time before politicians use it in their campaigns.

(National elections are legally required to take place on Oct. 26, 2026, at the latest, but political tensions make an earlier date possible.)

“AI chatbots have significant penetration in the public,” Shwartz Altshuler said. “They will be used to ask whether to vote and for whom to vote. We have not seen anything like this before. … People use chatbots as a companion for emotional support. The concern over the great influence of chatbots on voter behavior is significant.”

Shwartz Altshuler said that there have already been attempts to “give poison injections” to AI models, such as creating fake news sites and positions on subreddits to manipulate the bots into giving more pro-Israel responses to users abroad, and those tools can be turned inward, toward Israeli voters.

She also pointed out that Israel does not have any laws requiring machine-generated content to be labeled.

“This is the first time we have an election in which we are unable to differentiate between authentic and machine-generated photos and videos,” she said. “There is a fear that the perception of reality is being undermined. People can forge documents and make deepfakes of politicians. … Machine-generated content can create an alternative reality, a very dangerous prospect when the content is very emotionally attractive.”

Yuval Dror, the former dean of media studies in Israel’s College of Management Studies, who hosts a popular technology podcast in Hebrew, was skeptical that computer-generated photos and videos will have a major impact on the next election.

“With photos, sometimes we can tell if it’s AI or not. With video, people usually know that it’s AI,” he told JI. “The impact of [AI-generated] video will mostly be economic, because it will be much easier to produce. In the past, you needed an ad agency, actors, post-production work. Now it’s much easier, so [campaigns will] save money.”

“You can create a false presentation in which masses of people say this or that and look like a grassroots movement,” Yuval Dror, the former dean of media studies in Israel’s College of Management Studies, said. “There is [already] an army of bots echoing a few people on social media.”

Dror was more concerned about AI-generated texts, which he noted can be much harder to detect. 

AI may be used in upcoming political campaigns to flood social networks with content, making a candidate, message or policy appear to have more support than it does in reality. This already happens on X, where much of the political discourse in Israel takes place, but also in more closed networks like WhatsApp and Telegram, Dror said.

“You can create a false presentation in which masses of people say this or that and look like a grassroots movement,” Dror said. “There is [already] an army of bots echoing a few people on social media.”

“We’ve seen this for years. It will just get more and more convincing,” he added.

Shwartz Altshuler said that social media companies have difficulty stemming mass-bot content. “Generative AI can create a lot of versions of the same content, so the result is inauthentic, coordinated behavior on social media,” she said. “If there are slightly different versions of the same content, the social networks don’t detect” that it comes from bots.

“Most of these [AI tools] are not mentioned in the law or by past Central Election Committee decisions. They are in a grey area. [Campaigns] will do what they want,” Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, head of the Democracy in the Digital Age program at the Israel Democracy Institute, predicted. 

In addition, developments in AI since the last Israeli election, in 2022, can help politicians use data even more effectively to target potential voters with different kinds of messages and ads, she said.

Shwartz Altshuler recounted speaking with a prominent Israeli political strategist who told her, “First we win elections, and then we see if what we did is legal or not.” 

“Most of these [AI tools] are not mentioned in the law or by past Central Election Committee decisions. They are in a grey area. [Campaigns] will do what they want,” she predicted. 

Despite the fertile ground for election fraud using AI, Shwartz Altshuler said it is unlikely that new laws will be passed before the next election. “This coalition has no motivation to pass such laws [and] usually the courts say laws [regarding elections] can only be applied after the next election.”

She also pointed out that the current Central Election Committee chairman, Noam Solberg, is a conservative Supreme Court justice, and therefore would be unlikely to instruct the Knesset to pass laws addressing the issue.

Despite all the advances in AI, it may not be enough to cover for a weak candidate. 

Dror said that Israeli politicians are already using AI to write texts for social media or speeches: “Some politicians are not capable of stringing together two sentences, so they let AI do it, but the result is no less awkward.” 

They have also generated all kinds of pictures to post online, which Dror said “makes [them] look stupid,” using Israeli Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman, who posted a picture earlier this year depicting French President Emmanuel Macron kissing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, as an example. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz frequently posted AI-generated images ridiculing Israel’s enemies when he was foreign minister last year. 

“I don’t know that there’s an audience for this stupidity,” Dror said.

Vice President JD Vance’s suggestion on Tuesday that the U.S. would welcome Turkish troops playing a role in the proposed stabilization force in Gaza was met with skepticism from leading Republican lawmakers and experts in Washington. 

Vance told reporters in Israel that while the U.S. would not “force” Israel to accept Turkish troops “on their soil,” the Trump administration believed “that there’s a constructive role for the Turks to play.” 

Asked about the prospect of Ankara’s involvement in President Donald Trump’s peace plan for the region while appearing alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the next day, the vice president replied that the U.S. does not view Israel as a “vassal state” or a “client state” but as a “partner.”

“The president believes very strongly that … Israel, honestly with our Gulf Arab allies, can play a very positive leadership role in this region to where, frankly, the United States can care less about the Middle East because our allies in the region are stepping up and taking control and taking ownership of their area of the world,” Vance said.

The vice president made the comments in response to Netanyahu suggesting that he took issue with the notion of Turkey playing a role in the future of Gaza. “We will decide together about that. So I have very strong opinions on that. Want to guess what they are?” the prime minister quipped. 

Vance’s embrace of the Turkish troop proposal prompted leading Republicans in Washington to voice their concerns about allowing the country to install forces inside Gaza as part of the proposed International Stabilization Force, citing Israel’s opposition to the idea, Turkey’s openly hostile posture toward the Jewish state and Ankara’s ties to Hamas. 

“I found it interesting that the opposition leader, Mr. [Yair] Lapid, who I know and like, was adamant that Turkey and Qatar have very limited roles in Gaza because of the relationship with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Jewish Insider. 

“I appreciate Turkey and Qatar as allies, but when it comes to Israel, [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan’s been terrible in terms of rhetoric. I appreciate the role they played in trying to get the ceasefire, but the appetite in Israel for Turkey and Qatar to have a major role is pretty limited, given the history,” he continued. 

Graham said that he was “hoping we can find a stabilizing force. People keep mentioning Egypt. Maybe that works, but I don’t buy into the idea Hamas will ever change their stripes. They have to be dealt out of Palestinian society.”

“It’s very important for Israel to have a stabilizing force that they trust that understands the danger Hamas presents,” the South Carolina senator argued.

Jonathan Ruhe, a fellow for American strategy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, expressed similar doubts. 

“There’s a million reasons why it won’t be viable to have a long term Israeli military presence on the ground in Gaza. But the same goes for Arab partners,” Ruhe told JI. “Having Turkish forces in there particularly strikes me as a bad idea. Turkey is not an impartial force. They are a capable and experienced military, but mostly doing things the United States and Israel don’t want them to be doing.” 

“Turkey does not deserve anything like the benefit of the doubt. Their intentions are certainly suspect given their close ties to Hamas. Having a Turkish military presence literally on [Israel’s] front doorstep in Gaza could actually be worse,” Ruhe continued. “I wouldn’t see them doing anything concrete and substantive to prevent Hamas from basically reestablishing itself as the main actor on the ground in Gaza.”

Beyond a potential incapability to root out Hamas, Ruhe suggested that enabling Turkish troop presence in Gaza could be counterintuitive to U.S. interests in other ways. 

“Hamas might actually find it in their interest to try and stoke tensions between Turkey and Israel. That would be a massive headache for the U.S., having, technically, a NATO ally at daggers drawn with our closest partner in the Middle East,” Ruhe said.  

One senior GOP senator offered a blunt assessment while speaking on condition of anonymity about Vance’s comments. “They’re pushing Israel into a terrible situation. Turkey and Qatar are the benefactors of Hamas. It’s like putting a fox in the henhouse,” the senator said.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) did not disagree with Vance’s suggestion that Turkey had a role to play in the broader peace plan, but questioned the likelihood that Israel would accept such a proposal.

“Would Israel accept Turkish forces? That, I think, is the key. I think that’s the most important part of this,” Rounds told JI. “I do think our ally, our NATO ally, Turkey, could play a very constructive role in the Middle East in terms of keeping the peace, but that’s not an easy thing to do because Turkey and Israel have had strained relations.”

National security experts are warning that Jewish communities around the world could face increased Iranian threats following the recent accusation by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps orchestrated attacks last year on a synagogue and kosher restaurant in the country.

“We’ve seen Iranian penetration in many Westernized countries, with Australia now being the latest. Though to see direct evidence of a linkage to actual violence — not just disinformation campaigns or cyber campaigns — is very frightening,” Rich Goldberg, a senior advisor at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Jewish Insider. 

On Tuesday, Albanese announced the expulsion of the Iranian ambassador in Canberra — the first time Australia has expelled a foreign ambassador since World War II — as well as three other embassy staffers, and designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group, after Australian intelligence indicated that Tehran was behind the 2024 attacks. 

Goldberg called it “earth-shattering” that Australia’s “left-wing prime minister, who may not agree on a whole lot of politics with the U.S., has been woken up to the very sobering reality of Iranian threats in his own country.” 

Goldberg urged Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union to “follow swiftly” in severing diplomatic relations with Iran, and for the U.S. and Australia to put diplomatic pressure on other governments to designate IRGC as a terrorist organization. Nearly all the major EU countries still have full diplomatic ties with Iran. 

“We know that Canada is highly penetrated by Iranian assets and the IRGC inside the country without having a very clear designation as a terrorist organization,” said Goldberg. “We’ve seen terrorist plots that are Iranian sponsored on British soil and the British government is still dragging its feet on prescribing the IRGC as a terrorist group. We know that they have operatives, both undercover as diplomats and as operatives, throughout the EU.” 

More than a year ago, the Biden administration’s director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, warned of the Iranian regime’s efforts to take advantage of campus unrest. In light of Australia going public with the Iranian threat, Goldberg urged the Trump administration to order an updated review of Iranian influence efforts in the U.S. 

“We all sort of forgot about that report, but it was big news at the time [even though] we never got a lot of detail on that,” he said. “Nobody has asked the question of what’s the current status of Iranian influence on protest movements or acts of violence in the U.S. We suspect that Iran has agents in the U.S. Some of those people have been arrested in the past. This has to remain a key priority for the FBI and [Department of] Homeland Security.”  

Matt Levitt, director of the Jeanette and Eli Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, called for increased awareness of “Iranian external operations around the world, including in the U.S., in which the IRGC and other Iranian government agencies increasingly pay criminal proxies to carry out acts of violence, intimidation, and even kidnapping and murder on their behalf,” he said in a statement to JI. 

Heads of security organizations that monitor American Jewish communal safety said that the latest news coming out of Australia — in addition to an already heightened fear of Iranian retaliation following the U.S. airstrikes on Tehran’s nuclear facilities in June — make threats from Iran and its proxy groups particularly alarming. 

“The FBI and NYPD have had live investigations that have resulted in arrests of Hezbollah operatives in New York City casing out institutions,” Mitch Silber, executive director of the Community Security Initiative, which works to safeguard Jewish communities, told JI. “Iranians have a long timeline. Just because [an attack] hasn’t happened in the last six to eight weeks [since the airstrikes] doesn’t mean that the Iranians haven’t stopped plotting.” 

Silber pointed to the recent case of a Hezbollah operative in Texas purchasing 300 pounds of ammonium nitrate. “Why would you [purchase] an explosive if you weren’t thinking of potentially trying to use it somewhere in the U.S.?” he said. 

“These developments in Australia reflect yet another tentacle of the IRGC in its escalating influence campaigns: furthering violence, destruction and discord, with the Jewish community bearing the brunt,” Michael Masters, Secure Community Network director and CEO, told JI. 

“We applaud the Australian government for shining the disinfecting light of day regarding these attacks. It only underscores the continued need for reporting, coordination and proactive security efforts by and for the Jewish community.”

Iran is unlikely to initiate attacks against the U.S. after the American strike on Islamic Republic nuclear sites, but it will continue to launch missiles at Israel, experts told Jewish Insider on Sunday.

Hours after the U.S. bombed nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan in Iran, Raz Zimmt, director of the Iran program at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, told JI that he doesn’t “identify a great desire — to say the least — of the Iranians to escalate with the U.S. … If they have a sharp reaction, it could drag in the Americans, who said that the matter is finished for them after they strike Iran. The U.S. has capabilities that could threaten the survival of the regime.”

Zimmt said it was likely that the Iranians would have a “symbolic reaction,” possibly targeting a U.S. military base in the region but with advance warning, similar to their response to the killing of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020.

“We shouldn’t underestimate Iran’s capabilities — their missiles are a big concern — but those who think we’re on the verge of World War III and that all the American bases will burn need to understand that the central goal of the Iranian regime is to survive, so I don’t think they’ll do that in the foreseeable future,” Zimmt added.

However, he said, hours after Iran shot 25 missiles at Israel on Sunday morning, causing damage in central Israel and Haifa, “Israel is another story. I think [Iran will] continue what they’re doing in Israel.” 

Oded Ailam, a former senior official in Israel’s defense establishment and a researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, told JI that Iran may choose not to escalate with the U.S. and instead “take out their anger on Israel with an increase in ballistic missiles,” but he said an Iranian attack on U.S. military targets in the region was still possible.

“The Iranians probably have not decided yet. It can go either way,” he said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X that “we were in negotiations with the U.S. when Israel decided to blow up that diplomacy. This week, we held talks with the E3/EU when the U.S. decided to blow up that diplomacy. What conclusion would you draw?” 

Ailam said that while, in the short term, Iran was unlikely to return to the negotiating table “as a matter of national pride, it would look like a total defeat,” they would probably reenter talks farther down the line.

“I don’t know when it will happen, but I think the Iranians will very cautiously try to reach out to the Americans to negotiate and say they want to try to salvage some uranium enrichment for civilian needs,” he said.

Zimmt, however, said it was “clear that they won’t go back to negotiations.” 

“The more significant thing in the weeks and days ahead is what they do in the nuclear arena,” he said. “Do they announce that they’re quitting the [Non-Proliferation Treaty]? In the end, I think their decision is connected to the question to which we don’t have an answer: what capabilities they still have.”

The lesson that Iran likely learned from the past week and a half, Zimmt posited, is that “being on the verge of having a nuclear weapon is not enough. They need to have a nuclear weapon. I’m not sure they can do it, though.”

“If, theoretically, they can use a few hundred centrifuges that remain and a few hundred kilos of uranium and try to break out [to weapons-grade enrichment] in a hidden place, they may consider it. I doubt they’ll do it now, when Israeli planes are flying over their heads, but I assume they would wait some time and reconsider their nuclear strategy,” Zimmt explained.

Initial satellite photos published by the Associated Press showed damage to the entrances of the nuclear facility in Fordow, which is under a mountain, as well as damage to the mountain itself. David Albright, president and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security, wrote on X that the photos appear to show that the bombs were dropped on a ventilation shaft into Fordow’s underground halls. 

Ailam said that “the damage is very extensive.” According to his analysis, the attacks “neutralized” Iran’s ability to use its 400-kg stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% purity and turn it into weapons-grade (90% enriched) uranium. 

“They don’t have the capability because they don’t have the centrifuges anymore,” he said. “It’s not terminal; if we want to ensure the nuclear weapons program is totally destroyed, we need to strike the 400 kg or reach an agreement in which it is removed from Iran, but this has significantly damaged the Iranians’ ability to rapidly reach military-grade enrichment.”

U.S. intelligence agencies said that the stockpile, held at the Isfahan facility, was harmed, but Israel has not yet released a similar assessment, Ailam said.

However, Zimmt said that it is harder to know the extent of the damage to the nuclear program without more extensive satellite photos of the nuclear sites.

“The Iranians are trying to present a picture that it was not significantly damaged, but there really is not much to rely on yet other than IDF reports,” he said.

IDF Spokesperson Effie Defrin said on Sunday that the Israeli army “has more targets. We are prepared for the campaign to continue and must prepare for any developments.”

Ailam said that Israel “did not entirely meet [its] goals. It was mostly Israel, but with the help of the U.S., we partially removed the immediate threat from the nuclear program and the massive ballistic system and [Iran’s] ability to manufacture 300 ballistic missiles a day. That was an existential threat to Israel.” 

“But we are not at the point where we can say we removed all the threats and finished the whole bank of targets. It’s a huge country,” he added.

Zimmt said that the U.S. strike on Fordow was “the cherry on top” of Israel’s war against Iran, and that it’s time to wind down.

“Of course we can continue. We can always try to further degrade the nuclear program, but … as long as the goal was, foremost, to severely damage the nuclear program, the goal was — if not already achieved — it’s very close … I think the time has come to think of how to end this, even if it’s unilateral. If they attack, we can react, but we need to aim to finish in the coming days,” Zimmt said.

As for talk about regime change, Zimmt said it would be “impossible” through airstrikes. 

Ailam said that every major attack on Iran creates “cracks in the regime’s wall and stability, and reveals this regime to be an empty vessel.” However, he said that there are not powerful enough forces within Iran that have risen up against the regime yet. “When it will happen is hard to say, but the more [the regime] suffers blows, the closer it gets.”

The U.S.’ moves to evacuate some State Department personnel and military families from the Middle East are seen by experts as a potential sign of a U.S. or Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear program — or, at least, a signal to Iran that the U.S. is prepared for such action, ahead of a planned round of nuclear talks with Tehran. 

The moves come as President Donald Trump’s self-imposed deadline for the talks is approaching this week, and Trump has expressed public frustration with the lack of progress being made. There have been conflicting reports about whether the talks expected this weekend are still slated to occur.

The State Department is drawing down personnel in Iraq, the department said, and the Pentagon is allowing for voluntary departures of military families from locations in the Middle East. The United Kingdom, separately, issued a maritime trade warning about a potential “escalation of military activity” in the Middle East.

Dana Stroul, the research director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, noted that the Trump administration had conducted mandatory drawdowns of State Department personnel in Iraq at the end of the first Trump administration. The Pentagon evacuations, she noted, are thus far optional.

“This was part of the Iran policy approach [during Trump’s first administration] to increase pressure on the Iraqi government to get attack[s] against U.S. forces to stop,” Stroul told Jewish Insider. “So some of the people making these decisions inside the Trump administration have prior experience with reducing our presence in the region as part of a pressure play against Iran.”

But, she added, a “reduction in military families in the Gulf is the first step military planners would want to take if they were trying to reduce risk to U.S. personnel before large-scale, significant military operations.”

“If you’re trying to minimize risk before significant military operations, this is what you do. But right now they’re voluntary, not ordered,” Stroul continued.

Stroul argued that, in combination with the recent call between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump’s public comments that he’s been frustrated by Iran’s posture in negotiations, “Tehran should take notice.”

Daniel Shapiro, Stroul’s successor in the deputy assistant secretary role, said that the administration “is clearly into some major preparations for possible military action vs Iran (by US and/or Israel).”

“A useful signal ahead of round 6 of nuke talks,” Shapiro continued. “Need to be prepared to back it up.”

Jason Brodsky, the policy director for United Against Nuclear Iran, framed the move as a likely sign of action, noting that congressional testimony by Gen. Erik Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, set for Thursday morning, had been postponed.

“Something is cooking,” Brodsky said.

John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America and former national security advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, told JI he believes that the moves are primarily an “unambiguous signal to the Iranians in advance of the next round of talks that U.S. patience is not unlimited and that time may be running out for them.”

He said the steps will take time to carry out but “they all have the indicia of the classic playbook that the United States would start rolling out in advance of anticipated hostilities. And of course it’s all being undertaken without much stealth and secrecy, but rather in a manner that ensures the Iranians and the rest of the world will know about it.”

He added that it “doesn’t necessarily have to be just one or the other,” and the moves should leave Iran guessing.

“The fact that the immediate purpose of these moves might primarily be a signaling mechanism to influence Iran’s posture in the negotiations doesn’t ipso facto mean it’s all just a bluff — although, if we’re honest, bluffing and then retreating is clearly often an integral part of President Trump’s negotiating MO and the ‘art of the deal,’” Hannah said. “That said, it could also be a deadly serious first step to put Iran on notice that it’s got one last chance to take the deal on offer or face the wrath of a U.S. military strike.” 

“Trump is perfectly capable of going either way and the Iranians shouldn’t sleep too comfortably trying to figure out which one of those possibilities  they’re facing,” he continued. “If they guess wrong, the outcome for them is potentially catastrophic.”

Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, framed the moves more as a negotiating tactic.

“Ahead of round 6, the U.S. is signaling: failure at the table means real consequences,” Dubowitz said on X. “Starting to move non-essential personnel and families —reversible but not trivial. Message to Khamenei: you can end this peacefully, or face serious preparedness if you don’t.”

Kurilla said in response to a question from lawmakers on Tuesday about retaliation from a potential Israeli strike on Iran that the U.S. is continually assessing threats to military personnel in the Middle East and taking steps to address potential vulnerabilities.