The Levant and Persian Gulf are drifting into a dangerous delusion. Syria, Egypt, Jordan, and Kuwait increasingly embrace a fraudulent “non-aligned” posture. This stance claims independence but effectively tilts regional power toward a dangerous alignment: the Muslim Brotherhood pole and the Iranian axis. The threat remains immediate.
Israel’s recent tactical airstrikes on Syria’s Abu al Duhur airbase near the Turkish border exposed a deepening regional rot. Ankara’s complicity loomed large, as Turkish officers inspected the base just hours before the attack. Today, Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman regime actively rebuilds a 200,000-man Syrian army under radical Islamist command. Saudi Arabia’s Aug. 7, 2026, Mecca mutual defense pact with Turkey and Pakistan provides the diplomatic shield for this enterprise. Simultaneously, Oman has locked itself into joint management of the Strait of Hormuz with Tehran, handing Iran operational control over half of the world’s critical energy choke point.
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History warns against trusting artificial neutrality, which usually serves as a convenient conduit for adversarial power. In 1955, Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser accepted a Czech arms deal under the banner of “non-alignment”; within years, Soviet advisers and doctrine completely dominated Egyptian forces. That “neutral” framework ultimately funneled Soviet weaponry into Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.
Today, a naive non-aligned scheme that accommodates the Muslim Brotherhood risks repeating this history, granting political Islam a permanent veto over regional stabilization. Under this guise, Turkey and Qatar supply the radical ideology and networks funding Hamas-style governance and Lebanese terrorism. In tandem, Saudi and Pakistani actions empty Riyadh’s anti-Muslim Brotherhood claims of meaning, while Iran utilizes Oman to regenerate proxies and formalize maritime leverage. Left unchecked, Egypt, Jordan, and Kuwait will become the next compliant transmission belts.
Washington must shatter this non-aligned trap before it hardens. Three uncompromising moves can reverse this trajectory and transform the Abraham Accords into an operational, natural regional alliance.
First, Washington must sever Turkey‘s operational grip on Damascus. U.S. policymakers should condition all Syrian reconstruction aid and sanctions waivers on the permanent expulsion of Turkish military trainers. Concurrently, America must mandate that Emirati, Bahraini, and Moroccan officers deploy to jointly monitor the Syrian Armed Forces, while forcing Damascus to integrate Israeli early-warning data as the nonnegotiable price for any Western-backed military.
Second, the Pentagon must weaponize infrastructure capital through a restricted “Abrahamic Logistics and Early-Warning Central Command.” Financing for dual-use rail, ports, radar networks, and training ranges must flow exclusively to partners who publicly renounce both the Mecca pact and Iran’s Hormuz arrangements. Jordan and Egypt, therefore, should receive priority funding only after signing binding protocols that lock their defense systems into Israeli and Emirati networks. Kuwait faces the same binary choice: join this initiative or forfeit its major non-NATO ally privileges.
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Third, Washington must designate any security forum featuring Turkey, Qatar, Pakistan, or Oman as incompatible with American basing rights. Kuwait, Jordan, and Egypt must decide within 90 days. States aligning with the Abrahamic framework will receive accelerated defense deliveries. Those clinging to wishful thinking will permanently lose access to American weaponry.
By deploying coercive levers, the Trump administration can puncture the comfortable delusions of regional neutrality. Washington must discard the failed diplomatic orthodoxy that indulges double-dealing allies. The White House must force Middle Eastern capitals to realize that American security guarantees are an earned privilege, not an entitlement. America’s policy must present a brutal binary choice: absorb the Abrahamic framework or face strategic isolation. By starving the Muslim Brotherhood of partners and weakening the Iranian “Axis of Resistance,” Washington will effectively neutralize suspected turncoats before their trap is sprung.
Jose Lev Alvarez is an American Israeli scholar specializing in international security policy. A multilingual veteran of the IDF special forces and the U.S. Army, he holds three master’s degrees and is completing a Ph.D. in Intelligence and Global Security in the Washington, D.C., area.
