author | Insight Turkey https://www.insightturkey.com/ author EN authorIn drafting its Middle East policy, the Trump administration appears to depart from the soft power rhetoric of the Obama years, seemingly favoring a more hawkish, hard power approach to dealing with America’s most important interests in the region: the defeat of ISIS and the containment of Iran. While many regional partners hope for a radical U.S. foreign policy shift after years of perceived American disengagement, Trump seems to be constrained by path dependency. He inherits a region in turmoil, a public adverse to regional military engagements for peripheral interests, and a major strategic discrepancy between ambition and capability. Consequently, the new White House will be forced to continue Obama’s policy of delegation and multilateralism.https://www.insightturkey.com/author/andreas-krieg/trump-and-the-middle-east-barking-dogs-seldom-bitehttps://www.insightturkey.com/author/andreas-krieg/trump-and-the-middle-east-barking-dogs-seldom-biteMon, 10 Jul 2017 13:41:00 GMT