This weekend marked the hundredth day of the Trump administration, an arbitrary benchmark that nonetheless provides an opportunity for essential stocktaking.

Overall, the performance is strikingly lacklustre, not just compared to the original “hundred day” political hurricane of Franklin D Roosevelt, but even a more typical predecessor such as Barack Obama.

Arguably Donald Trump’s biggest success thus far is weathering the storm over his campaign’s ties to Russian intelligence. The issue has receded to the back burner, but serious investigations are continuing and further revelations inevitable. The ultimate consequences remain uncertain and potentially dire.

Otherwise, there has been astonishingly little achievement by the “great disrupter”. Mercifully, he has been busy rethinking, and reneging on, a panoply of, mostly ridiculous or awful, campaign promises.

Several recent developments demonstrate the endemic dysfunction.

The president’s second major effort to get a Congress totally dominated by his own party to pass his scandalously immoral bill to gut health care has again crashed and burnt.

Mr Trump had apparently decided to announce the US withdrawal from Nafta at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania this weekend. When confronted with the inevitable consequences, he quickly reversed himself. This is typical of a president who seems to often fail to comprehend the practical implications of his cherished slogans.

The preposterous idea of building a wall along the Mexican border now seems practically dead. And the administration’s so-called budget and, worse, “tax plan” were little more than silly, fanciful and insubstantial press releases.

The administration is finally starting to fill second-tier jobs, but has been greatly hampered by lack of senior personnel. Personal loyalty to Mr Trump is an unusual new threshold that has stymied this process and a good deal of policy-making. The state department is pitifully forlorn and neglected, yet even this White House will discover it needs diplomats.

A surprising bright spot is Middle East policy, centred around rebuilding ties with traditional allies such as the Gulf Arab countries, Egypt and Israel, a greater willingness to project force in the region and determination to confront Iran. This is largely the handiwork of the grown-ups in the administration, led by Mr Trump’s best appointment, secretary of defence James Mattis.

However, attorney general Jeff Sessions is still pressing the last of the most nightmarish tropes of the Trump campaign to remain truly actionable: unashamedly white nationalist immigration policies. With the cooperation of the deeply disappointing homeland security secretary, John Kelly, Mr Sessions is preparing to unleash a dystopian war against undocumented migrants that could historically and permanently scar American society.

This administration even claims law enforcement officers can order the deportation of any undocumented migrant based on the merest suspicion of any crime, with no due process whatsoever. The cruelties and injustices are already beginning to mount.

These xenophobic and chauvinistic attitudes are also reflected in the anti-Muslim “travel ban”, which is thankfully still mired in the courts. The Islamophobic attitudes of some White House officials are directly at odds with those of Mr Mattis, national security adviser HR McMaster, and other sensible foreign policy officials.

Yet clearly this white nationalist camp, centred on Mr Sessions – and not, as some mistakenly think, White House chief strategist Steve Bannon – retains a disturbing degree of influence, even as Mr Trump has been otherwise shedding his populism and pushing a conventional right-wing Republican agenda.

His virtually discarded white working-class base now only stands to get a pointless anti-immigrant rampage, combined with massive cuts in health care and other services plus gigantic tax cuts for the rich and corporations.

Another major concern is administration corruption: a maze of conflicts of interest, self-dealing, nepotism and other real and potential improprieties swirl around a White House centred on a president who is a walking brand, and who has in no meaningful sense distanced himself from his private financial interests. His daughter, Ivanka, among others, is also combining policy work with personal branding and pecuniary interests.

This is American terra incognita. Ultimately, many untested and unsettled laws and regulations regarding unprecedented issues of White House corruption will be resolved and new standards established. With luck, the integrity of the American republic won’t be completely eviscerated.

While the administration’s own ineffectiveness and incompetence have been its biggest obstacles, American institutions have proven bracingly resilient to Mr Trump’s “populism” and authoritarian instincts. The White House and Republican-controlled Congress have no clue how to cooperate, even though they are nominal major allies. And the administrative bureaucracy, other governance institutions, and, above all, courts, have, thus far, provided crucial roadblocks to many of his worst initiatives. Mr Trump thus far barely avoids a failing grade. Charitably, he can only be given a solid D, must improve – though in some ways, perhaps, it’s better if he doesn’t.

Washington is finally noting Donald Trump’s stunning reversals and how little of his maverick candidacy is being reflected in White House policies. Yet one terrifying consistency between his campaign and administration is usually still overlooked: the white-nationalist reconceptualisation of immigration policy under attorney general Jeff Sessions.

Mr Trump’s volte-faces are indeed dramatic, and by no means all bad.

On foreign policy, he is suddenly confronting Russia and embracing China, which he has exonerated of currency manipulation. He charged into a new Middle East military campaign, but against the Bashar Al Assad regime, rather than ISIL, in Syria. Nato is no longer obsolete, it’s indispensable. So is the export-import bank, which shouldn’t be eliminated after all. Even NAFTA, formerly “the worst trade deal ever,” should be tweaked, not scrapped.

On domestic policy, Mr Trump’s proposed budget reflected virtually none of his populist promises to the working class and instead dutifully regurgitated a small-government conservative wishlist. He’s still trying to gut the health care protections he solemnly vowed to preserve. Amid no sign of his promised massive infrastructure programme, major cuts are planned to existing spending.

The federal hiring freeze has been abandoned for “a smarter plan”. Unemployment statistics were completely phoney, but now are suddenly accurate. Meanwhile, the Washington “swamp” not only hasn’t been “drained”, it’s been generously irrigated. And Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellin no longer needs to be “ashamed of herself”. She can probably even stay on, since he suddenly “likes” and “respects” her.

The narrative of Mr Trump’s political bildungsroman suggests the rising influence of relative moderates led by two key advisers: Mr Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Gary Cohn, chairman of the National Economic Council. They are described as having sidelined Steve Bannon, Mr Trump’s chief strategist.

Mr Bannon was recently removed from the principals committee of the National Security Council and dismissed by Mr Trump as just “a guy who works for me”. There is undeniably a correlation between Mr Bannon’s personal eclipse and the evaporation of most of his political priorities.

However, Mr Bannon was never the driving force behind the most disturbing of Mr Trump’s positions. It is Mr Sessions who has been, and remains, at the epicentre of Mr Trump’s most dystopian deviations from traditional American policies, particularly on immigration.

Mr Sessions is leading the charge to hire 20,000 new border security and immigration officers, and unleash them in a nationwide rampage to jail and deport as many undocumented migrants as possible. All the undocumented will now be treated as dangerous desperados, and anyone who brings such migrants, even their own children, into the US will face serious criminal charges.

Mr Sessions has ordered federal prosecutors to prioritise deporting harmless and productive undocumented migrants.

Across the country, the authorities are cracking down on Mr Trump’s “bad hombres”, such as Maribel Trujillo-Diaz, an otherwise blameless woman who has lived for 15 years without documentation. She now languishes in jail awaiting deportation and separation from her four US-citizen children.

Like its companion programme, the infamous “travel ban”, which would bar entry to most refugees and citizens of six Muslim-majority countries but remains stalled in the courts, the malevolent Sessions approach to immigration can only be understood from a white-nationalist perspective.

These manifestly half-baked rationalisations – “law and order,” and counterterrorism, respectively – for throwing people out of the country or keeping them from coming in, are unconvincing disguises for the obvious real reason: their identity. And that only makes sense in this ethnic-nationalist context.

When Mr Bannon interviewed Mr Trump on his radio programme, they agreed immigration was, generally, bad. But Mr Trump suggested corporate chief executives of Indian origin should be considered exceptions. Mr Bannon objected, insisting: “A country is more than an economy. We are a civil society.” Apparently, that’s a new politically-correct right-wing euphemism for racism.

When Mr Bannon interviewed Mr Sessions, there was no such dispute. Indeed, Mr Sessions enthusiastically praised an infamous 1924 racist immigration law intended to end “indiscriminate acceptance of all races” into the US.

This white-nationalist perspective renders many otherwise incomprehensible prescriptions suddenly legible. Various absurdities, including the inexcusable persecution of innocent people, are rendered irrelevant, since the exclusion of any non-white individual, under whatever pretext, is one less blow to American “civil society.” Yes, they actually think this way.

Mr Bannon may be marginalised. And, on most counts, Mr Trump is becoming a garden-variety conservative, stripped of his populist patina.

But where Mr Sessions dominates, especially on immigration, the Trump campaign’s white-nationalism thrives, and is now poised to destroy countless innocent lives and seriously damage American society.

The budding efforts between the Gulf Arab states and Iran to develop a process of détente and ease tensions are, in equal measure, important, welcome, and fragile. Their rivalry, which has waxed and waned over recent decades, has served the interests of neither side well. The international community also has a clear stake in the development of a more stable and secure regional order in the Gulf. In addition to recognizing the rare moment of opportunity that seems to be developing, and trying to build on it, the immediate task is to conceptualize a roadmap for what Iranian-Gulf Cooperation Council reconciliation would require and might look like. Such a framework is needed to help guide and measure this process, and while the burden to develop it rests with the parties themselves, it is not too soon for others to help think through the outlines of such an initiative. One of the key features of an effective approach could be a sequential nature, in which successfully dealing with one issue leads logically to the next, until the most damaging regional problems are dealt with and the basis for greater stability is restored.

How Tensions Grew

Beginning with some unintended consequences of the U.S. response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks – most notably the ouster of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq – the perception of the Gulf Arab states and many others has been that most of the major political developments in the region have slowly but surely strengthened the Iranian hand. Gulf anxieties were further intensified during President Barack Obama’s second term when, through both word and deed, an impression was created that Washington was no longer a reliable ally. Obama’s comments critical of these countries as “free riders” who need to “share” the Middle East with Iran, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal, as well as the reversal of Obama’s chemical weapons “red line” in Syria and his refusal to get involved significantly in the Syrian conflict all exacerbated a sense of profound vulnerability in the Gulf Arab countries.

Tensions between Iran and the GCC states reached a nadir in January 2016, when Iranian mobs sacked Saudi diplomatic missions in response to the execution of secessionist Saudi Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr. The Arab League then designated Hizballah a terrorist group, and GCC countries illegalized support for it. For its part, Iran ramped up its intervention – along with Hizballah and Russia – in Syria, turning the tide of the conflict in favor of the regime, and reportedly became more active in Yemen and Bahrain.

Why the Potential Thaw Now?

In recent months, however, there have been numerous signs, on both sides, that a thaw might be in the offing. First came the November 30, 2016, OPEC agreement to cut oil production in an effort to bolster sagging energy prices. This was the first indication in many months that the parties saw beyond a zero-sum framework and could identify an area of mutual benefit. As so often happens, commerce became the icebreaker between feuding rivals who saw the irresistible logic of a financial win-win.

Since then, multiple hopeful signs have emerged. In January, Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sabah Khaled al-Sabah delivered a message to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on behalf of the entire GCC essentially offering a framework for a constructive dialogue. This was in response to Iran having sent an official letter along the same lines to the GCC in early 2016.

The Gulf Arab message to Tehran listed three essential principles that would have to undergird any substantive dialogue and ensure that it would not be a pro forma exercise. The first GCC principle demands respect by all countries for the sovereignty of their neighbors and a strict policy of noninterference in each other’s internal affairs. The second holds that Iran’s revolution was strictly a national event, and is not for “export” to any other country. The third demands recognition that the Shia communities in the Gulf Arab countries are to be viewed strictly as citizens of those countries and not part of any larger group that Iran, or any other power, can claim to represent.

At the meeting, Rouhani reportedly accepted the principle that the Iranian Revolution was indeed a national phenomenon, and not for export. During a reciprocal visit to Kuwait and Oman, he delivered a letter of his own that communicated Iran’s openness to dialogue, urged progress, and seemed to confirm the first and third of the GCC principles for dialogue. Among other recent Iranian rhetorical overtures, Rouhani tweeted in Arabic in February apparently addressing the prospects of repairing relations by saying that “Opportunity passes like a cloud. Therefore, make good use of good opportunities.”

Perhaps more importantly, Iran and Saudi Arabia have recently agreed on a formula for Iranian pilgrims to take part in the annual hajj this year, after negotiations ended in mutual recriminations in 2016. Since the 1920s, shortly following the establishment of the modern Saudi state, hajj issues have been a consistent source of tension between Tehran and Riyadh, and resolving them is a key to improved relations between the parties. This pattern regarding the influence of hajj-related issues on Saudi-Iranian relations was repeated several times during the 20th century and may be playing out again now.

Among the key bases for GCC-Iran dialogue are emerging shifts in the strategic landscape that incentivize both sides to seriously consider meaningful compromise, if not a full-blown rapprochement. The new administration of U.S. President Donald J. Trump has greatly strengthened the Arab hand and put additional pressure on Tehran. Washington has made its commitment to rebuilding relations with its traditional Sunni Arab partners, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt, as clear as its intention to toughen its approach toward Iran. This new U.S. attitude is already being put into practice in regional conflicts in Syria and Yemen and, given the unrivaled military potency of the United States, has quickly produced a significant alteration to the Middle Eastern balance of power and strategic equation.

The U.S. missile strike against the Syrian regime’s Al Shayrat air base on April 6 has been the most dramatic iteration of this new approach by Washington to the Middle East and the significant new challenges it poses to Iran’s interests and allies. The U.S. missile strike came in response to the Assad regime’s April 4 chemical weapons attack on rebel-held areas of northern Syria. By responding with force to the Syrian regime’s renewed use of sarin, the Trump administration sent a series of signals to friend and foe alike in the Middle East, demonstrating that it is ready to use U.S. firepower in the region quickly, without the caution characteristic of the Obama administration.

This military response strongly suggests that the Trump administration is developing a policy toward Syria that emphasizes differences between President Bashar al-Assad and Iran, as well as Russia, rather than areas of potential agreement, such as the battle against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. These missile strikes have set Washington on a path that could easily lead to greater U.S. engagement in Syria, and if so almost certainly to the advantage of Gulf, rather than Iranian, interests.

An increasing level of U.S. involvement in Yemen also is noteworthy. U.S. airstrikes in Yemen in March alone exceeded the total for any previous year on record, and while they targeted Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, there are also reports that the United States is considering support for an anticipated joint Saudi-UAE effort to unseat the Houthi rebels and their allies from the strategic Red Sea port of Hodeidah. While no determination has been made, the serious consideration of an increased U.S. role in the Saudi-led war against the Iranian-backed Houthis is itself a sign of the evolution of U.S. policy in a manner that plainly strengthens the Gulf Arab position. The head of CENTCOM, Gen. Joseph Votel, told Congress on March 29 that in Yemen “there are vital U.S. interests at stake.” This is the first such statement from a senior U.S. official regarding the Yemen campaign, and one that could provide the policy basis for heightened U.S. engagement in many aspects of that conflict.

The State Department has reportedly decided to lift holds on about $400 million in precision-guided munitions for Saudi Arabia to replenish those that have been expended in the Yemen conflict, and on $5 billion worth of F-16 fighter jets being sold to Bahrain. Washington has also essentially endorsed Manama’s recent reports that it has uncovered massive stockpiles of weapons and munitions in Bahrain that both the United States and Gulf Arab countries say are of Iranian origin.

The GCC countries have also been seeking to push back somewhat against Iran’s strategic and political gains in Iraq, through recent Saudi outreach to the government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, and his receptivity to it. For both Riyadh and Abadi, this is intended to help stave off a serious political challenge from former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who is perceived as unacceptably sectarian and beholden to Iran. It’s also an effort by Riyadh and its allies to develop the political space that can allow them to exercise influence in Iraq once Mosul is liberated from ISIL control. If Abadi can fend off Maliki’s challenge, which is mainly focused on the parliamentary elections in 2018, Riyadh and its GCC allies will have influence not only with Iraqi Sunni factions, but also with a renewed Abadi government and its partners. Iraq could thereby move further away from Tehran’s orbit than it has in many years.

Therefore, Iran’s strategic regional upper hand, which seemed unassailable a few months ago, is not as clear cut as it once appeared. Iran has certainly made a great deal of progress in its foreign policy agenda in recent years. Yet the evident change in U.S. attitudes and behavior toward a range of Middle Eastern issues and other recent developments strengthened the Arab position. So, at this point, both Iran and the GCC states can clearly see the benefits of exploring the prospects for at least some repair to relations, possibly leading to a broader reconciliation.

A Sequential Framework for Progress

If a strategic dialogue were to begin in earnest, it would be vital for both sides to move forward with a clear framework for what would be required to rebuild a basic level of cooperation. To deal with the underlying causes of tension and instability, it would probably be necessary for the parties to tackle a series of disputed issues in a sequential manner, each leading logically to the next. When composed in such a manner, a framework for progress builds upon itself, demonstrating the mutual gains, building confidence, and laying the groundwork for the next constructive step, as well as reducing the chances of additional irritants and sources of tension.

Yemen

First, the conflict in Yemen provides Tehran with an opportunity to demonstrate it is serious about reducing points of friction with its Gulf Arab neighbors. While Iran’s support for the insurgent Houthi militia is not in question, its influence over the rebels is far less decisive than that exercised by former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. In fact, Iran’s overall investment in the Yemen war seems quite modest. For both these reasons, and in view of the urgent humanitarian need to end the conflict in Yemen, Iran could publicly call for all parties to the conflict to take immediate steps to make the compromises needed for the resumption of negotiations. In doing so, it loses almost nothing: the Houthis will do what they determine is in their interest, as will the Saudis and Emiratis, but the Iranians can don the mantle of peacemaker, and perhaps even create momentum for an end to the war.

Such an outcome will be needed to fully contain and reverse the growth of extremist groups such as AQAP and ISIL in the context of the ongoing war, which would be in everyone’s interests. Both sides and their allies will have their share of heavy lifting in order to develop serious peace talks leading to a political settlement in Yemen, but it will be very hard to move forward regionally as long as the conflict there continues.

Gulf Maritime Security and Free Passage

Second, there needs to be a mutual commitment to ensuring that the waters of the Gulf itself remain secure and open to unimpeded free passage for international shipping. Threats to interfere with unencumbered access to international maritime commerce and transport, particularly against strategically crucial choke points, must stop. Iranian officials have repeatedly threatened to “close” the vital Strait of Hormuz – through which an estimated one-third of all sea-traded oil must pass – to the United States and its allies, most recently in May 2016.

Both parties will strongly benefit from such a commitment and practical efforts to ensure cooperation to ensure this access and openness. Again, both sides have much to gain from this endeavor, which would function as a strategic equivalent of the win-win OPEC deal. It could also promote a sense of partnership and shared responsibility for ensuring the order and stability in the region that both sides need and insist they want. At best, it could begin the development of a virtuous circle of self-reinforcing and mutually-beneficial cooperation.

Syria and Iraq

Third, both sides can and should agree on the political independence, territorial integrity, and need for stability in both Syria and Iraq. These two regional battlegrounds are in many ways very different, but they share certain key features that could allow them to be addressed as a single item within this broader sequential framework. Although Iran and the Gulf states – even with the engagement of Turkey and other countries – cannot resolve the wars in Syria and Iraq, it is also true that little progress can be made in either country unless there is a regional understanding that ending these conflicts is an urgent necessity and that their continuation is costlier than the compromises needed to resolve them.

If the conflict in Yemen has the potential to become a quagmire for Saudi Arabia, the even more brutal and bloodier conflict in Syria could hold similar risk for Iran and Hizballah. Most reliable estimates suggest that the Assad regime has approximately 20,000 trustworthy ground troops, and relies on some 150,000 fighters from Iran, Hizballah, and Iraqi Shia militias to enable its survival. The commitment is, therefore, seemingly open ended. There is no indication that domestic political support for the Assad regime is increasing because the Iran-led intervention has prevented the victory of the rebels. To the contrary, there is every indication that the war will continue, and virtually no credible observer believes that the regime and its allies will be able to regain control over large areas of the country currently in the hands of one opposition group or another.

Moreover, as the mainstream rebels have suffered grievous setbacks such as the fall of Aleppo at the end of 2016, al-Qaeda-affiliated groups have grown in stature and influence among the opposition. The rise of Salafist-jihadist groups in Syria, including ISIL, is plainly a threat to Iran on its own doorstep. The enormous scope of Iran’s project of propping up the dysfunctional and fragmented Syrian state, albeit with Russian support, and the costs it entails for Tehran, are just starting to emerge.

While Tehran and Moscow have agreed on the need to prevent the collapse of the Assad regime, their perspectives and priorities in, and regarding, Syria are otherwise strikingly divergent. In the aftermath of the regime’s reconquest of Aleppo, it is Russia, not Iran, that appears to be largely shaping the strategic approach of the pro-Assad coalition. Iran has secured its interests, but does not appear to have increased its influence, in Syria. All of this means that Tehran will have every reason to be receptive to a potential understanding on Syria that can extricate it from a growing quagmire of its own from which, as some influential Iranians have pointed out, it has, “no exit strategy.” Criticism of how overstreched the country has become, especially in Syria, has been quietly growing over the past year and a half in Iran despite the limitations on open debate.

The Gulf Arab countries have at least as much, if not more, of an incentive to encourage a political resolution to the Syrian conflict. The rebel groups backed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, in conjunction with Turkey, have suffered a string of serious military setbacks at the hands of pro-regime forces, culminating in the loss of rebel-held areas of Aleppo and other vital strategic territory. As a consequence, these groups have lost influence in opposition circles, largely to the expanding reach of al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria. Their strategic alliance with Turkey is, at best, on hold while Ankara deals with its domestic political upheavals and concentrates on the evolving Kurdish role in northern Syria. The ability of GCC countries to influence events in Syria has, therefore, steadily diminished since the joint Russian-Iranian surge on behalf of the regime that began in fall 2015. While the war in Syria seems set to continue indefinitely, until a political solution can be found, this may only allow the Gulf Arab countries to play the role of spoiler rather than help to arrange a satisfactory outcome. An understanding with Iran over Syria, and presumably with Russia as well, is, under current circumstances, the only obvious way in which the Gulf Arab countries can achieve their essential aims in Syria.

An Iranian-Gulf Arab understanding on Syria would be extremely difficult to achieve, because both sides regard their interests in the conflict as virtually existential. The details would be even more difficult to tease out. However, since a negotiated framework for the future is the only plausible way of ending the Syrian conflict, both Iran and the Gulf Arab countries have a strong interest in achieving such an understanding. Beginning to restore the independence, integration, and territorial integrity of Syria, even if this occurs within the framework of either a de facto or de jure loose federation can only be done with the support of outside players such as Iran, Turkey, Russia, and the Gulf Arab states. The interests of these parties in a functional cease-fire has been demonstrated since the peace talks on Syria began in Kazakhstan in January. Although the Gulf Arab countries were not present, they tacitly encouraged Turkey’s role as de facto representative of regional Sunni Muslim concerns. If such a cease-fire can be made to hold for several months, the building blocks of a longer-term arrangement in Syria that moves the country beyond open-ended warfare, and the incubation of global headquarters for major international terrorist movements in its war-ravaged provinces, may begin to emerge.

An analogous process can be imagined in Iraq, the significant differences between the two situations notwithstanding. As noted, both Iran and the Gulf Arab countries have reasonable relations the with Abadi government. Because Iraq is an Arab, as well as a Shia-majority, country Baghdad has a strong interest in being an integral part of the Arab world as well as a friend and partner to Iran. Both Iran and the Gulf Arab countries have a strong stake in wiping out ISIL’s presence in Iraq as well as Syria, and both can surely live with an Iraqi approach that leaves Baghdad maintaining strong ties to both Iran and its fellow Arab League members.

Significant give and take on both sides would be required, especially in Syria, but also in Iraq. The underlying political realities involving the balance of coercive power in these countries, their present fragmentation, and the legitimate interests of various communities and constituencies, would somehow have to be accommodated. The difficulties in achieving even a modicum of stability in both these countries, particularly Syria, can’t be underestimated. But neither can the interests that both Iran and the Gulf Arab countries, not to mention the Iraqi and Syrian people in general, would have in securing such arrangements. And, as in Yemen, it would be a matter of Iranian and Gulf Arab pressure and inducements on their respective allies and clients in these countries to present and accept reasonable proposals to end devastating conflicts. But without such influence, armed struggle is virtually guaranteed to continue, at everyone’s peril.

Hizballah

Fourth, it’s essential that Hizballah return to its focus on serving its constituency in Lebanon and stop acting, in effect, as an international revolutionary vanguard supporting a range of militias, terrorist groups, and other nonstate actors throughout the region. The extent to which Hizballah is imposing its will in many strategically and politically crucial areas of Syria is not widely understood outside of the Levant. The organization has even emerged as a key power-behind-the-throne in Damascus, wielding a growing influence over decision making and even the appointment of personnel within the regime’s military and intelligence forces and other parts of the government.

The organization even held a military parade in the strategically vital Syrian city Qusayr, which was the site of one of its earliest and most important battles. The Wall Street Journal quoted an unidentified former State Department official as noting, “To host a military parade commending yourselves in another country is as bold as you can get.” According to Hanin Ghaddar, their experiences in Syria have created tension and resentment between Hezbollah fighters and their Iranian masters. The war has also raised new questions within Lebanon’s Shia community about Hizballah’s raison d’etre and the goals of its military actions, such that “People now ask why we are dying for the Syrians.” Despite all of this, Iran’s influence over Hizballah remains vast, and probably decisive.

If Hizballah and its patrons in Tehran chafe at the Arab League designation of the organization as a terrorist group, and GCC prohibitions on support for it, the only way out is for the organization to mend its ways, return to first principles, and attend to reasonable functions in its own country. Returning Hizballah’s focus to caring for and representing its constituency in Lebanon, and forgoing its regional role, would help to secure the organization’s legitimacy and future, which otherwise are highly questionable, and would signal Iran’s willingness to play, along with its regional allies, a far more constructive, and less destabilizing, role in the Middle East.

This proposed four-point agenda for Iran-Gulf Arab reconciliation is, admittedly, ambitious, imaginative, and speculative. It certainly could be that Iran, and indeed perhaps the Gulf Arab countries, would envisage a very different agenda for progress. But it’s not enough to urge the parties to try to repair their differences and create a more stable regional order to replace the current ongoing volatility. It’s important to try, for what it is worth, to help everyone think through what a better approach might actually look like in practice.

After a virtually unbroken string of blunders since his inauguration, Donald Trump finally got a major policy decision right. Early on Friday, he launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Al Shayrat airbase in central Syria, in response to Bashar Al Assad’s latest chemical weapons atrocity in which at least 80 people were murdered by sarin gas.

Washington’s action was more than justified. And while the Trump administration insists it reflects a fundamental break with Barack Obama’s Syria policies, American strategy is, in fact, poised on a knife’s edge and could go either way.

The path of least political resistance would be an open-ended continuation of Mr Obama’s counterproductive hands-off approach. Mr Trump had been following precisely that course, but his missile strike should signal a new way forward.

A direct line runs between Mr Obama’s refusal to enforce his own “red line” that forbade the Assad regime from using chemical weapons and Mr Trump’s inadvertent setting of the stage for Mr Al Assad’s latest war crime. In 2013, Mr Al Assad crossed the red line by killing 1,400 people with sarin. Mr Obama then bizarrely rewarded him with an agreement to eliminate his chemical weapons.

Washington thereby effectively abandoned the policy that Mr Al Assad must be deposed. The agreement instead revitalised his diplomatic and political legitimacy, and was predicated on his ongoing control over much of Syria. It acknowledged Mr Al Assad’s authority both in the abstract – as a binding agreement between sovereign governments – and in practice to fulfil its terms.

The Syrian war thereby effectively ended for Washington, with rejection of Mr Al Assad’s continued rule giving way to tacit acceptance of his control of the government into the foreseeable future.

The Obama administration never openly or honestly acknowledged that Washington had abandoned its earlier commitment to ending this exceptionally vicious regime. But Mr Trump eventually did, taking the logic of their shared policies to its inevitable conclusion.

Last week, US secretary of state Rex Tillerson and UN ambassador Nikki Haley bluntly confirmed Washington was no longer seeking the removal of Mr Al Assad, who promptly consecrated this major diplomatic victory by murdering yet more Syrians with the very sarin he supposedly fully relinquished.

It was breathtakingly reckless and virtually forced Mr Trump’s hand. Mr Al Assad’s war crime starkly reminded Washington – and the world – of who it was recognising as Syria’s legitimate leader. Mr Trump is notoriously thin-skinned and Mr Al Assad’s personal affront to him – essentially rubbing his face in his own mess – proved foolhardy.

In addition to responding to Mr Al Assad’s obvious testing of a new administration, Washington also could not overlook his blatant use of sarin, a completely prohibited chemical weapon. The world has been discounting Mr Al Assad’s use of chlorine, a dual use chemical with many legitimate applications. It’s morally incoherent, but chlorine gas simply isn’t as anathema to the international community as sarin gas. Moreover, Mr Al Assad was, in effect, boasting about having deceived Washington about eliminating his sarin stockpiles.

These provocations were so egregious that even Mr Obama would probably have felt compelled to act. Now it’s essential that this belated military operation doesn’t prove a meaningless one-time gesture.

The strike was essentially symbolic, and on the more modest end of US military options. Not merely one, but all six, of the regime’s military airbases could have been hit, and without the warning that Washington provided to Moscow, and hence to Damascus as well. Still, Washington has clarified that it will not tolerate any further sarin attacks.

Now Mr Trump may be tempted to revert to the supposedly safe, risk-averse Syria policy he had been sharing with Mr Obama until this week. But this “safe” approach did nothing to contain the conflict or meaningfully attenuate its dire consequences for Syrians and the world.

To the contrary, it helped the Assad regime and Al Qaeda-linked fanatics – the two sides of the sectarian war coin – to thrive in the vacuum. And ISIL remains a persistent menace to all.

In its own interests, and like it or not, Washington will ultimately have to play a significant role in ending the Syrian conflict.

This means working to help modify the balance of power on the ground to encourage major players to compromise, and using both carrots and sticks to revise their incentive structures.

Russia is plainly experiencing significant international pressure to distance itself from Mr Al Assad. Such leverage should be fully developed. Creating safe zones in Syria is another possible approach.

Despite routine and facile assertions that Washington lacks any realistic options in Syria, in fact it does have the requisite resources and can exploit, or even create, a range of opportunities.

Mr Trump has acknowledged that American “vital national security interests” are indeed at stake in Syria. The missile strike was a good start to moving past Mr Obama’s self-defeating Syria policies. Now, the heavy lifting must commenc

The honeymoon between the Trump administration and the Gulf Arab countries is a welcome respite after years of mutual doubts and recriminations. However, it’s important to keep things in perspective. Unfortunate and avoidable disappointment can follow on quickly, once the glow of initial infatuation wears off.

There have been many signs of this improvement. The Gulf countries expected as much from the likes of secretary of defence James Mattis, secretary of state Rex Tillerson and national security adviser HR McMaster. Yet, thus far, things seem to be going even better than many had hoped.

New levels of cooperation are particularly striking in Yemen. In March, the Trump administration launched more than 49 military strikes across that country, most of them over five days. That alone is more US attacks than in any full year in total. The US government is also seriously considering expanding the range of authorised military targets and applying new rules of engagement that allow for greater levels of anticipated civilian losses in several parts of Yemen.

On March 27, The Wall Street Journal reported: “In coming weeks, the US-UAE partnership [in Yemen] is likely to grow deeper as the US pledges more support and as defence officials learn more about how to target militants with AQAP (Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula).”

Indeed, the controversial raid on an AQAP compound on January 28, in which several civilians and an American Navy SEAL were killed, was carried out by a combined unit of US and UAE special forces. This kind of joint operation appears to come much more naturally now.

Mr Mattis has also requested White House approval for American support for a planned Saudi-led operation to push the Houthi rebels and their allies out of the strategic port of Hodeida, among other potential areas of cooperation.

And on March 29, the head of Centcom, Gen Joseph Votel told Congress that “there are vital US interests at stake” in Yemen — an unprecedented statement of US commitment to the effort there.

Moreover, the state department has signalled its intention to release almost $400 million (Dh1.5tn) worth of precision guided munitions to Saudi Arabia and an additional batch of F-16 fighters to Bahrain, overriding domestic American political objections.

But beyond these outward signs of greater cooperation is the bubbly mood prevalent on both sides since the meeting between president Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia’s deputy crown prince Mohammed bin Salman in an unseasonably snowy Washington on March 14.

The meeting had been scheduled to be relatively brief, but between a weather-related delay of the arrival of German chancellor Angela Merkel and a general and growing warm feeling between the parties, it was extended into a much longer and more formal affair.

According to the official readouts, Saudi Arabia discussed $200 billion in direct and indirect investments in the United States, perhaps adding 1-2 million American jobs, and other mutual commitments.

Much more striking, and amazingly sustained, are the universally glowing, even ebullient, accounts of the state of the relationship in the aftermath of the meeting. Privately, officials on both sides speak of “a new era” in bilateral relations; a “restoration” and beyond, to previous levels of trust and harmony; and of being “on the same page” on a wide range of issues.

Some of this total agreement seems implausible, for example on Yemen. There is no question that the new administration is more sympathetic to the Saudi and Gulf perspective on Yemen than its predecessor, which wasn’t hostile. But it’s also hard to imagine that there are suddenly no meaningful differences in perspectives either.

It’s no doubt welcome that previous reticence to fulfil weapons contracts is being dropped, but that doesn’t mean Washington’s previous concerns are completely or forever banished. They can re-emerge at any moment, especially in Congress.

And it’s good to see closer cooperation on matters related to Iran. But unless there’s been a shift in thinking on one, or both, of these sides, regarding Syria, then it’s just not true that Washington and its Gulf Arab partners don’t have significant differences regarding some of the most far-reaching practical manifestations of Tehran’s regional agenda.

Given that I spent a good deal of 2016 arguing to Gulf Arab audiences that their sense of “abandonment” by Washington was exaggerated, I’m obviously gratified and relieved by this overdue and fully justified restoration of trust.

But just as I warned then that things weren’t really that bad, I need to warn now that they may not be all that great. Much better, to be sure. And that is to be enthusiastically applauded and seriously encouraged.

But, because the pendulum always swings in both directions, irrational exuberance can be as ill-advised as groundless despair. Every moment of intoxication carries with it an inbuilt hangover. Moderation in all things is therefore recommended.