MANAMA, Bahrain –
At glittering ballrooms in the Mideast this weekend, discussions of the wars and chaos gripping the region gave way to one central question: What’s going to happen when U.S. president-elect Donald Trump takes office next month?
Summits in both Bahrain and Qatar, neighboring Persian Gulf autocracies with a long history of a brothers’ rivalry, saw Trump discussed in open sessions, hushed chatter and pull-aside meetings among politicians, diplomats and uniformed military officers.
The reasons for the conversations are many. Chief among them is the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, with over 44,000 Palestinians killed, and the tenuous ceasefire holding in Lebanon. Israel’s conduct in the wars, sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 250 others taken hostage, enraged the wider Arab world.
President Joe Biden’s …