For Trump to make genuine progress in bringing peace and stability to the region in his second term, though, his administration must first focus on the root cause of much of the unrest blighting the region.

In response to the Muslim Brotherhood's violent ideology, a number of pro-Western Arab regimes, such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, have designated the organisation as a terrorist entity.

The need for the world's major Western democracies to take firm action against the Muslim Brotherhood has become even more urgent following the October 7 attacks, with militant groups inspired by the Brotherhood's ideology said to be responsible for provoking anti-Jewish riots on American university campuses and staging weekly hate marches in many European capitals, such as London.

[Ed] Husain, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is among a number of Middle East experts arguing in favour of the incoming Trump administration designating the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation. He argues that such a move would "force Europe to reconsider the financial, media and mosque networks used by Iran and the Brotherhood in their own countries to project power back into the Middle East."

At the same time Trump should confront the Gulf state of Qatar over its blatant double standards in supporting terror groups such as Hamas, whose leaders have drawn heavily on the Muslim Brotherhood's dogma, while at the same time pretending to be an ally of the West.

[Qatar's state-owned media] described the worst terrorist attack in Israel's history as a "heroic operation," a "miracle" and a "historic turning point" that restored the honour of the Muslim nation, while placing the Palestinian cause back on the world's agenda.

Qatar played a similar role during the Afghan conflict, when its willingness to provide Taliban negotiators with a base in Doha ultimately resulted in the Taliban regaining power in Kabul, re-establishing its uncompromising Islamist rule over the Afghan people.

While the Qataris maintain that their mediation efforts on the Gaza conflict are aimed at ending the bloodshed, their real motive is to ensure that Hamas, the group whose terrorist infrastructure they have helped to finance, survives the conflict, enabling it to maintain its threatening presence on Israel's southern border. This mission of Qatar's is a goal about which President Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, and even President Trump himself, might not be aware.

Given Qatar's overt sympathy for the Hamas cause, at the very least the Trump administration should undertake a serious review of its dealings with Doha, and consider relocating the US military's Al Udeid Air Base from Qatar to a more friendly location in the region, such as the United Arab Emirates.

The Americans told the Chinese: If you want us to do something that you want, first deliver what we want. The Chinese complied and were rewarded.

Applying the Chinese model to normalization with Iran's mullahs will have to start with a long laundry list that Iran has to deal with in domestic and foreign policy fields.

Is "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei ready for a seven-year ordeal in the hope of securing relief at the end? Does he have the clout that Mao had when he agreed to dramatically change course? Will he even last that long?