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Free community college. Medicare expansion. A wealth tax.

Democrats tore a litany of progressive priorities out of their signature domestic policy bill, but the House left’s leader is still declaring a win.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, described the $1.7 trillion social policy bill as just about the best-case scenario, a notable acknowledgment of the microscopic Democratic majorities that have bedeviled liberals all year long. And neither Jayapal nor her members are seriously talking about tanking the Senate’s version of the bill when it comes back to the House for a final green light — if it can get past the further cuts and delays that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) appears likely to exact.

“What we’re trying to do is make sure it stays as good as possible. We are now counting on the Senate to make sure to preserve it,” Jayapal said in an interview this week.

To be sure, there’s plenty for progressives to like in their party’s bill to expand the social safety net, from universal pre-K to more than $500 billion for climate change. But Jayapal and many in her caucus have spent months fuming as the centrist Manchin threatens to wield a one-man veto pen over their ambitions and push the bill into next year.

And that leaves liberals with the tough task of convincing their restive base that it is, in fact, a victory as attention turns to the midterms.

The sales job is only going to get harder: policies such as paid family leave, immigration, drug price negotiation and subsidized childcare are in jeopardy — facing Manchin’s opposition and the labyrinthine budget rules of the upper chamber. Several senior progressives acknowledged that it would be difficult to communicate liberals’ now-cooperative approach to a broad swath of their voters, who are increasingly restless about inaction in Congress.

“There are a lot of bills that are languishing on the Senate majority leader’s desk because of the filibuster. That’s a very hard thing to explain to people,” said Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.). “All they know is we have controlling majorities in all those places, and we ought to be able to deliver, and they’re right.”

Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), a retiring liberal who’s spent 14 years in the House, chalked up some of the left’s more hardline approach this year to the fact that the House’s newest generation of liberals hadn’t governed in a majority before.

“They were posturing,” Yarmuth said, “but also thinking, ‘maybe I can get 100 percent of what I want.’ Around here if you get 70 percent of what you want, that’s a major victory. I think some of them learned along the way that that’s real life. I think Pramila sure did. But ultimately, she handled it really well and was very effective.”

Indeed, progressives say they’re putting the bill in perspective — as a once-in-a-generation safety net expansion that they fought tooth and nail for, one that still includes some major goals, despite the party’s thin margins. And they say that’ll be the case even if a final agreement leaves out issues such as immigration reform, which the Senate’s parliamentarian has repeatedly rejected under the chamber’s budget rules, or paid leave, a policy that Manchin has said doesn’t belong in the party-line bill.

Yarmuth, the House budget chair, acknowledged his party’s “potential problem”: “We’re not great messengers. But the idea that on the day after the election last year, that we could have done what we’ve done … it’s a miracle,” he said.

Now that the House has passed its version of President Joe Biden’s $1.7 trillion bill, Jayapal wants to focus on what made it in, not what’s out.

“There are always people who are like, ‘you need to do more,’ and it’s true. We do,” Jayapal said. To those who ask why they can’t get more done, given Democrats’ full control of Congress, she replied: “Of course, the answer is, we don’t have enough control.”

But before the House passed its bill, the Washington Democrat took a far different tack, steering her roughly 100-member group through its first real standoff with party leaders over the fate of Biden’s two domestic priorities.

After spending the year consolidating power in her caucus and turning it into a formidable voting bloc, Jayapal and her allies deployed an aggressive strategy that at times alienated her and her members from Democratic party leaders. Progressives singlehandedly — and repeatedly — delayed a vote on an infrastructure bill that some Democrats blamed for confidence-rattling November losses in Virginia, even if some liberals believed it forced senators to take their position seriously.

That progressive House Democrats are not threatening to tank the Senate’s version of the social spending megabill suggests they recognize the limits of their leverage in a divided Congress. The House will need to give final approval before it heads to Biden’s desk, but liberals say they’ve already pushed as far as they can go.

They say it’s now up to Biden to meet his end of the bargain by getting 50 votes in the Senate: “It’s on him to get the job done and make clear that House members’ trust in him wasn’t misplaced,” one senior House aide said, speaking candidly on condition of anonymity.

After a season of intra-party flexes by her bloc, Jayapal also didn’t rule out the possibility of running for leadership in a future Congress.

“I’m always going to be open to whatever is going to help us deliver on the boldest, most transformational agenda, and whatever role that is, and so we’ll see,” Jayapal said, adding she is focused on the progressive caucus’ current work for now.

Jayapal and her liberal allies maintain that, even if more of their policy goals are stripped from the final legislation, they secured procedural wins along the way — such as hitching the social spending legislation to the infrastructure bill for most of the year. The left also advocated for a “trim-everything” strategy that involved more programs, but with shorter timelines, which Biden ultimately adopted.

Those tactics were worth the messy internal battles, as Jayapal sees it, if they help liberals preserve key pieces of the bill.

Other Democrats, however, insist party leaders would have never abandoned Biden’s broader social policy bill, even if the president did sign the bipartisan infrastructure bill earlier. And some progressives — such as the half-dozen who voted against the infrastructure bill just before Thanksgiving — don’t believe their caucus should have let the bills get decoupled soon as they were.

Yet perhaps most significantly for Jayapal’s caucus, activists who had forcefully pushed for more ambitious legislation are coming to recognize the limits of progressives’ power, now that the Senate holds the final say.

“Progressives can only control a slice of what happens in the entirety of the landscape of the federal government,” said Indivisible National Advocacy Director Mary Small.

Senior liberal Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) summed it up: “You got to know when to hold and know when to fold.”

Several of the half-dozen Democrats who voted against the infrastructure bill in November seem to share that sentiment, signaling this week they were likely to support the final version of the safety net legislation, if their other option is nothing.

“I don’t really see a world in which I vote against Build Back Better, because we need those investments,” said Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.).

And Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) reserved the right to make a final assessment, but underscored that there was “no scenario where I would vote against a transformative piece of legislation.”

As Donald Trump and his allies squeezed then-Vice President Mike Pence to single-handedly stop Joe Biden’s presidency in the weeks ahead of Jan. 6, they used one particular tool that’s been largely ignored ever since.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) sued Pence on Dec. 27, just as Trump was ratcheting up his pressure campaign against his vice president. Backed by a squad of lawyers associated with Trump ally and conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell, Gohmert argued Pence should assert unilateral control over certification, governed only by the vague wording of the Twelfth Amendment.

Gohmert’s move forced Pence to publicly resist Trump’s subversion of the election, only a week before the fateful Jan. 6 joint session of Congress. When the Justice Department stepped in to defend Pence from the lawsuit on Dec. 29, it marked the first time Pence signaled he wouldn’t fold to Trump’s demands.

Pence allies have long believed that Trump played a role in Gohmert’s legal strategy, and they’ve indicated that Trump was frustrated that the Justice Department intervened to defend his vice president against Gohmert’s suit. But what remains unknown is just how involved Trump was in Gohmert’s legal strategy. A spokesperson for the former president did not respond to a request for comment.

And while it’s unclear whether the Jan. 6 select panel is probing the genesis of Gohmert’s suit — which was quickly rejected by federal district and appellate courts in Texas — one committee member described it as an important episode in the runup to the violence at the Capitol.

“It’s a significant detail in that it was part of a plan to isolate and coerce Pence,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.).

A litany of new details about Trump’s pressure campaign against Pence have emerged in recent weeks. Those include memos from Trump attorneys John Eastman and Jenna Ellis that lay out fringe legal rationales for halting certification, as well as proof of further public and private force exerted by Trump himself. Gohmert’s suit is rarely mentioned in the publicly available pre-Jan. 6 timetable.

Gohmert’s goal, outlined in the suit, was to force Pence to ignore the 130-year-old law that governs the final certification of presidential elections and instead wield total authority over the proceedings. Pence ultimately decided that he lacked this power and his role was almost entirely ceremonial. He revealed his final decision on Jan. 6, shortly before a pro-Trump mob ransacked the Capitol amid chants that he was a “traitor” and should be hanged.

As for why Gohmert led the suit, Powell has publicly indicated that one reason was because Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has jurisdiction over his home state of Texas. Alito, Powell argued, might have bought more time for pro-Trump forces to reverse the results by blocking Pence from certifying Biden’s victory. (There’s no evidence Alito was considering this).

The Capitol riot worked in Powell’s favor but also against it, in her stated view: It delayed a last-ditch Jan. 6 attempt to seek Supreme Court consideration of Gohmert’s suit but also provided more time for Alito to weigh the suit that afternoon. The decision by Pence and congressional leaders to keep certifying votes after the riot dealt a mortal blow to Gohmert’s legal fight, Powell said.

“Had [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi not rushed, the outcome of the case could have been different, and the President as well,” Powell wrote on her website in September.

Powell did not respond to requests for comment for this story but told POLITICO in September that she “was not speaking with the President in that time frame” around Gohmert’s suit. She did, however, famously meet with Trump in the Oval Office on Dec. 18 along with Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn and other advisers working to help Trump stay in power.

Gohmert, who is now running for Texas attorney general, has said little about his lawsuit. His office declined multiple requests for comment.

The Texan made headlines at the time, though, after the district court rejected his court challenge. He said the effect of the court decision would leave street violence as the only option to contest the election.

“In effect, the ruling would be that you’ve got to go to the streets and be as violent as antifa and BLM,“ Gohmert said on Newsmax on Jan. 1.

One aspect of Gohmert’s legal fight that went unnoticed at the time but is relevant in hindsight: One of Pence’s Justice Department defenders was Jeffrey Clark, then acting assistant attorney general.

In recent months, House and Senate investigators have revealed that Clark was marshaling allies inside DOJ who might help him deploy the department in support of Trump’s bogus claims of voter fraud. He pressured department leaders to issue a letter calling into question the results in multiple states, a push that then-Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen resisted. Trump came within inches of removing Rosen and installing Clark as acting attorney general, but relented amid a promise of mass resignations.

Rosen told congressional investigators that he viewed Clark’s role in the Gohmert suit as a sign that Clark had begun to come back into the fold, only to realize later that his colleague was still in contact with Trump about taking over the department.

A source familiar with Rosen’s thinking said that even in hindsight, it’s not clear Clark’s involvement with the Pence suit was improper.

“The outcome in that case was correct, and there’s no evidence even in hindsight so far that Clark tried to do anything sketchy on that front,” the source said.

But it’s unclear whether Pence ever realized that Clark — while simultaneously fending off Gohmert’s case — was in talks with Trump about effectively commandeering the DOJ on the president’s behalf. The Senate investigation of Clark’s actions showed that one day after his name first appeared in the Pence case, he told Rosen that Trump would be making him acting attorney general within hours.

An attorney for Clark declined to answer questions about Clark’s involvement in the Gohmert lawsuit.

“Mr Clark has taken a strong stance to protect President Trump’s Executive Privilege,” attorney Harold MacDougald said. “He will continue to do so.”

The Jan. 6 committee has already voted to hold Clark in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify but has deferred asking the House to send the matter to the Justice Department while it awaits Clark’s return for a deposition as soon as this week. Clark’s attorney has indicated that his client intends to plead the Fifth, and the panel has indicated that it expects Clark to do so on a question-by-question basis.

On Wednesday, Clark’s former deputy Ken Klukowski was seen heading into an interview with Jan. 6 committee investigators.

In revisiting the Gohmert case, POLITICO reached out to each of the lawyers involved, including Powell associates Howard Kleinhendler, Julia Haller and Lawrence Joseph. Joseph was one of the attorneys who crafted Texas’ failed legal effort — later joined by Trump with a brief signed by Eastman — to get the Supreme Court to invalidate election results in four key states Biden won.

“I do not talk about litigation with the media unless a client directs me to do so, which has not happened,” Joseph said in an email.

A fourth attorney, Texas-based William Lewis Sessions, also declined to comment and copied Gohmert’s House email address on the reply.

“The areas of interest you have indicated are ones for which I either have no knowledge or which I believe are protected by a privilege,” he said. “The person who would have the best knowledge is Representative Gohmert, who was one of my clients.”

Gohmert did not respond to this email or a subsequent one.

NEW YORK — Few American politicians have embraced the role of public health ambassador as comfortably as Mike Bloomberg, who banned smoking in bars and restaurants, outlawed trans fats and unsuccessfully pushed to restrict soda size.

The former New York City mayor was so content in that role, he once performed in a charity show as Mary Poppins to spoof his “nanny” persona.

Now, New Yorkers have chosen another wellness zealot, following eight years of a mayor who largely avoided the thorny intersection of health mandates and personal choice until confronted with the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mayor-elect Eric Adams, a former NYPD captain, traded jelly doughnuts for kale smoothies when diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes five years ago. Since then, he reversed vision loss and nerve damage, shed 35 pounds and anointed himself a spokesperson for a plant-based lifestyle. As he prepares to take over City Hall, a job that comes with a national bully pulpit, he stands to turn his passion into policy.

“We can save more lives with plant-based diet if people would only realize they are enslaved to fats, oil, sugar and things that are killing their body,” Adams said in a short 2018 film produced by Forks Over Knives, a company that promotes a whole-foods diet.

In electing Adams — a fit 61-year-old who once boasted, “I don’t have a six-pack, I have a case” — voters have chosen someone who used his public perch as Brooklyn borough president to proselytize a vegan diet. He showed off his intricate smoothie recipe and office-based stepper for TV cameras, spearheaded a plant-based diet program at a leading city hospital and authored “Healthy At Last” — part memoir, part cookbook intended to overhaul the diets of its readers. (Even olive oil, dubbed “liquid fat,” didn’t escape Adams’ scorn.)

Adams, a Democrat, brought his devotion to the mayoral campaign trail — vowing to fund doulas for pregnant women because “the first classroom is in a mother’s womb,” meditating on stage before televised debates and sharing his Election Night victory stage with a doctor who specializes in past life regression and reiki.

Much of the time the incoming mayor, who is Black, focuses on racial disparities in medicine. He likened soul food to “slave food” on a recent podcast and pledged to build clinics in low-income neighborhoods that lack access to top-tier hospitals. And, reasoning that poverty exacerbates health problems, he wants public hospitals to double as hubs for social services, according to campaign literature.

He also promised to clean up city-funded food: No more processed school lunches, sugary drinks for public hospital patients or junk food for detainees in city jails, he told POLITICO in an interview last year.

“You should not be leaving jail unhealthy,” he said. “You should not be in a homeless shelter where I am feeding you on taxpayers’ dime and I am feeding you food like chicken nuggets.”

Adams declined to be interviewed for this story. Asked for further details about his plans to overhaul taxpayer-funded meals, adviser Evan Thies replied: “The mayor-elect will make it his mission to change the dietary paradigm in these facilities, introducing plant-based meals to improve health outcomes and ensure all agencies are aligned on the goal of creating a healthier, more prosperous city for all residents.”

During a recent podcast focused on diet, the incoming mayor said he hopes to grow tomatoes year-round for public schools through vertical farming.

At times, Adams’ dedication morphs into fanaticism: He argued a healthy diet could prevent schizophrenia during a mayoral forum last year and has compared fried food to cocaine and heroin.

A City Council member who declined to be named attributed Adams’ beliefs to “the fervor of a convert.”

In his book, Adams points to research concluding meat, eggs and dairy food increase a child’s risk of asthma, while antioxidants in fruits and vegetables limit that danger.

“This is quite misleading. None of these foods are proven to cause asthma,” said Anna Nowak-Węgrzyn, director of the Pediatric Allergy Program at Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at NYU Langone. “It’s oversimplifying a complex matter. It’s important for kids, especially from underprivileged populations, to get a healthy diet, but in terms of asthma we can’t say it can prevent or improve asthma.”

Two former officials in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s health department — both of whom asked for anonymity to speak freely about the incoming mayor — raised concerns that he does not always back up his claims with scientific research, even as they generally agree with his views on nutrition.

“Given the current climate — all the mistrust that has existed and reinforced under the Trump administration — it’s more important to provide more information that’s sound and accurate,” one of the people said. “Obviously he can’t be there speaking off the top of his head.”

During a candidate forum focused on mental health last year, he said scientific research demonstrates that consuming healthy food “can really prevent and treat many of the issues we’re dealing with, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety.”

Shebani Sethi Dalai, founding director of Metabolic Psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine, said even politicians with good intentions should be conscious about spreading misinformation.

“I wouldn’t say these diets could treat bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. There isn’t data to support that,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s responsible … to recommend solely dietary things unless it’s monitored and seeing if it’s working for the individual.”

She also cautioned a vegan diet could result in certain vitamin deficiencies.

In response, Thies pointed to a Harvard Review of Psychiatry study that found “a growing body of literature shows the gut microbiome plays a shaping role in a variety of psychiatric disorders, including major depressive disorder.”

In his book, Adams also weighed in on an open question about the role of soy — a popular meat alternative — in breast cancer risk, declaring it unequivocally does not contribute to the common disease.

“There’s a myth out there that soy — a common staple of a plant-based diet — can increase breast cancer risk. In fact, the opposite is true,” he wrote, citing the Mayo Clinic. “Even women who have breast cancer can benefit from eating more soy.”

As borough president he championed “meatless Mondays” and pushed to eliminate all processed meat in public schools. He also opened a lactation room in Brooklyn Borough Hall and once proclaimed, “breastfeeding is the best feeding for our youngest Brooklynites.”

Health experts believe Adams’ allegiance to an issue they hold dear — particularly after two terms of a mayor who was at war with his public health agency — will serve the city well.

“He’s got a compelling personal health story, and has highlighted some important means of moving [forward] with plans — understanding that social issues are part of health care, bringing more resources into under-resourced neighborhoods, focusing on prevention. These are really important issues,” said Tom Frieden, former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Bloomberg’s health commissioner.

Yet Adams’ public health plans remain vague.

His campaign book mentions improving access to medical care and enrolling more people in health insurance through “outreach programs” — a tough proposition considering the lack of financial penalty for the uninsured and a dearth of options for undocumented immigrants. To that end, Adams has said he would increase funding for a city program that connects residents to primary care.

Thies also said Adams would look to create a more seamless partnership between public and private hospitals to ease the sharing of data, but did not provide further details on that, or the clinics planned for low-income neighborhoods.

A review of his campaign literature, records as borough president and remarks on the trail hint at Adams’ approach to public health.

For starters, he has asked Mitchell Katz to remain as president and CEO of the public hospital system, three people familiar with the situation told POLITICO. They spoke on condition of anonymity to reveal the internal maneuvering. Katz — who assumed the role in 2018 and has been credited with turning around the beleaguered hospital system’s finances — became one of de Blasio’s most trusted aides during the pandemic, as the mayor sparred with his health commissioner.

A year before launching his mayoral bid, Adams declared he wants every city hospital to open a “lifestyle medicine clinic” to encourage plant-based diets, particularly for patients with diabetes. As borough president in 2018, he spearheaded a similar program within the city-run Bellevue Hospital. Some 300 patients have enrolled so far, with another 850 on a waiting list. The hospital reported participants have experienced weight loss and lowered blood sugar and blood pressure, according to a hospital spokesperson.

He also wants to begin a doula initiative aimed, in part, at advising expectant mothers on nutrition.

“If you do not ensure that that mother has the right nutrition while she is carrying that baby, you can turn on genetic markers that will impact the quality of that child’s life throughout the entire lifespan,” Adams said at a January mayoral primary forum.

He has also expressed interest in revisiting a proposed soda tax, which would require cooperation from state lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul. In his last year in office, Bloomberg pressed for a ban on the sale of sugary drinks that exceeded 16 ounces. The beverage industry immediately sued, and a judge ruled such an edict could only be enacted legislatively. A subsequent soda tax bill is stuck in committee in the state Legislature.

When he assumes office Jan. 1, Adams will face a city struggling with its worst mass-casualty event since the AIDS epidemic. He has hesitated to say much about his plans around Covid-19, but his convictions about diet and exercise are not matched when it comes to the controversial matter of vaccine mandates.

He has repeatedly said he supports the requirements de Blasio recently instituted, while dodging questions on enforcement.

During the final days of the election, he offered oblique solutions, like extended talks with union leaders. Thies said Adams would “enact and enforce mandates according to science, efficacy and the advice of public health professionals” but declined to elaborate. Those professionals urged City Hall to enact a vaccine mandate for municipal workers, and early evidence shows it’s working.

In recent weeks — with more municipal employees getting vaccinated as de Blasio’s threat of lost pay looms as a penalty for those who defy his mandate — Adams and his closest advisers have expressed some concern about the regulation, according to two people who have spoken with them privately.

“My sense is he will have a different approach as de Blasio had,” Henry Garrido — executive director of the city’s largest municipal union, DC37 — said after a recent talk with Adams on the city’s vaccine mandate. Garrido was one of Adams’ earlier endorsers.

“Those who have legitimate reasons for not taking the vaccine, we understand that,” Adams said on MSNBC last month. “This is a city and a country where religion is important. But everyone else that is required to take the vaccine, we’re going to be clear and give a great deal of clarity that this is what’s expected of you.”

Policy issues aside, the new mayor has enthused vegans and fitness aficionados alike.

A meatless bodega sandwich has been crafted in his honor. Outgoing Staten Island Borough President Jimmy Oddo — a Republican in line for a potential Adams administration appointment — said Adams inspired him to keep chasing a desired physique. “I texted Eric a few years ago that ‘I can run through a brick wall after listening to you talk about health and wellness,’” Oddo said in an interview.

“Mayor Adams can be a genuine change agent and can be, in my opinion, a national catalyst for change,” Oddo said.

Garrido recalled Adams sending him a copy of “Healthy at Last” after the union leader lamented his own diet. He said he was touched by the gesture and gave “meatless Monday” a try, though some of the suggested recipes seemed daunting.

“They require a lot of time and … access to a lot of ingredients that aren’t always accessible,” Garrido said. “For somebody with a very hectic schedule, preparing couscous salads [that are] going to take me 50 minutes when I’m traveling is difficult.”

“But I still think he’s onto something,” he added.

With all eyes on Adams as he assumes the vast responsibility of overseeing the nation’s largest city, one thing is certain: Public health is likely to be at the forefront of his agenda.

“If Black lives really matter, it’s more than just George Floyd being murdered,” he said on a podcast this year. “It’s the murder that’s taking place every day in our cities that we feed people bad food.”

This week, a right-wing Israeli prime minister paid a state visit to the United Arab Emirates for the first time ever. A day later, in an unrelated but also surprising move, the United Arab Emirates appeared to back away from a major arms sale with the United States, its most important benefactor.

Clearly, the Middle East is changing. As the Biden administration has made good on its promise to focus less on the historically troublesome region and more on China, Middle Eastern states are taking notice. Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are forging new relationships and hedging their bets, driven by a shared concern that a Washington, D.C. hyper-focused on China and domestic travails may not be there for them when it comes to dealing with Iran’s ambitions in the region, tensions with the Palestinians or other security threats.

But although President Joe Biden wants to reduce U.S. involvement in the Middle East, it isn’t necessarily good news for him that the region is preparing for a future where America looms smaller. The rebalance he sought is happening — but not on his terms and not in a way he can easily control, especially given his faltering goal of inking a new nuclear deal with Iran. It’s certainly a welcome development that Middle Eastern states are casting aside their historic enmities. But the thaw between Israel and the UAE won’t make the Iran nuclear conundrum, or the Middle East in general, much more manageable. It’s a reminder that — as previous presidents have learned — the region will remain a serious headache for the United States despite its best efforts to move its priorities elsewhere.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s historic visit to the UAE, unthinkable a decade ago, is the culmination of several years of closer alignment between Israel and the Gulf states (most notably the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain). The 2015 Iran nuclear accord pushed these countries together in opposition to what seemed to be growing U.S. acceptance of Iran’s role in the region and serious questions about Washington’s security commitments. The Trump administration made some moves to reverse this fear by bolting from the Iran deal and solidifying relations with Israel, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Still, these governments remained worried about “America First” and the sense that the U.S. was retrenching, focused more on its own needs than the security worries of Middle Eastern partners and allies.

Notwithstanding Trump’s tough-on-Iran stance, his administration’s decision not to retaliate against Iran’s strikes on Saudi oil facilities in 2019 only reinforced Israeli and Arab worries that the U.S. was no longer committed to countering Iran’s influence. Perhaps ironically, the Trump administration cemented the trend it had helped to accelerate by brokering the Abraham Accords between Israel, the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco.

After Biden took office, there could be little doubt that America’s priorities were continuing to change. Even before becoming secretary of state, Antony Blinken spoke of a future Biden administration doing “less not more” in the Middle East. In his first major address as secretary, the Middle East wasn’t even mentioned as one of his eight priorities. The chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and removal of missile defense systems, aircraft and aircraft carriers from the region have reinforced these concerns.

America’s Middle East partners could be forgiven for believing that they’ve been replaced, and that Biden’s focus on all things China is affecting their relations with Washington. Earlier this week, the UAE reportedly suspended negotiations on a major F-35 deal because the Biden administration imposed too many restrictions to prevent China from penetrating UAE’s security. Similarly, Israel’s deepening relationship with China has become a source of friction in U.S.-Israeli relations. Biden wants to deprioritize the Middle East in favor of China, but it seems the Middle East is deprioritizing him out of fear of being caught in growing U.S.-China tensions.

The hedging even extends to Iran. Despite the Gulf States’ historic enmity with Tehran, the Emiratis have shown no desire to get caught up in U.S hostility toward Iran, with whom they share geographical proximity and close eocnomic relationships. It’s no coincidence that the UAE recently dispatched its national security adviser to meet with Iran’s president. For months now the Saudis, too, have engaged in talks with Iran; there has even been talk about restoring diplomatic relations. And for the first time in four years, the Gulf Cooperation Council is due to meet as the Saudi-UAE rift with Qatar is on the mend.

The new regional realities include an Israeli government not headed by Benjamin Netanyahu for the first time in a decade. Naftali Bennett is the weakest prime minister in Israel’s history, presiding over an unwieldy coalition whose very weakness may well ensure its survival. None of the coalition partners want to see Netanyahu return to power, so a sort of mutually assured destruction prevails. The government avoids sensitive issues like the Palestinians, preferring to cement ties with Arab states and maintain a tough position on Iran.

It’s on the latter issue that Biden and Bennett disagree. Bennett has taken a softer approach to Iran than Netanyahu, who openly sided with Republicans to challenge the Obama administration’s Iran policy. But there’s no doubt Bennett opposes U.S. efforts to resuscitate the 2015 deal, preferring more sanctions, tougher pressure on Iran’s proxies in Syria and Lebanon and preparation for credible military action against Iranian nuclear sites. Yet Bennett seems to understand he needs the U.S. to help counter Iran whether or not there is a deal, and doesn’t want to become Netanyahu 2.0. That’s why the new prime minister won’t risk a major breach with Washington, even if the languishing Vienna talks do produce a deal. Still, the longstanding worry about a softer U.S. policy toward Iran helps explain why Israel has slowly sowed friendlier relations with Gulf states.

The prospect of normalized Israeli relations with the UAE and Bahrain is a rare bright spot in the region. But it’s important to be clear about what it’s not: It’s not the beginning of a new Middle East where the rest of the Arab League gets in line to make peace with Israel. And it isn’t a sign that the region will become less troublesome for the United States — particularly as long as the Iran issue is still unresolved.

No other Arab states have followed the Abraham Accords; Saudi Arabia would be a big prize, but that seems virtually impossible absent serious progress on the Palestinian issue. And the prospect of another serious conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is all too real. Meanwhile, Lebanon, Libya, Yemen and Syria are in various stages of state failure. And Iran and its proxies continue to exert outsize influence.

Indeed, Iran is the only issue that could still draw the U.S. back into the region in a big way. The U.S. is certainly retrenching from the Middle East. But it’s been a reality for years that the U.S. is explicitly committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons; the implication is surely that it would use force if necessary. Clearly, this would pull the U.S. back into the region in a major way. In short, for the foreseeable future, Iran will remain a challenge. Biden’s current conundrum is that negotiations seem unable to address Iran’s growing nuclear program— but a military option might produce a cure much worse than the disease.

The Biden administration has relegated the Middle East to a secondary place in the hierarchy of U.S. interests. And that’s understandable. Tragic experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, growing U.S. energy independence and the limits of U.S. power to fix the region’s problems have made it a place where American diplomacy goes to die rather than one of diplomatic opportunity. But history has demonstrated that it’s also a place that can’t be ignored. America may well want to be finished with this broken, angry and dysfunctional region. The question, as always, is whether the Middle East is finished with America.