Washington’s Looming Middle Eastern Quagmire

The aftermath of Hamas’s brutal October 7 attack on Israel, which killed an estimated 1,200 people, has prompted what is arguably the most severe challenge to U.S. strategy in the Middle East since the uprisings and civil wars that rocked the Arab world beginning in 2011. Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip and the massive loss of life it has incurred—over 12,000 Palestinians have died as a result, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry—have spurred widespread anti-Americanism across the region and prompted attacks by Iranian proxies on U.S. military personnel in Iraq and Syria. How U.S. President Joe Biden and his administration manage the actions of Israel, a close U.S. ally, as well as the broader geopolitical reverberations of the war, will have far-reaching consequences for regional stability as well as for Washington’s ability to confront and deter adversaries in the Middle East and elsewhere.

That the stakes are high is evident in the rapid flow of additional U.S. military forces into the region over the past month, including aircraft carriers, fighter aircraft, over 1,000 troops, and the deployment of additional air defense systems to Arab partners such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). These moves were intended to signal U.S. resolve and deter Iran from seeking to escalate the crisis in Israel by using its network of proxies, such as Hezbollah, to launch attacks on Israel from Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere. But by expanding its military presence in the Middle East, Washington may aggravate regional tensions and raise the risk and costs of miscalculation—and thus inadvertently provoke the very conflict it is desperate to avoid.

Washington’s injection of military hardware and personnel could also end up entangling the United States in open-ended security commitments to a region from which it had, until recently, been trying to extricate itself. By the time U.S. forces finished withdrawing from Afghanistan and ended combat operations in Iraq in 2021, the United States’ habitual security-first approach to the Middle East had proved both costly, in terms of dollars and lives lost, and devastating for the region, having contributed to years of war, insurgency, and economic ruin. As the United States’ presence increases once again, its deepened military involvement in the Middle East could endure beyond the end of the current crisis and contribute to an overstretch that would create dangerous gaps elsewhere over the longer term, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. In that scenario, much of the Biden administration’s work to pivot toward the Indo-Pacific to counter China would be undone—and key strategic arenas such as Taiwan would be left more vulnerable to Chinese aggression.

Given these hazards, Washington’s Middle East policy is in desperate need of a course correction. This was true before October 7, and it is even more so now. The Biden administration, however, has not signaled any short- or long-term adjustments aimed at addressing the failures and risks of the current strategy. Instead, it has recommitted to a heavily securitized approach based on ever-larger U.S. military deployments and the normalization of relations between Israel and Arab countries as the foundation for a new U.S.-led security bloc in the Middle East.

Although the consequences of Israel’s war in Gaza remain uncertain, it is not too soon to sketch the outlines of a more sustainable U.S. Middle East policy. Most important, as soon as the current crisis begins to stabilize, Washington should work to rapidly withdraw the forces it has rushed back into the Middle East—and go further, substantially downsizing and realigning the U.S. military presence in the region. At the same time, Washington should invest in building the capabilities and resilience of its regional partners so that they can operate together more effectively to maintain stability and manage security challenges with less U.S. support. Only this two-pronged approach can move the United States toward a balanced Middle East policy that avoids overextension but can still reassure partners and stave off future catastrophes.

 NO QUESTIONS ASKED

The United States’ response to the current crisis has been rapid and extensive. In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks, Biden ordered two carrier strike groups—naval forces each numbering roughly 7,500 personnel—into the Mediterranean and the Red Sea and sent an Ohio-class nuclear-capable submarine; advanced fighter and close-air-support aircraft such as the F-16, the F-15, the F-35, and the A-10; and over 1,200 additional troops into the region, on top of the approximately 45,000 U.S. military personnel who are already stationed across the Middle East. In addition, the United States has sent Patriot air defense battalions to longtime regional partners including Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, and it has deployed at least one Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system to the region. This U.S. military surge marks the first time some of these weapons systems have been deployed to the Middle East since the United States’ 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.

This flood of U.S. forces and assets has been accompanied by a significant influx of military assistance to Israel, on top of the nearly $4 billion that the country receives annually from the United States. (The United States has provided Israel with more military aid than any other country in the world since World War II, amounting to more than $124 billion since Israel’s founding, in 1948.) After October 7, Biden submitted a request to Congress for a $14.3 billion emergency arms package to Israel—a request that has remained in limbo not for lack of support for Israel but because of the United States’ own political dysfunction.

The swift and decisive nature of this response stands out, especially given Biden’s reputation for deliberative, sometimes plodding decision-making. It also makes for a sharp contrast with the incremental approach to providing military aid to Ukraine in the wake of Russia’s invasion, especially given the more limited military threat posed by Iran and its proxies compared with that of Russia. And unlike the transparency provided on aid to Ukraine, the seeming unconditional arms transfers to Israel have been veiled in secrecy, which has prompted consternation in Congress and the resignation of a State Department official named Josh Paul, who insisted in a public statement that the scale of Washington’s support for Israel was “not in the long-term American interest.”

THINKING IT THROUGH

As the Biden administration has doubled down on the surge of additional U.S. arms and forces to the Middle East, however, it is not clear that U.S. policymakers have thought through the second- and third-order effects of amplifying the United States’ security role in the region and how it will be perceived by adversaries and allies alike. Specifically, there are three risks that the Biden administration must acknowledge and address: escalation, backlash, and overstretch.

First, although the Pentagon has argued that deployments since October 7 are intended to prevent a wider war, it seems equally likely the surge in U.S. forces could end up triggering an escalatory spiral rather than preventing one. Since October 7, attacks by Iranian proxies on U.S. military personnel stationed in Iraq and Syria have mounted, even as the United States has augmented its regional presence and launched retaliatory strikes on militia infrastructure targets in Syria. Neither these additional forces nor the multiple rounds of airstrikes, including some that have reportedly killed militia members, appears to have done much to deter U.S. adversaries. If anything, rather, such attacks have become more brazen; the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, for instance, recently shot down an unmanned American drone over the Red Sea, and have been launching strikes aimed at Israel since the start of the current conflagration.

It is possible that the United States’ augmented military presence has dissuaded more significant provocations by Iran and its proxies—but more likely is the prospect that neither Iran nor Hezbollah desires escalation, as both would stand to lose if a regional war broke out. This calculus could change, particularly should Palestinian casualties continue to mount or should Israel choose to occupy Gaza for an extended period. In a situation in which each side’s redlines are unclear, an increased U.S. military presence in the region raises the risk for miscalculation and provocation. It also gives hard-liners in Tehran and among Iran’s proxy groups—who see Washington as a co-conspirator in Israel’s military campaign—a rationale to continue their own military buildup and threaten escalation.

Washington has recommitted to a Middle Eastern strategy based on ever-larger U.S. military deployments.

Second, it is not just among adversaries that this new U.S. military influx could spawn unforeseen challenges. It could also undermine relationships with key American allies and partners such as Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, and others. Washington has long relied on the provision of security guarantees and military assistance as the core of its engagement in the Middle East. But the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the waves of anti-Americanism sweeping across the Arab world, and the very real divergence between Arab governments and Washington over Israel’s prosecution of its campaign risk eroding the bedrock of U.S.-Arab security cooperation—especially as the United States’ military presence in the region becomes both more visible and more controversial.

At the very least, Arab states will want to carry out any future security cooperation more discreetly, and Washington may find its freedom of action increasingly constrained by the need to protect U.S. forces operating in partner countries. In more extreme cases, partner regimes may suspend certain activities, such as joint exercises, or pause certain defense purchases. Although no state will sever its ties with the United States, the conflict is undoubtedly upending several of the Biden administration’s assumptions about its partners and complicating relationships that the United States has come to rely on in the region for military access and to protect U.S. economic interests. And although wider great-power competition with China and Russia should not be a main driver of U.S. policy in the region, it is possible that regional partners may turn to Beijing or Moscow if they find cooperation with Washington too troublesome.

Finally, this renewed U.S. posture in the region could herald a return to bad habits on the part of the United States—a retread of its habitual strategy of leaning on large U.S. military deployments and arms transfers to underwrite the region’s security against external threats. This approach has not made the region safer. Instead, decades of U.S. military involvement have exacerbated regional rivalries and fueled arms races that have worsened local conflicts, to say nothing of the disastrous repercussions of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, which included hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS), and the deterioration of the United States’ global reputation. Moreover, years of unconditional U.S. security assistance to Middle Eastern partners have often emboldened these regimes to act in ways that have severely undermined regional stability and human rights—including, for instance, Saudi Arabia’s backing of the Yemeni government in its fight against Iran-backed Houthi rebels, or the UAE’s intervention in the conflict in Libya.

Looking beyond the region, the more Washington is compelled to deploy forces and transfer arms and hardware to the Middle East, the more it runs the risk of becoming overstretched in ways that will leave the United States unable to meet its commitments and deter adversaries elsewhere—especially in the Indo-Pacific, where the United States faces an increasingly assertive China. Many of the weapons systems in highest demand by Washington’s Middle Eastern partners—such as Harpoon missiles and Patriot air defense systems—are also ones that Taiwan desperately needs to bolster its defenses against Chinese aggression. Similarly, many of the U.S. naval and air assets now deployed in the Middle East would likely be needed for a conflict in the Indo-Pacific. Over time, extended deployments in the Middle East may wear down these systems, leaving them unavailable—and the United States underresourced—if a crisis in Asia were to occur. These tradeoffs will only grow if the Israel-Hamas conflict swells to include Iran, as the United States might feel pressure to provide Israel with long-range strike missiles that are already in short supply; and if greater numbers of U.S. forces and systems remain in the theater over the long term.

REDUCE AND REALIGN

The rupture caused by the Hamas attack offers an opportunity to develop a more sustainable and lower-risk U.S. approach to the Middle East. The current crisis illustrates that as long as Washington retains tens of thousands of soldiers in the Middle East, the chances remain high that the United States could be dragged into an extended, costly regional conflict, even when it has few interests at stake. To avoid this outcome, the United States needs to reduce and realign its military presence in the region. Without such downsizing, there is no way the United States can break free from the legacy of its ill-fated security-first approach. The small contingents of U.S. forces still in Iraq and Syria are a case in point. Their stated military objective—the enduring defeat of ISIS—is open-ended and largely unachievable, but keeping these troops in place indefinitely requires the continual deployment of more forces and more advanced systems for their protection, draining U.S. military resources with little appreciable benefit.

The United States can draw down its Middle Eastern military presence gradually and without leaving regional partners in fear of abandonment, although this downsizing may need to wait until current hostilities in the region settle. First, as an easy starting point, the additional forces and platforms sent to the region since October 7 should be redeployed. Second, most or all U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria should be withdrawn. U.S. deployments in these two locations seem to feed rather than deter regional escalation by Iran and its proxies. Furthermore, U.S. military commanders have indicated that U.S. partners in Iraq and Syria are now leading effective counter-ISIS operations on their own, suggesting that there is less need for a continued U.S. ground presence in these locations and reducing the risk of an ISIS resurgence in the absence of U.S. forces.

Finally, the United States should begin to reduce its presence across the rest of the region by consolidating U.S. forces across fewer installations. For instance, the United States could focus specifically on bases in Bahrain, Jordan, and the UAE, and invest more heavily in prepositioned stocks of equipment and logistics capabilities that would allow the U.S. military to ramp up operations if needed. Some observers argue that this consolidation would embolden U.S. adversaries—in particular Iran—to expand its regional operations. But despite the real risks Iran poses, the country’s limited military capabilities do not warrant the extensive American military presence currently in the Middle East. A smaller number of U.S. forces dispersed in key locations combined with Washington’s demonstrated ability to surge forces to the region—also on display after October 7—should be sufficient to manage Iran’s provocations.

The United States needs to reduce and realign its military presence in the Middle East.

Such a reduction would also lower the risk of military overstretch and create space for Washington to develop a more holistic economic and political approach to the region. With less U.S. military involvement, the United States would have more time and resources to reorient its Middle East policies toward diplomacy, societal engagement, and economic statecraft—tools that will help address the emerging challenges, including climate change and the transition toward clean energy, with which people in the region are already grappling.

Moreover, Washington can offset its diminished presence and further buttress the region against Iranian influence by doing more to reduce the dependence of regional allies and partners on the United States. Washington should empower regional actors such as Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other U.S. partners to establish coalitions that address high-priority regional security needs and manage regional tensions with limited U.S. involvement. This approach would not only reduce the burden placed on U.S. forces but also mitigate the broader security risks caused by backlash against the United States’ military presence in the region and create a more stable foundation for the U.S. relationship with these countries.

Accordingly, Washington’s focus will need to shift away from pricey arms transfers and efforts to build interoperability with U.S. forces toward activities that help regional partners operate independently with the large arsenals they already have and to do so alongside their neighbors. In the past, U.S. efforts to forge regional security coalitions in the Middle East have failed because of ideological and personal rivalries between Arab states, with the long-running spat between Saudi Arabia and Qatar being the starkest example, as well as diverging perceptions about how best to manage the threat from Iran and its proxies. Despite some softening, these tensions are likely to endure, but the United States can work around them by emphasizing and incentivizing narrower forms of cooperation on high-priority issues where interests do align, such as maritime security and air defense. Washington could also consider encouraging the formation of so-called minilaterals—small groups of three to five states with limited objectives—which states in Southeast Asia have used successfully to manage regional security issues, such as piracy and illegal fishing, on their own without relying on either the United States or China.

These changes would amount to a major shift for U.S. policy in the Middle East, away from a U.S.-led security-heavy model toward a more balanced approach that carries less of a risk of escalation or overstretch and that allows regional powers to take the lead. This new approach would not be a guarantee against future regional security crises, but it would protect Washington’s military and diplomatic flexibility, reduce the odds that Washington ends up embroiled in another Middle East war, and preserve greater military capacity for other national security priorities. If Washington fails to alter its course, however, it could end up going down an all-too-familiar road.