Why the Middle East Still Needs America

If there is one aspect of foreign policy that U.S. Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden share, it is this: a desire for the United States to leave the Middle East. The Biden administration’s 2022 National Security Strategy, for example, focuses on the “pacing threat” of China and otherwise emphasizes great-power competition, not the squabbles of the Middle East. Obama and Trump similarly wanted to pivot to Asia and otherwise disentangle the United States from the region. This inclination extends beyond the Oval Office; Congress, for instance, is having trouble passing bills that would provide military aid to Israel, which once would have been a political no-brainer.

U.S. leaders are echoing public sentiment: polls show that Americans see China as the greatest threat to the United States, followed by Russia and North Korea. (Iran barely gets a mention, unlike 15 years ago, when it was enemy number one.) A Pew survey conducted in 2019 found that the majority of Americans, including most veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, think that the Iraq war was “not worth fighting.” In January this year, the deaths of three U.S. service members in Jordan at the hands of an Iranian-backed group seemed to validate the view that the price of the U.S. presence is too high, raising questions about whether the United States should maintain its military role in the region.

It is easy to understand this skepticism. The Middle East is plagued by problems: civil wars, dictatorships, terrorism, and deep anti-American sentiment, to name a few. In the face of these challenges, U.S. policy toward the region does not seem to be achieving much success—and that’s putting it mildly. For decades, the United States has backed an Israeli-Palestinian peace process that was largely stalled following some initial achievements in the 1990s, including the signing of the Oslo Accords, and now has ground to a halt amid the war in the Gaza Strip. Regime change in Iraq following the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein produced terrorism and instability. Well before Hamas’s October 7 assault on Israel, Iranian-backed militant groups regularly attacked U.S. forces in Iraq. And Middle Eastern states, in their rhetoric at least, are not particularly keen for the United States to stay. Pressure is growing in Iraq for a complete U.S. withdrawal as American forces scrap with local militias. The United States is also considering removing troops from Syria, believing that the Islamic State is sufficiently weakened and fearing potential casualties from attacks by Iranian proxy groups.

This sense of exhaustion is profound, even though the U.S. military presence in the Middle East is far smaller than in the past. Today, the United States has some 45,000 troops in the region, including around 2,500 troops in Iraq, 900 in Syria, and others stationed at bases in countries such as Bahrain, Djibouti, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. About 15,000 of these troops were deployed to the region as part of a temporary surge in the wake of October 7, before which the United States maintained around 30,000 troops. Although sizable, these forces are a fraction of the number the United States deployed in 2010, when it had over 100,000 troops in Iraq and around 70,000 in Afghanistan, as well as many more in neighboring countries. By 2015, these numbers had fallen, as the U.S. presence plunged in Iraq and decreased substantially in Afghanistan; the total fell further after the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

A pessimistic view of the United States’ record and prospects in the region, however, misses important, if less dramatic, U.S. achievements in the Middle East. Although these outcomes are less visible and can be difficult to quantify, a strong U.S. military presence prevents a variety of actions by adversaries and allies that might make the region even less stable and generate more civil strife, nuclear proliferation, dangerous interventions, and other grave threats. Maintaining even a limited U.S. military presence is therefore vital to mitigating these risks, even if the United States continues to fall short of its ambitious regional goals.

GET GOING WHILE THE GOING IS BAD

There is an appealing case for leaving the Middle East—or at least reducing the United States’ involvement, particularly regarding its military posture. U.S. forces in the region suffer a small but not insignificant number of casualties every year. In the last decade, the United States has lost over 140 soldiers in operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria—the majority in Afghanistan. Although U.S. deployments to Iraq and Syria today are fairly small, soldiers are at constant risk of rocket and drone attacks from Iranian-backed forces and, to a lesser degree, other anti-American groups, such as the Islamic State, known as ISIS.

In addition to wanting to avoid this human toll, the United States is under pressure to apply its resources elsewhere. Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has highlighted the threat Moscow poses to European security and that of the West in general. The Ukrainian war effort desperately needs U.S. munitions and other military systems. Multiple administrations have sought to pivot to China, where any conflict would require large numbers of troops and air defense, surveillance, and weapons systems given China’s strong and growing military power. Diverting aircraft carriers to deter Iran, munitions to help Israel bomb Gaza, warships to guard against Houthi missiles in the Red Sea, and troops and surveillance assets to assist in fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria could leave U.S. forces and allies in other parts of the world more vulnerable to authoritarian aggression.

In providing this support, the United States assumes a degree of complicity in the deeds of its allies. The Middle East is home to numerous dictatorships whose human rights records range from spotty (Morocco) to abysmal (Saudi Arabia). The United States helps ensure their security and, in so doing, facilitates an undemocratic status quo. When Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates launched their disastrous war in Yemen in 2015, they used U.S. munitions and weapons systems in their attacks. The United States has long been an unwavering partner of Israel, a stance that is largely popular domestically but unpopular in much of the world, especially after Israel began its devastating military campaign in Gaza, which has killed at least 30,000 people so far.

Perhaps most strikingly, the United States does not seem to gain much from its efforts. Regional states shrug off U.S. human rights concerns and demands for economic reform. In February, the Biden administration called for a restoration of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and asked Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, only to be rebuffed on both counts by the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. U.S. strikes on Yemen similarly have not changed Houthi behavior, with the group continuing its missile and drone attacks against commercial shipping.

TAKING STOCK OF SUCCESS

These perceptions of failure are not wrong, but they paint an incomplete picture. The United States has not brought peace to the region, turned dictatorships into democracies, or otherwise transformed a perennial trouble spot into a zone of peace; but the U.S. presence, on balance, has helped preserve the United States’ interests and those of its allies.

The current war in Gaza illustrates this mixed record. The war rages on, with Palestinians suffering tremendously. But the number of civilian deaths has fallen as the United States has publicly and privately pressured Israel to reduce casualties amid an international backlash. UN data indicates that the number of Palestinians in Gaza dying each day has fallen by two-thirds since late October: the number of noncombatant deaths is still too high, but U.S. pressure appears to have altered the course of Israeli strategy, even if it may functionally be too little too late.

The United States’ efforts have also been critical in preventing a full-scale regional war. Weeks after October 7, the Biden administration stopped Israel from launching a preventive war on Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, a strike that would have dramatically expanded the scope and scale of the current conflict. Hezbollah is a far more formidable adversary than Hamas. The Lebanese group has thousands of Iranian-armed and -trained fighters and around 150,000 rockets and missiles, making it capable of striking all of Israel and overwhelming Israeli missile systems. Moreover, a war between Israel and Hezbollah would likely push Lebanon, already in economic disarray, into the abyss, turning it into a truly failed state.

The United States does not seem to gain much from its efforts in the Middle East.

The Biden administration has also moved to deter Iran, Hezbollah’s sponsor, from exploiting the current conflict. Shortly after October 7, the United States moved two aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean and warned Tehran against escalating tensions with Israel. Biden has also attacked Iranian proxies in response to attacks on U.S. troops in the region. These assurances and enhanced military posture have contributed to deterrence against Iran—indeed, after a retaliatory U.S. strike on militias in Iraq and Syria, Tehran told its proxy groups in the region to scale back their attacks, wary of igniting a full-scale war with the United States. Biden’s stance also worked to reassure Israel that the United States had its back, giving it the confidence not to strike Iran in desperation.

The U.S. response to the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea has also had some successes. Leading a coalition of over 20 countries, the United States is working to protect crucial shipping lanes by shooting down Houthi drones and missiles and otherwise trying to stop attacks that emanate from Yemen. On the one hand, U.S. strikes on the Houthis have not stopped them from continuing to attack commercial shipping in the Bab el Mandeb Strait. Their attacks have damaged numerous vessels; resulted in casualties, including three sailors serving on a Liberian-owned bulk carrier; and prompted many more ships to divert to the much longer route around the Cape of Good Hope, a detour that is driving up the cost of global trade. On the other hand, the presence of the U.S.-led task force has meant that some shipping can continue; on average, over a million metric tons of trade still transit the strait each day. This is particularly critical for the economies of Egypt and Jordan, as well as Israel, which depend heavily on Red Sea ports. Even more important, the Biden administration has stood up in defense of the principle of freedom of the seas, making it clear to other potential aggressors that the United States will respond to attempts to disrupt trade and will protect allies’ economic interests when they are threatened.

The positive effects of the United States’ presence extend beyond the latest round of conflicts. Iran wields tremendous influence in Iraq, but that influence would be even stronger without U.S. forces to counterbalance it. In Iraq and Syria, U.S. troops work with local allies to fight the Islamic State. Without the United States providing intelligence, training, and firepower to its allies, the Islamic State would be far more able to regroup, which would allow it to both gain more local influence and increase its ability to conduct international terrorist attacks.

DISASTERS AVERTED?

The most important consequences of the abiding U.S. presence in the Middle East are the dangerous events that do not happen because the United States is still there. Iran, for example, might attack shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, where about 20 percent of the world’s oil consumption transits, as a way to press Israel and the United States in a far more consequential version of what the Houthis are doing in the Bab el Mandeb. Such attacks could cause global oil prices to skyrocket, potentially plunging the world into recession. Currently, the likelihood that the United States would attack Iran and forcibly open the strait makes this prospect far too risky for Tehran—as Iran learned the hard way during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, when it tried to attack shipping and lost vessels and oil platforms to a U.S.-led military response. The Biden administration’s strikes on the Houthis make U.S. warnings regarding the Strait of Hormuz even more credible.

In the absence of U.S. forces, Tehran would be freer to foment regional instability or mount aggression toward rival states, such as by overthrowing the government of Bahrain and installing a pro-Iranian Shiite-led regime, as it has attempted to do in the past. Iran would also be more likely to build nuclear weapons, believing that it would not pay a heavy price if it advanced from its current uranium enrichment activities toward weapons production Even putting aside such drastic scenarios, without a U.S. military presence to counterbalance it, Iran could further expand its influence in neighboring countries such as Iraq, with the aim of turning it into a vassal state.

Allies, too, might respond to a U.S. abandonment of the region in dangerous and self-defeating ways. Without credible U.S. security assurances, Israel—now wounded and hypersensitive to any perceived threat—could persuade itself to not only attack Hezbollah but also launch a conventional assault on the Iranian nuclear program, likely prompting Iran and the militant groups it helms to respond with full force, including terrorist attacks. Other allies that currently fall under the U.S. security umbrella, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, might want to take security into their own hands—including by trying to build, or just buy, a nuclear weapon.

A U.S. withdrawal from the region could create a power vacuum that China, Russia, or others might exploit.

Israel’s foreign policy could well become even more a prisoner of its fractious domestic politics. Israeli leaders have long used U.S. pressure as an excuse for inaction on domestic and international fronts, telling right-wing constituents that they would attack Iran or annex the West Bank but for Washington’s objections; an excuse Israeli hardliners largely accepted given the importance of the U.S.-Israeli security relationship. Without this external pressure, Israeli leaders could cave to the influence of the rising far right and move to annex the West Bank, restore settlements in Gaza, or take other inflammatory steps that would worsen regional tension.

A U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East would also have consequences for other parts of the world, such as Asia and Europe, that are more of a priority for many in Washington wary of Chinese and Russian aggression. Allies in one region are aware of Washington’s behavior in other parts of the world. U.S. support for Ukraine, for example, has reassured many who fear a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Displays of weakness, by contrast, embolden aggressors. If the United States failed to stand by an ally in the Middle East in the case of Iranian or militant aggression, it would send a message to other longtime U.S. allies around the world that the United States may not defend them should they be attacked.

Indeed, a U.S. withdrawal from the region could create a power vacuum that China, Russia, or others might exploit. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other countries will seek to deter Iran, contain terrorist groups, and fend off other threats—and if the United States cannot credibly provide security assistance and guarantees, these countries will look elsewhere. Leaving the Middle East opens the way for these rival authoritarian powers to increase their influence, which would prove a major setback in the context of great-power competition (the motivating concern for some detractors of U.S. involvement in the Middle East).

Such counterfactuals are impossible to measure, and not all these dangerous scenarios would come to pass. But even one could be catastrophic for both the region and Washington, not to mention the untold number of unimaginable crises that could proliferate if the United States decides to leave the Middle East.

KEEP BOOTS ON THE GROUND

It is tempting to look at the U.S. role in the Middle East and see only failures, for there are many. Yet amid these failures are successes, big and small. Many of the most important accomplishments involve preventing disasters that, because of the U.S. presence, never occurred: vital achievements, but ones that are hard to boast about.

Policymakers and the public alike must have realistic expectations about what the United States can accomplish in the region in the coming years. Its problems are large, enmities run deep, and the U.S. presence has shrunk notably in the past decade. Yet further reducing the U.S. role is perilous. This critical but unstable region could become far more chaotic and war-prone, with anti-American regimes becoming stronger and more entrenched. A limited American presence, for all its problems, is better than none at all.