Middle East Program

Program overview

The Middle East is a region where U.S. interests are limited and the use of U.S. military force has repeatedly proven unnecessary and counterproductive. After the 9/11 attacks and the declaration of the “Global War on Terror,” the United States initiated a series of interventions, first in Afghanistan, then in various countries in the Middle East—Iraq, Libya, and Syria—all of which proved disastrous. Of all the regions where the U.S. military has been heavily engaged in recent decades, the Middle East holds the least strategic importance.

The two core U.S. interests in the Middle East are: (1) to prevent critical, long-term disruptions of Persian Gulf oil and (2) to counter anti-U.S. terrorist threats. Neither of these interests requires an open-ended military commitment to the region or permanent ground forces.

Global access to Middle Eastern oil is simply not in jeopardy. The balance of power in the Middle East is relatively even: no single regional power or bloc can consolidate power over the Gulf and its oil reserves. Nor can other great powers, such as Russia and China, project significant military capabilities into the region. Energy production elsewhere has lessened the region’s importance to global energy markets, and the green energy transition should make it even less important. The region cannot decisively alter the global balance of power to the disadvantage of the United States.

The threat posed by transnational terrorism and malevolent non-state actors, while far from existential to the United States, is nonetheless a danger to American citizens. Preventing terrorist groups from operating from foreign bases to launch attacks against the United States remains a priority. Counterrorism, however, is better pursued through local policing, intelligence work conducted in coordination with partners, and—in rare instances—limited military strikes, rather than through permanent military deployments abroad.

Washington’s military interventions over the past few decades largely produced conditions of destabilization and discontent and incubated new terrorist threats, like ISIS. Continuing deployments in places like Iraq and Syria have made U.S. servicemembers targets for hostile actors who otherwise couldn’t reach them.

U.S.-Middle East policy goals

Moving forward, U.S. policy goals in the Middle East should be to:

• Avoid direct U.S. involvement in wars in the region.
• End the permanent U.S. military presence in the region within five to 10 years, and urgently remove U.S. forces from Syria and Iraq.
• Avoid security guarantees to states in the region, including Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies, which promote destabilizing action by these states and could entangle the U.S. in conflicts beyond its national interests.
• Normalize relations with states across the region, eschewing both entangling partnerships and enduring rivalries.
• Cooperate with local powers to counter anti-U.S. terrorism through intelligence sharing. 
• Refrain from needless great power competition with China and Russia in the region.
• Recognize that U.S. influence in the Middle East has limits and may be unnecessary or counterproductive to U.S. national interests.