Is It Time For A New U.S. Strategy In The Middle East?

Former U.S. diplomat Martin Indyk, who has spent his career trying to fix problems in the Middle East, says it’s time to rein in our grandiose vision for the region in exchange for something more attainable.

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Martin Indyk, fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former U.S. ambassador to Israel. (@Martin_Indyk)

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The Wall Street Journal: “The Middle East Isn’t Worth It Anymore” — “Last week, despite Donald Trump’s repeated pledge to end American involvement in the Middle East’s conflicts, the U.S. was on the brink of another war in the region, this time with Iran. If Iran’s retaliation for the Trump administration’s targeted killing of Tehran’s top commander, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, had resulted in the deaths of more Americans, Washington was, as Mr. Trump tweeted, “locked and loaded” for all-out confrontation.

“Why does the Middle East always seem to suck the U.S. back in? What is it about this troubled region that leaves Washington perpetually caught between the desire to end U.S. military involvement there and the impulse to embark on yet another Middle East war?

“As someone who has devoted four decades of his life to the study and practice of U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East, I have been struck by America’s inability over the past two administrations to resolve this dilemma. Previously, presidents of both parties shared a broad understanding of U.S. interests in the region, including a consensus that those interests were vital to the country—worth putting American lives and resources on the line to forge peace and, when necessary, wage war.

“Today, however, with U.S. troops still in harm’s way in Iraq and Afghanistan and tensions high over Iran, Americans remain war-weary. Yet we seem incapable of mustering a consensus or pursuing a consistent policy in the Middle East. And there’s a good reason for that, one that’s been hard for many in the American foreign-policy establishment, including me, to accept: Few vital interests of the U.S. continue to be at stake in the Middle East. The challenge now, both politically and diplomatically, is to draw the necessary conclusions from that stark fact.”

The Washington Post: “The idea that U.S. interests in the Middle East have decreased, and so should U.S. involvement, has been around for almost a decade. In a recent Wall Street Journal essay, Martin Indyk presented its best articulation so far. Indyk, a veteran diplomat who devoted most of his career to the protection of U.S. interests in the Middle East, argues that these interests are no longer vital and do not justify the current level of American involvement there.

“Oil from the Middle East no longer constitutes as significant a percentage of American energy consumption. Israel’s military prowess makes it more self-reliant than ever before. And the American quest for an Arab-Israeli peace is futile. This does not mean the United States should completely withdraw from the Middle East, Indyk writes, but it should find a realistic policy alternative commensurate with the reduced importance of the region.

“Indyk echoes not only President Trump’s repeated statements about the importance of disengaging from Middle Eastern conflicts but, more tellingly, President Barack Obama’s doctrine. During a lengthy interview with the Atlantic in 2016, Obama justified his position by arguing that United States has finite resources and has to choose where best to employ them. And, to his thinking, that would be Asia, not the Middle East. In Obama’s words, if the United States does not engage Asia because it is focused on ‘figuring out how to destroy or cordon off or control the malicious, nihilistic, violent parts of humanity,’ then it is ‘missing the boat.’

“Yet this view leaves out important parts of the story.”

The Atlantic: “America has Come Full Circle In The Middle East” — “In 1958, U.S. leaders stood at the threshold of an American era in the Middle East, conflicted about whether it was worth the trouble to usher in.

“A year earlier, in the context of the emergent Cold War and fading British and French power in the region, Dwight Eisenhower had articulated and received congressional approval for what became known as the Eisenhower doctrine. The United States had for the first time staked out national interests in the Middle East—oil, U.S. bases and allies, Soviet containment—and declared that it was prepared to defend them with military force.

“Sixty-two years before President Donald Trump dispatched a drone to Baghdad to kill Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, this is how American combat missions in the post–World War II Middle East began.”

This article was originally published on WBUR.org. [Copyright 2020 NPR]