1

The United States

and the Middle East
by Marc Lynch

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken disembarks from his plane in Amman during his visit to Jordan amid the ongoing conflict between
Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on November 3, 2023. JONATHAN ERNST/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

A
merican hegemony has shaped the politics of the This Great Decisions essay explains the history of
Middle East for many decades. But in recent years, America’s role in the Middle East, discusses how condi-
that primacy has manifestly faded. Other great powers tions have changed in recent years, and then surveys the
such as Russia and China have made significant inroads, while critical interests and issues in regional politics. Can the U.S.
regional powers in the Middle East have demonstrated greater continue to defend its interests in the Middle East with a
independence from America. Three successive American presi- lower level of military and political involvement, or should
dents, who in most ways could not be more different, have made it recommit to a leading role in regional order?
clear in the aftermath of the disastrous occupation of Iraq their
preference to reduce military commitments in the Middle East MARC LYNCH is Professor of Political Science at The
to focus on competition with China. But extracting the United George Washington University, where he directs the Middle
States from the Middle East has proven difficult. The United East Studies Program for the Elliott School of International
States still has major interests in the region, including oil, Israel, Affairs. He is the director of the Project on Middle East
and the challenge posed by Iran. Furthermore, reductions in Political Science, and editor of the book series Columbia
America’s role often leads to destabilizing, unintended con- Studies in Middle East Politics. His recent books include
sequences. And crises such as the October 2023 war between The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New
Middle East and The New Arab Wars: Anarchy and Upris-
Israel and Hamas inevitably drag the United States back to ac-
ings in the Middle East.
tive conflict mediation, regardless of its preferences.

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1 The United States in the Middle East: A brief history
G R E A T D E C I S I O N S  2 0 2 4

Middle East. Middle Eastern regimes,

many of them newly independent, were
forced to choose sides in order to gain
access to arms sales, economic support
and political protection. These regimes
proved to be masters at couching their
local priorities in the language of so-
cialism or anti-communism, while the
superpowers worried that the loss of
any local ally could set of a cascade of
defections—the same “domino theory”
that brought the United States into the
Vietnam War.
For all the intense competition, re-
gimes changed sides only rarely. The
logic of bipolarity ensured that any
country changing sides would have
major implications for the perceived
regional and global balance of power.
Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh speaking forcefully to the crowd. He had just national- There were a few major shifts. Iraq’s
ized oil production and the last of the English had left the Abadan oil center on October 3, 1958 revolution moved it from a Brit-
1951. KEYSTONE-FRANCE/GETTY IMAGES
ish protectorate to an Arab national-
ist regime that would soon gravitate

T he deep entanglement between

America and the Middle East is a
fairly recent development. American
almost inconceivable damage to what
would become Libya. It was the Euro-
pean powers, not the United States, that
toward Moscow. Iran’s move toward
an independent foreign policy under
democratically elected Prime Minister
domination of the Middle East is a dis- were the main target of the national- Mossadegh, by contrast, was blocked
tinctly post-World War II phenomenon. ist and anticolonial movements which in 1952 through a coup supported by
Prior to WWII, the U.S. was mostly an swept the region after World War I. Great Britain and the United States. In
outsider; the European colonial pow- That did not last. America’s in- 1979, Egypt completed its transition
ers dominated the Middle East. The volvement in the Middle East escalated from Soviet ally to American ally as
Middle East, like much of the Global in tandem with the Cold War. Because part of its peace treaty with Israel, but
South, was shaped in those years by of its oil reserves and central location, in the same year the pro-American
the competition between European the Middle East quickly became a pri- Shah of Iran was overthrown in the
imperial powers. France dominated mary battlefield in the global struggle revolution that resulted in the creation
North Africa, along with much of the between the United States and the So- of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Re-
rest of Francophone West Africa, and viet Union. By the Suez crisis of 1956, public of Iran. These epochal changes
took power in Lebanon and Syria af- when the Eisenhower administration in regional order are the exceptions that
ter World War I. Great Britain played forced Britain and France to back down demonstrate the rule: most regional
a dominant role in Iran and controlled from their occupation of the Suez Ca- states, most of the time, were locked
both Egypt and the coastal areas of the nal, the U.S. had displaced the Euro- into a global alliance structure.
Arabian Peninsula, which were key pean powers in the Levant. France held Israel represented one of the key
transit points connecting it to colonial power a bit longer in North Africa, but flashpoints in this Cold War compe-
India. After World War I, London also finally admitted defeat in the Algerian tition. In both 1967 and 1973, wars
assumed control over Palestine, Trans war for independence in 1962; Britain between Israel and its Arab neighbors
jordan, and Iraq. Italy, in its quest to remained the primary power in the Gulf brought the United States and the So-
establish itself as a colonial power, did until 1971, when it officially ended its viet Union as close to direct conflict
imperial role. In the place of the com- as at any other point in the Cold War.

!
Before you read, download the companion petition among multiple colonial pow- Growing American support for Israel,
Glossary that includes definitions, a guide ers that had structured the previous particularly its airlift to resupply Israe-
to acronyms and abbreviations used in the century, a bipolar division of global li forces in the midst of the 1973 war,
article, and other material. Go to www.
politics between the United States badly complicated its relations with
fpa.org/great_decisions and select a
topic in the Resources section. (Top right) and the Soviet Union took hold in the its key Arab allies such as Saudi Ara-

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bia, which retaliated by installing the while demonstrating to its estranged Egypt in exchange for peace and secu-
OPEC oil blockade. The United States Arab allies that its mediation was the rity guarantees, marking the culmina-
used the shock waves of the 1973 war only way to force Israel to make con- tion of that diplomacy and establishing
to take on a lead role in the peace ne- cessions. The Camp David Accords, Washington as a hegemonic power in
gotiations following that war, seeking signed by Egypt and Israel in 1979, re- the center of the Middle East—even as
to exclude Moscow from the process turned the captured Sinai peninsula to the Iranian revolution struck a major

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blow to its position in the Gulf by turn- own and then shot down an Iranian pas- vinced a reluctant Saudi Arabia to host
ing its most powerful ally into a mortal senger jet, Iran finally agreed to a UN- U.S. troops. The liberation of Kuwait
enemy with revolutionary ambitions mediated ceasefire agreement, ending involved a multinational coalition of
across the region. the Middle East’s longest conventional more than half a million troops. It also
The United States became increas- war. Iraq, even as it received increasing laid the foundation for all the key pil-
ingly involved militarily in the Gulf U.S. economic and military support, lars of U.S. policy during its decades of
during the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88). It took advantage of the respite by carry- imperium in the region.
could hardly be indifferent to the larg- ing out a genocidal campaign against U.S. primacy was shaped by two
est conventional war in the region’s its Kurdish population in the north—a key dimensions following the libera-
modern history, even if the conflict in- horrifying war crime that had little im- tion of Kuwait. First, the Gulf War end-
volved Iraq (a long-time Soviet ally) pact on Washington’s efforts to woo it ed with Iraq’s Saddam Hussein still in
and Iran (fiercely anti-American since away from the Soviet Bloc. power, setting in motion a dozen years
the revolution). Nor was Washington of episodic confrontations over arms
prepared to move past the excruciating The era of American inspections, justifying the imposition
hostage crisis, which followed the 1979 primacy: From Bush to of some of the most draconian sanc-
seizure of the American Embassy in Clinton to Bush tions in human history, and leading
Tehran, or the new Islamic Republic’s The collapse of the Soviet Union and the United States to leave a significant
efforts to destabilize America’s allies the end of the Cold War in 1989 set number of troops in bases around the
in the Gulf. The U.S. encouraged the the stage for unprecedented American Gulf. To this day, Iraqis keenly remem-
creation of the Gulf Cooperation Coun- primacy in the region. It is important ber that the Bush administration called
cil, bringing together the six oil-rich to understand that prior to 1990, the on them to rise up against Saddam in
states of the Arabian Peninsula to pool U.S. had no permanent military bases the chaotic endgame of the war, only to
their resources for protection against in the Middle East and only rarely sent stand by and watch as Saddam’s forces
the two hostile warring powers. Rather its own forces to intervene; its role had slaughtered those who did. Since the
cynically, the United States played both always been offshore, working through U.S. also still needed to defend its Gulf
sides, secretly selling arms to Iran in local partners. When Saddam Hussein allies against Iran, the attempted “dual
exchange for the release of Hezbol- invaded Kuwait in the summer of 1990, containment” of Iraq and Iran required
lah-held hostages in Lebanon, while he had good reason to believe that the American military presence, given the
simultaneously providing increasing United States would not intervene— military weakness of the Gulf states.
amounts of aid to Iraq in the latter half an assumption that no Middle Eastern Second, obtaining Arab support for
of the decade. It only began to get di- leader would make for decades to fol- the war against another Arab power
rectly involved, however, when the low. After Iraq occupied Kuwait, the required that Washington demonstrate
war began to affect oil shipping in the United States built an international willingness to find a solution to the Is-
Gulf. In 1988, after the United States coalition that would never have been raeli-Palestinian conflict. After launch-
had reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers as its possible during the Cold War and con- ing a grand regional peace process
at Madrid in 1991, the U.S. oversaw
nearly a decade of intense negotiations
between Israel and the frontline Arab
actors: Jordan, Syria, and the Pales-
tinian Liberation Organization. Most
other Arab states took part in multilat-
eral negotiations over issues such as
the environment, water, and economic
development. This American-led peace
process established the Palestinian Au-
thority in Gaza and parts of the West
Bank, but after seven difficult years, the
talks ultimately failed to reach a final
status agreement at Camp David in the
final days of the Clinton administration.
The peace process played a role, how-
ever, even if it failed to achieve peace:
(Original Caption) 10/22/1980-Basra, Iraq- Iraqi troops riding in Soviet-made tanks head demonstrating effort allowed for the
for a pontoon bridge in an effort to cross the Karum River northeast of Khurramshahr. smoother functioning of an imperium
The smoke in the background is from the Abadan pipeline. Sporadic fighting continues
along the southern front in a month-old Gulf war, with Iraqi forces racing to build a 60- based on both Israel and a range of Arab
mile highway across the desert from Basra to consolidate their seige of the Iranian city of states that supported Palestinian claims.
Ahwaz. BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES

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The 1990s were the peak moment

A N D T H E M I D D L E E A S T
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of America’s Middle East, a decade
in which the U.S. dominated politi-
cal and security architecture in both
the Levant (rooted in the Egypt-Israel
Camp David peace agreement and the
Israeli-Palestinian peace process) and
the Gulf (built around military sup-
port to the Gulf Cooperation Council
states and the containment of both Iraq
and Iran). In those years, all roads led
through Washington. But that very
dominance sowed the seeds of insta-
bility to come. The sanctions on Iraq
generated a humanitarian disaster that
shocked the conscience of the world
and became increasingly unsustain-
able, even as Saddam Hussein forced
the end of the weapons inspections re-
gime and rebuilt his domestic authority.
The turbulent course of the Oslo pro- U.S. Marine Major Bull Gurfein pulls down a poster of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
March 21, 2003, in Safwan, Iraq. Chaos reigned in southern Iraq as coalition troops
cess built enormous frustrations with continued their offensive to remove Iraq’s leader from power. CHRIS HONDROS/GETTY IMAGES
the possibilities of Israeli-Palestinian
peace, which would soon collapse lessly effective insurgency that killed increased America’s presence in the re-
into an exceptionally brutal war. And millions of Iraqis and drove more than gion. Where only two decades earlier
American dominance made it an attrac- 10 million more into exile. The cost the United States had primarily worked
tive target for radical forces seeking to in American lives and treasure turned from offshore, it now became intimate-
challenge the regional order—a chal- much of the American public against ly involved in security and politics in
lenge that would manifest in the ter- such Middle Eastern wars, with signifi- unprecedented ways. The Global War
rorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda cant implications in the years to come. on Terror globalized the battlefield,
on September 11, 2001. The war also dramatically empowered leading the U.S. to cooperate closely
The 2001 terrorist attacks led the Iran by removing its primary military with Middle Eastern intelligence ser-
U.S. to aggressively attempt to reshape and political adversary, empowering its vices in the pursuit, interrogation, and
the Middle East through the Global local Shi’a allies, and allowing Iran and often torture of suspected al-Qaeda
War on Terror, the invasion of Iraq, and its allies to claim the mantle of “resis- militants. The accompanying “war of
a massively increased presence in the tance” to America’s hegemonic order. ideas” led Washington to call for signif-
region. It is, perhaps, puzzling that the In 2006, Iran’s ally Hezbollah fought icant changes in the most intimate areas
Bush administration attempted to radi- Israel to a stalemate, emerging as the of government and society: religious
cally transform a Middle Eastern order political victor from the carnage of a doctrines, educational curricula, me-
that had been built by the United States war that Secretary of State Condoleez- dia content, and more. The short-lived
itself. For some in the administration, za Rice optimistically called “the birth “freedom agenda” prescribing democ-
the shock of 9/11 had been so great that pangs of a new Middle East” based on racy as the cure for extremism saw the
it forced a rethinking of all policy as- Israeli-Arab cooperation against Iran. United States pushing for elections and
sumptions. For others, 9/11 opened an Simultaneously, the war transformed supporting civil society organizations
opportunity to pursue long-desired poli- al-Qaeda from a small transnational and oppositional political movement;
cies such as the overthrow of Saddam terrorist network into a deeply rooted that it retreated from democracy when
Hussein. Whatever the true reasons, mass insurgency that could fight and opposition forces such as Egypt’s Mus-
Washington’s new revisionist path up- kill Americans on the field of battle. lim Brotherhood or Palestine’s Hamas
ended regional politics with a whole And the revelations about U.S. abuses did well only made Washington look
range of unintended consequences. of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison more hypocritical.
Most significant was the invasion fueled a surge of anti-American senti- Arguments about American “retreat”
of Iraq and the disastrous occupation ment across virtually the entire region. from the Middle East typically use this
that followed. The overthrow of Sad- However, Iraq was only one part exceptional half decade as their baseline
dam Hussein left the Iraqi state shat- of a much larger transformation of the for a normal level of U.S. engagement
tered, creating the conditions for a region. It is difficult to exaggerate the with the region. But it is worth recalling
bloody sectarian civil war and a ruth- extent to which the post-2001 period how historically exceptional the mo-

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ment was, and how short-lived it proved eruption of the Arab uprisings, which economic woes. But the fully regional
to be. David Petraeus’ famous surge of revealed the limitations of not only nature of the uprising, spreading across
U.S. troops into Iraq from 2006–08 was U.S. primacy in the region but also of more than a dozen countries, deeply
intended to be temporary, a stopgap its ability to rely on its autocratic allies challenged what protestors understood
measure toward a U.S. drawdown. The to maintain order. to be the American-led regional order.
costs and failures of Iraq had soured the Today, after a decade of failures and They came at a time when American
American public on interventions in disaster, it is easy to forget how truly material power and international pres-
the Middle East. The Obama campaign revolutionary the first few months of tige had been badly damaged by the
made withdrawal from Iraq a central 2011 really were for the Middle East. toxic legacies of Iraq and the war on
plank, and once in power moved care- The protests that began in a small town terror, as well as by the global financial
fully toward a full withdrawal. The free- in the Tunisian periphery quickly es- crisis that had devastated economies
dom agenda faded away as democracy calated to mass demonstrations across across the world. These autocratic and
promotion lost its luster and authori- the country, ultimately leading to the abusive regimes were almost univer-
tarian allies regained their purchase. longtime President Zine el-Abedine sally American-backed, and it was the
Washington largely gave up on promot- Ben Ali fleeing the country. Coverage U.S. that underwrote the regional order
ing Israeli-Palestinian peace, leaving of Tunisia’s revolution on the Qatari enabling autocracy and corruption to
the situation to drift toward ever faster pan-Arab television station Al Jazeera, flourish. While the Obama administra-
Israeli settlements and Palestinian po- and excited discussions among young tion initially attempted to align the U.S.
litical stagnation. Arabs on social media, turbocharged with the popular aspirations for freedom
political excitement everywhere in the and democracy, it ran headlong into the
Obama: From the Arab Arab world. When Egyptians took to reality that the leaders threatened with
uprisings to the the streets on January 25, and less than overthrow were its own allies.
Iran nuclear deal three weeks later overthrew President In that revolutionary moment, re-
The Obama administration saw its mis- Hosni Mubarak, a fever gripped the en- gional powers began to take matters
sion as picking up the pieces from the tire region. Mass protests hit almost ev- into their own hands, intervening
wreckage of the Bush administration’s ery Arab city, from Morocco to Yemen; widely in pursuit of their own interests
excess. It scaled back the worst excess- only the wealthiest countries (such as and often acting against U.S. prefer-
es of the War on Terror, began a grad- Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia) and ences. In Egypt, the UAE and Saudi
ual withdrawal from Iraq, and sought the most recently traumatized (Algeria, Arabia backed a military coup against
to rebuild American relations with the Iraq) avoided mass mobilization. the elected Islamist President Moham-
moderate Muslim majority through a The Arab uprisings were primarily med el-Morsi, while in Tunisia they
major speech in Cairo. But the admin- driven by domestic concerns, by frustra- encouraged the rise of an anti-Islamist
istration’s regional experience would tion with nondemocratic and corrupt re- coalition to combat the Islamist En-
be most profoundly shaped by the 2011 gimes, and by the pressures of grinding nahda Party. The wealthy Gulf states
provided financial and political sup-
port to less-wealthy fellow monarchs
in Oman, Jordan, and Morocco, and
directly intervened in support of the
embattled Bahraini monarchy, help-
ing to clear the streets by force as
the regime launched a campaign of
sectarian repression. The Gulf states
also took the lead in pushing for mili-
tary intervention in Libya and Syria.
In some of these countries, the Gulf
states acted jointly with Washington,
namely in Yemen, where the U.S. co-
operated closely with Saudi Arabia
on a plan for transition away from
President Ali Abdullah Saleh. But in
many of the key cases—especially
Egypt—the UAE and Saudi Arabia
in particular worked directly against
Protestors gather in Tahrir Square on February 1, 2011, in Cairo, Egypt. Protests in Egypt American policies in ways that threw
continued with the largest gathering yet, with many tens of thousands assembling in central U.S. leadership into sharp question.
Cairo, demanding the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. PETER MACDIARMID/ These interventions quickly evolved
GETTY IMAGES

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into fierce competition for influence

A N D T H E M I D D L E

est in seeing the popular revolutions

E A S T

of several children who had scrawled

1
among these regional powers, with continue. Despite these differences, anti-regime graffiti. The protests rap-
devastating, polarizing effects. The the combination of Arab support for idly spread through Syria’s cities.
emergence of this intense competi- an intervention against Qaddafi and Each violent escalation by the regime
tion among regional powers, with the the reality of impending humanitarian drove more people into open revolt.
United States often seemingly fading catastrophe proved enough to cement Washington tried to walk a fine line,
into the background, is one of the most the widest military coalition in the re- expressing sympathy with the protes-
important dynamics of the post-2011 gion since the Gulf war. But even here, tors—most notably when Ambassador
period. It is critical to understand why regional leaders noted the American Robert Ford publicly visited one of the
U.S. allies took this path of open de- preference to “lead from behind,” of- protesting cities, and later when Obama
fiance. The alliance between the U.S. fering technical support and air power, declared that it was time for Assad to
and Arab allies had long been based but steadfastly refusing to deploy any step down—while also signaling that it
primarily on the U.S. guarantee of se- troops inside of Libya. While Qaddafi had no intention of intervening. Syria’s
curity, not just from external attack, but was ultimately toppled, and a shaky de- emerging opposition leadership, as well
also from internal overthrow. Leaders mocracy formed, the shocking assassi- as protestors on the ground, tended to
of the Middle East overwhelmingly nation of U.S. Ambassador Christopher hear the first message and not the sec-
prioritize regime survival, creating a Stephens a year later and the country’s ond, hoping that the recent intervention
direct link between their international rapid degeneration into civil war and in Libya would be replicated in Syria if
alliances and their domestic autocratic state failure proved a cautionary tale the violence truly got out of hand.
rule. In 2011, Arab leaders saw their
worst nightmares manifest. Washing-
ton’s rhetorical embrace of democratic
change in Egypt and Tunisia frightened
and enraged its other autocratic allies,
who worried that they too might be
abandoned should major protests erupt
in their capitals. These doubts about
American support for autocrats grew
when the U.S. hesitated to intervene di-
rectly in Syria to overthrow the regime
of Bashar al-Assad, and escalated even
more when the Obama administration
began direct negotiations with Iran
over its nuclear program. All of these
policies signaled to regional leaders
that Washington was abandoning them,
despite all U.S. efforts to reassure them
of its ongoing commitment to regional
stability and security. Opposition supporters pray in the rain March 4, 2011, in Benghazi, Libya. Thousands of
The NATO military intervention in protesters gathered for Friday prayers and listened to a call to arms to join the fight against
the government forces of leader Moammar Qaddafi to the west. JOHN MOORE/GETTY IMAGES
Libya initially represented a high mark
of cooperation in the early era of Arab
uprisings. Where the Gulf states and to Washington. In his memoir, Barack By the end of 2011, diplomacy had
the United States disagreed about so Obama singled out the aftermath of the run its course. Violence escalated dra-
much else, they shared a distaste for Libya intervention as one of his great- matically and the United Nations Secu-
Libya’s eccentric leader Moammar est foreign policy regrets, a sentiment rity Council failed to endorse a resolu-
al-Qaddafi. But Libya exposed the that clearly hung over subsequent deci- tion authorizing military intervention.
limits of their shared vision: America sions in Syria. Obama, whose view of the Middle
cared about the impending slaughter As bad as Libya became over the East had been profoundly shaped by
of opposition forces in Benghazi and following few years, it was Syria that the disastrous invasion and occupation
hoped to keep the Arab uprisings alive became the catastrophic epicenter of a of Iraq, was determined to avoid a di-
by preventing Qaddafi from killing his broader regional inferno. Syrian pro- rect military intervention and keenly
way out of the crisis; most Arab rul- testors initially found little traction in skeptical of any escalatory moves that
ers wanted to see their eccentric rival their calls for protest against Assad, but might facilitate such a disaster. The
toppled, but cared less about him kill- in mid-March, southern Syrians pro- administration considered arming the
ing his own people and had little inter- tested against the brutal police abuse Syrian opposition as a proxy force, as

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a middle ground between doing noth- Assad’s regime, further regionalizing the runup to an intervention, British
ing and directly intervening. While the conflict; Iran’s Islamic Revolution- Prime Minister David Cameron lost a
Washington deliberated, only funding ary Guard Corps (IRGC) and other Parliamentary vote in support of war.
covert small-scale programs provid- Shia proxy militias would soon join Obama’s efforts to persuade a skeptical
ing non-lethal support to the opposi- the fray as the Syrian conflict rapidly Congress divided between anti-Obama
tion, the Gulf states and Turkey opened internationalized. Within this chaotic Republicans and anti-war Democrats
the floodgates. These regional powers warscape, al-Qaeda in Iraq—rebranded were proving difficult. And Obama
shipped vast quantities of weaponry as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria himself had second thoughts, as he
and cash to Syrian opposition factions (ISIS)—surged on both sides of the clearly saw the slippery slope ahead
on the ground. While the United States border, as foreign fighters and weapons of him from air strikes to an Iraq-style
tried valiantly to coordinate these flows flowed easily from western Iraq to east- war of regime change. A Russian initia-
of weapons through a unified political ern Syria. In early 2013, ISIS turned its tive to secure Syria’s compliance with
structure, it proved unable to control guns against the other rebels, capturing an international plan to disarm and re-
the efforts of its allies. Qatar, Turkey significant swathes of territory and dis- move its chemical weapons presented
and Saudi Arabia—the three largest rupting the anti-Assad war effort. The an off-ramp, which Obama quickly
state backers of the Syrian insurgen- growing prominence of jihadists in the took. Obama could claim that the threat
cy—saw each other as competitors for opposition only increased American of war had forced Assad to give up his
control over the opposition and a future reservations about providing advanced chemical weapons, a victory for coer-
post-Assad Syria, and prioritized the weaponry –a fear that the insurgency’s cive diplomacy. But the only message
success of their own proxies and allies other backers did not seem to share. that Middle Eastern regimes received
over building a unified strategy. At the In the midst of these alarming devel- was that the U.S. had failed to follow
same time, massive flows of unregulat- opments, credible reports surfaced that through on its commitments—a blow
ed cash flooded out of the Gulf directly the Assad regime had used chemical to U.S. credibility that turbocharged
into the hands of Syrian factions on weapons at large scale against an op- the extant trend toward defiantly inde-
the ground, mostly going from Islamic position stronghold in the Damascus pendent policies and open disregard for
charities and religious figures into the suburb of East Ghouta. Obama had pre- American preferences.
most overtly Islamist and conservative viously declared the use of chemical It is ironic indeed, then, that less than
Syrian groups. weapons a “red line,” and in Septem- a year later the United States would
The results were catastrophic. Over ber 2013—after nearly three years of launch a major military campaign in
the course of 2012, millions of Syrians resisting escalation—the White House Syria—only the target would be the
were displaced from their homes and began mobilizing support for air strikes Islamic State, not the Assad regime.
almost indescribable destruction in- and other military action against the Three factors forced Obama’s hand:
flicted by both the regime’s forces and Assad regime. European and Middle First, the dramatic declaration by ISIS
by the different insurgency factions. As Eastern allies embraced this promise of leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of a new
the rebels advanced toward Damascus, more muscular intervention, believing Caliphate following the shocking con-
the Lebanese Shia Islamist movement that they would finally see the prom- quest of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest
Hezbollah intervened in support of ised regime change delivered. But in city. Second, the rapid momentum of
ISIS forces toward Baghdad and Iraqi
Kurdistan. And, finally, the threatened
slaughter of the fleeing Yezidi commu-
nity. The United States partnered with
the Iraqi government—and quietly co-
operated with Iran, the primary exter-
nal force in post-occupation Iraq—to
rebuild the Iraqi military and assist it in
a slow, difficult military campaign. The
intervention coincided with Russia’s
brutal direct intervention into Syria in
defense of Assad. Russian and Ameri-
can aircraft carefully avoided each
other as each carried out massive (and
ultimately successful) parallel military
campaigns.
Syrian anti-government protesters gather in Banias on April 29, 2011, during the “Day Finally, in the midst of this regional
of Rage” demonstrations called by activists to pressure President Bashar al-Assad as his turmoil, traditional American policy
regime continued a violent crackdwon on dissent. AFP/GETTY IMAGES concerns continued to demand atten-

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tion. In 2013, Obama secretly initiated

A N D T H E M I D D L E E A S T
1
direct negotiations with Iran over its
nuclear program, ultimately resulting
in high profile public negotiations and
an agreement on the 2015 Joint Com-
prehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
These negotiations reflected the high
priority Obama placed on preventing
Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons,
as well as his determination to avoid
a catastrophic war with Iran, which he
believed would profoundly destabilize
the region. While Israel and the Gulf
states shared Washington’s interest
in containing the Iranian nuclear pro-
gram, they sharply disagreed with the
diplomatic approach and worked hard
to undermine the talks. The Gulf states
U.S. President Donald Trump (C) makes his way to board Air Force One in Riyadh as he
in particular viewed Iran’s regional and the First Lady head to Israel on May 22, 2017. MANDEL NGAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
activities as a far greater threat than a
hypothetical nuclear program, chafing
at the exclusion of issues such as Iran’s toward Iran, he declined to authorize murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi
support for Assad in Syria, Hezbollah the military strikes that his hawkish put an exclamation point on the admin-
in Lebanon, Shia militias and political allies at home and in the region advo- istration’s complete disregard for the
parties in Iraq, and the Houthi rebel cated. He even pushed to remove U.S. human rights and democratic ideals
movement in Yemen. Obama overcame troops from Syria. that the United States typically claimed
such resistance, in part by assuaging Still, Trump’s election had immedi- to defend.
Gulf concerns through major new arms ate and wide-ranging repercussions for Perhaps Trump’s most destabilizing
sales and offering reluctant support for America’s Middle East policy. Trump decision was to pull the United States
the Saudi-led military intervention in broke with tradition to make Riyadh his out of the JCPOA, despite Iran’s full
Yemen. While Obama could not get first foreign visit. Almost immediately compliance with the agreement, and to
the JCPOA ratified by a hostile Senate afterward, Saudi Arabia and the UAE impose a new wave of draconian sanc-
as an official treaty, it proved highly launched a bewildering blockade of tions under the label “maximum pres-
successful. Iran complied fully with Qatar in a dramatic escalation of their sure.” This move seriously damaged
provisions forcing it to surrender its post-2011 proxy warfare and political America’s already-weakened credibil-
nuclear materials and allow intrusive competition. This intra-Gulf escalation ity, both in the region and globally.
international inspections and oversight was a disaster from the perspective of Predictably, the new sanctions failed
into its nuclear activities. American interests. Not only was Gulf to compel Iran to agree to new terms.
unity essential for an effective strategy Instead, it resumed enrichment activity
Trump toward Iran, but Qatar housed a major and sought ways to circumvent sanc-
Most observers in the region (as in American air base threatened by in- tions; by the time Trump left office,
Washington) assumed that Hillary creased chaos in the region. Iran was far closer to nuclear weapons
Clinton would continue the Obama ad- The blockade of Qatar had ramifica- capability than ever before. Iran’s re-
ministration’s general trajectory in the tions far beyond the Arabian Peninsula. gional activities only continued to ex-
Middle East. The surprise election of Proxy competitions between the rival pand, with the controversial U.S. assas-
Donald Trump, who had campaigned Middle Eastern powers intensified, sination of IRGC commander Qassem
on bellicose rhetoric hostile toward most notably in Libya, where the UAE Suleimani on Iraqi soil barely making
the Iranian nuclear deal and Muslims and Egypt backed a major offensive led a dent.
but had kept his actual policy positions by General Khalifa Haftar against rival Trump’s other major Middle East
vague, upended those assumptions. Not factions backed by Turkey and Qatar. initiative was a full-scale push to
everything changed, however. Trump Trump’s support for the Saudi-UAE achieve Arab-Israeli normalization
continued the war against the Islamic coalition also escalated the war in Ye- without resolving the Palestinian is-
State that Obama had begun, and most- men, as well as its draconian economic sue. Trump took a series of pro-Israeli
ly emulated his predecessor’s aversion blockade, causing tremendous humani- steps, recognizing Israeli sovereignty
to direct U.S. military intervention in tarian suffering while achieving little. over the Golan Heights and moving the
the region. Despite his vocal hostility His willingness to overlook the Saudi U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, while ig-

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G R E A T D E C I S I O N S  2 0 2 4

Israel and the Palestinians, especially

as an extremely right-wing Israeli gov-
ernment moves toward annexation of
the occupied territories.
Ultimately, the most significant de-
cision by the Trump administration for
the U.S. role in the Middle East may
prove to be neither the JCPOA depar-
ture or the Abraham Accords. The war
in Yemen was spilling over as Houthi
rebels and other Iranian-backed groups
increasingly launched missiles and
other attacks at targets in Saudi Arabia
and the UAE. In 2019, a drone attack
presumably carried out by Iran tar-
geted the Abqaiq oil refineries in Saudi
Arabia, temporarily shutting down
The Israeli and United States flags are projected on the walls of the ramparts of Jerusalem's
Old City to mark one year since the transfer of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem Saudi oil production and shipping.
on May 15, 2019. AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES The Trump administration, despite its
bellicose rhetoric toward Iran, opted
noring the Palestinian leadership. The rael and moved toward an open stra- to not retaliate. While that decision
administration soon unveiled a peace tegic alliance. The Abraham Accords likely ended a cycle of escalation that
plan, labeled “the deal of the century,” represented an effort to prove that the could have ended in disaster, it deeply
which completely ignored Palestinian Palestinian issue no longer mattered shocked the Gulf states. If Trump—the
interests and demands to offer perpet- in regional politics and that Israel and most pro-Saudi and hawkish President
ual Israeli control of the West Bank and the Arab states could—and should— in history—would not respond militar-
token Palestinian autonomy; it rapidly openly cooperate against Iran. While ily to a direct Iranian attack on Saudi
disappeared without a trace. More en- the Abraham Accords proved enduring, oil, then when could the United States
during were the Abraham Accords, in and the Biden administration would ever be counted upon? That moment
which the United Arab Emirates and later embrace and desperately seek to would undoubtedly spur their moves
Bahrain (later joined by Morocco and expand them, they proved limited in to diversify their international alliances
Sudan) normalized relations with Is- the face of the recurrent crises between that unfolded over the next few years.

Today’s Middle East: Biden and the next administration

T he Biden administration did not
dramatically change some of
Trump’s key policies, but it did preside
democracy than had Trump, and made
no serious efforts to push Israel toward
making peace with the Palestinians.
tarian assistance. The United States
failed to rejoin the nuclear agreement
with Iran that Trump had abandoned,
over a rapid regional de-escalation. The Biden administration therefore but did work quietly to reduce tensions
Within months of Biden’s inauguration, opted for a somewhat minimalist strat- and slow down Iran’s nuclear enrich-
Saudi Arabia and the UAE ended their egy in its first two years. It worked qui- ment efforts. After some early efforts
blockade of Qatar, and shortly there- etly to de-escalate most of the region’s to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for
after mended ties with Turkey. Early simmering conflicts. The UAE, Saudi the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi,
tensions with Saudi Arabia caused by Arabia, and Egypt mostly reconciled Washington pivoted toward an attempt
Biden’s fierce campaign rhetoric about their differences with Turkey and Qa- to rebuild bridges with Riyadh.
its human rights record and destabiliz- tar, with the blockade on the latter end- When Russia invaded Ukraine, it
ing activities soon gave way to a full- ing days after Biden took office. Lib- shifted the place of the Middle East
scale (and somewhat puzzling) U.S. ya’s civil war stabilized into an uneasy within Washington’s broader global
effort to bring the Saudis into the Abra- truce with the country divided between strategy, which now entailed forming
ham Accords. The U.S. did not quickly two hostile governments, but for the a global coalition in defense of Ukraine
rejoin the JCPOA, with drawn out ne- most part avoiding active fighting. Iran, and the liberal international order. Most
gotiations ultimately failing to restore Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and their of America’s Middle East allies—in-
the agreement that had been Obama’s partners on the ground, mostly honored cluding Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Tur-
crowning achievement. Biden showed a ceasefire in Yemen’s intractable war key, and Israel—chose instead to hedge
no more interest in human rights or and allowed for some limited humani- their bets. The preference of longtime

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American allies to maintain ties with

A N D T H E M I D D L E E A S T
1
Russia, even under extreme circum-
stances, was emblematic of how the
global environment had changed from
the peak of American primacy. Those
changes were even more apparent in the
Middle East, where China signed new
strategic partnership agreements and in-
vestment deals with regional states on a
seemingly daily basis. The United States
remains the most powerful external ac-
tor in the Middle East, but it manifestly
is no longer in a position to unilaterally
order regional politics. Regional powers
today see a multipolar world in which
they can diversify their alliances, play
external powers against each other in
search of a better deal, and openly defy
American policies without paying a sig- U.S. President Joe Biden (with Secretary of State Blinken) delivers remarks on the attacks
nificant price. in Israel at the White House, October 7, 2023. YURI GRIPAS/NEWSCOM
The Biden administration’s core
strategy in the region, perhaps surpris- while angry public protests erupted lation of interests, however, there have
ingly, was to build on Trump’s Abra- across the rest of the Middle East and been some clear changes in U.S. pri-
ham Accords through a complex deal Arab leaders rebuffed American calls orities. Three successive Presidents—
to normalize relations between Saudi to support Israel or to accept Gazan Obama, Trump, and Biden—have
Arabia and Israel. It viewed such a deal refugees. made clear their belief that America
as a way to counter China’s growing faces greater threats to its vital national
role in the region, rebuild America’s Choices for the interests from China, and that the U.S.
strategic relationship with its Gulf al- next administration should reduce its presence in the Middle
lies, and enhance Israel’s security; crit- What does this new global environ- East in order to focus on Asia. And all
ics warned that a deal that ignored the ment mean for the United States and three Presidents have shared a deep
Palestinian issue would only set the the Middle East? Does the United interest in avoiding another Iraq-style
stage for more conflict to come. The States still have enduring interests in major war in the Middle East.
critics were soon proved right. the region? And can it secure those in- But the new global and regional
Biden’s efforts to rebuild an terests at a level of political and mili- environment complicates all of those
American-led regional order shat- tary commitment that it is willing and assumptions. The world now looks less
tered on October 7, 2023, when able to pay? unipolar than it once did, as China’s
Hamas launched a shocking incur- Traditionally, three primary interests economic role in the region relentlessly
sion into southern Israel, breaking have engaged the United States in the expands and Russia offers a military
through the security perimeter to Middle East: the free and predictable alternative to the American-led order.
rampage through villages and kib- flow of oil at reasonable prices; the se- Power within the Middle East has
butzim, killing nearly 2,000 people. curity of Israel; and the prevention of shifted to the Gulf, Iran, and Turkey
Israel responded by imposing a com- threats to the United States, such as rather than the traditional Arab powers.
plete blockade on Gaza, cutting off Soviet inroads during the Cold War or Almost every Arab regime outside the
water, power, and food, and carrying terrorism and Iranian nuclear weapons Gulf sits upon a tinderbox of furious
out an exceptionally fierce bombing in more recent years. Those interests re- citizens tired with economic struggles
campaign across the densely popu- main. The American economy remains and political repression at home and the
lated Strip. At the time of this writ- highly sensitive to oil prices, even as it slaughter of Palestinians abroad. The
ing, Israeli troops are massed outside has become a leading energy producer Israeli-Palestinian conflict, far from
of Gaza for an expected land offen- itself. For all the tensions in the U.S.- being a relic of the past, has proven to
sive, while conflict escalates across Israeli relationship, there remains a once again be the most disruptive and
the West Bank and with Hezbollah broad bipartisan commitment to close difficult issue facing the region today.
across the border in Lebanon. Amer- and strong relations. And Washington And the United States has proven un-
ica found itself increasingly isolated continues to work to prevent an Iranian able to extricate itself from the region
in its support for Israel as the hu- nuclear weapon or a new wave of jihad- despite nearly two decades of efforts in
manitarian catastrophe became clear, ist terrorism. Within that broad constel- that direction.

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tionally considered to be American values, the targest of their rage

Discussion questions were almost all American allies. Should the United States prioritize
its alliance or its values in the Middle East?

1.The United States has traditionally pursued several major inter- 4.The Trump administration negotiated the Abraham Accords nor-
ests in the Middle East, including the free flow of oil, the security malizing relations between Israel and several Arab states on the
of Israel, and fighting terrorism. Are these still the most important premise that the Palestinian issue no longer mattered. Does that
and relevant issues for the American national interest? assumption seem correct in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023,
Hamas attack on Israel and the Israeli war on Gaza which followed?
2.The Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq continues to
hang over discussions of American Middle East policy. In retrospect, 5.Since at least 1991, the United States has been the dominant
did the overthrow of Saddam Hussein advance the interests of the power in the Middle East. In recent years, that primacy has been
United States and its regional allies? Did it achieve its objectives? challenged by the rise of China and Russia, declining American
involvement, and increasing independence of America’s regional
3.The Arab uprisings of 2011 unleashed a massive wave of protests allies. Are we now living in a multipolar Middle East, or is the
demanding democracy, justice, and freedom. While those are tradi- United States still the primary power in the region?

Suggested readings
Kim Ghattas’s The Black Wave offers a sweeping perspective on
Michael Oren’s Six Days of War offers a detailed, compelling the regional impact of the 1979 Iranian revolution. Marc Lynch’s
narrative of the 1967 war and its aftermath, while Martin Indyk’s The Arab Uprising and The New Arab Wars detail the transfor-
biography of Henry Kissinger, Master of the Game, shows how mative effects of ther 2011 Arab revolutions. Mona el-Ghobashy’s
Washington exploited the 1973 war to cement its primacy. Tom Bread and Freedom offers one the best accounts of the dizzying
Ricks’ Fiasco delivers a riveting account of the invasion and oc- years of revolution and counterrevolution in Egypt. Christopher
cupation of Iraq. Steven Simon’s The Grand Delusion challenges Phillips’s The Battle for Syria gives a dispassionate and sharply
the assumptions that have underlined America’s long involvement analytical account of the region’s greatest catastrophe; Rania Abou-
in the region. Rashid Khalidi’s The One Hundred Year War on zaid’s No Turning Back and Wendy Pearlman’s We Crossed a
Palestine offers an authoritative Palestinian perspective on the Bridge and it Trembled offer profoundly human accounts of the
costs of American primacy. war’s devastating effects on Syrian civilians.

Don’t forget to vote!

Download a copy of the ballot questions from the
Resources page at www.fpa.org/great_decisions

To access web links to these readings, as well as links to

additional, shorter readings and suggested web sites,
GO TO www.fpa.org/great_decisions
and click on the topic under Resources, on the right-hand side of the page.

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