The question of how US foreign policy in the Middle East is evolving has preoccupied researchers since the signing of the nuclear deal with Iran in 2015. This agreement reflected a pattern of strategic change to phase out US commitments to its strategic partners and allies in the Gulf region in particular and the Middle East in general.
Doubts and speculation about this direction increased during the tenure of former President Donald Trump, who merely expressed his country’s commitment to its historic partnerships in the region, while the political conduct of his administration took a completely different direction.
However, in many situations, he merely showed verbal support to partners without asserting actual US commitment to these partnerships. President Joe Biden, at the beginning of his term in January, expressed his desire to regain US leadership in the global order and to resume coordination and cooperation with his country’s partners, including, of course, those in the Middle East.
But these developments reflect the new administration’s desire to focus on the Far East, at the center of the future strategic conflict with China. This may have been fueled to some extent by the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak, which produced new parameters that were certainly not part of the US presidential team’s strategic calculus during its campaign.
But there are also signs that Biden is moving in a similar direction to that of former President Barack Obama’s administration, which promised at the beginning of his term to open a new chapter in Arab-American relations.
This is also true of President Biden, who delayed telephone communications with countries in the region, including Israel, the closest US ally, when he took office. There are various reasons for the delay in traditional communication between the new US President Biden and the leaders of Middle Eastern countries.
But all indications are that US engagement in the region has changed and will continue to change. For example, the US position on the strategic partnership with Saudi Arabia became clear after the first phone call between US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan.
“Saudi Arabia is an important security partner,” Blinken tweeted. “We remain committed to bolstering Saudi Arabia’s defenses and finding a political settlement to the conflict in Yemen,” he added. But the reality is that commitments have largely not been translated into action, as events have unfolded.
It is true that the Middle East is no longer a top priority for the US of America. This is with the exception of the Iranian nuclear issue, which already occupies much of the current administration’s thinking and effort, and the absolute commitment to ensuring the security of ally Israel, also struggling to convince Washington of the seriousness of the strategic threats it faces.
Washington is focused on promoting stability in the Middle East at this point, but that does not preclude other strategic approaches that can achieve its primary goals. These include trying to contain the Iranian nuclear threat by reviving the nuclear deal, expanding the partners in the Abrahamic accords between Israel and the Arab countries, ending the differences among Arab countries, and persuading the Arabs and Israel to limit strategic cooperation with China and Russia.
But these approaches do not guarantee the security of key allies like Israel, which feels real threats from Iran’s direct and indirect military presence in Syria and Lebanon. Recently, the State Department confirmed that President Joe Biden’s administration has no intention of ending the US military presence in the Middle East.
Amid recent misinformation on the subject, security partnerships will continue, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Joey Hood said at a recent conference on Middle East security. The permanent US military presence in the region has existed for more than 70 years, he added.
The diplomat reiterated the US commitment to free trade and freedom of navigation to prevent any disruption to the US and global economies.
The speech did not deny that there is some restructuring of the US military presence in the Middle East to reflect the changing circumstances and threats in the region that Washington says it wants to adapt to. In other statements by State Department advisor Derek Chollet, things are even clearer.
He said his country is reviewing the size of the US military presence in the Middle East in light of its capabilities and security needs. Given global challenges and limited resources, the goal is to right-size the military presence so that it is sufficiently present and capable of protecting US interests and achieving common goals without unbalancing requirements elsewhere, he said.
The Pentagon, at the request of President Joe Biden, is examining the possibility of changing the US military presence in all regions, the adviser said.
The Middle East, Europe, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific are the focus of US foreign policy, with 40,000 to 50,000 troops deployed, a lot of military bases there, and that is important for the Middle East, he added. All of this confirms two important facts.
First, the Biden administration does not want to completely abandon the US military presence in the Middle East, but to maintain a limited deployment that meets US strategic interests without regard to the interests of allies and strategic partners.
The second fact is that President Biden’s approach is not out of concern for partnerships and alliances with countries in the region, but by viewing this presence as one of the pillars for implementing Biden’s slogan “America is back.”
