American involvement in the Middle East is not ending, but it is changing. Many Americans, including many policymakers and pundits, want the United States to have less involvement in the region. But the Middle East will continue to matter for decades to come, and here’s why.
On Monday, the Trump administration said it would approve the sale of F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia. The decision was announced while Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman was on a diplomatic visit. U.S.-Saudi defense ties received another boost with the announcement that the kingdom would be designated a “major non-NATO ally,” joining the ranks of Japan, Argentina, and Israel.
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The week before Salman’s visit, the new ruler of Syria, Ahmed al Shaara, was also received at the White House. His appearance represented a possible shift in U.S.-Syrian relations. Both visits marked significant changes in Washington’s relations with key Middle Eastern nations. And both underscored an important fact: the Middle East remains a crucial region for American interests.
In recent years, administrations of various stripes have called for a “pivot to the Pacific.” Such calls have reflected an America that is war-weary and exhausted from spending blood and treasure in the Middle East. But they have also acknowledged concerns of a rising and increasingly powerful China. The Pentagon has noted that Beijing is its “sole pacing challenge” — and for good reason. Only China, with all its military and economic might, can compete with the U.S. Only China has the means to supplant America as the world’s sole superpower.
This growing great power competition is changing America’s defense posture. But the U.S. still has vital interests in the Middle East.
For decades, the U.S. has looked to its allies and partners in the Middle East to supply its energy needs. In recent years, however, America has become increasingly energy independent. On the surface, it seems that the U.S. will need the Middle East less. But this isn’t so.
To deter, and if necessary, win a war with China in the Indo-Pacific, the U.S. will need to retain and, if possible, expand its alliances in the Far East. And many of those countries, such as China, are energy dependent. They will continue to rely on the Middle East for their energy needs. Accordingly, the country that can best project power in the Middle East will have a say, perhaps even a decisive one, in the Pacific. Washington has been here before.
At the dawn of the last Cold War, the U.S. was a net energy exporter. As the historian Daniel Yergin noted in his classic 1990 book, The Prize, the U.S. led in energy power of the first half of the 20th century — a fact that, not coincidentally, coincided with its rise to superpower status. But in the early years of the Cold War, Europe was energy starved. The U.S. recognized that the Middle East would be crucial to making up the shortfall, particularly against a foe, the Soviet Union, that was a petrostate.
In short, the U.S. was initially a chief energy exporter, but nonetheless recognized that the Middle East was crucial to both our energy-dependent European allies and the many in Europe whom we sought to sway to our side. This is not unlike the present situation, but with the Pacific as a substitute.
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We live in a rapidly changing world, but the Middle East will remain what it has long been: a key battleground for great power competition.
Sean Durns is a senior research analyst for the 65,000-member, Boston-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis.
