While both Donald Trump and Barack Obama promised voters that they would reduce America’s involvement in the Middle East, neither succeeded in doing so, as U.S. interests have proved to be inextricably tied up with the region. Much better, Eric Edelman writes, for the incoming administration to reaffirm “the U.S. commitment to provide leadership in the region as it confronts its myriad problems, albeit with an understanding that the U.S will have to adjust its military presence to make its commitments more sustainable.” He adds some more specific recommendations for the president-elect:
The sense that the U.S. was absenting itself from the region has allowed Russia, Iran, and Turkey to establish themselves as arbiters of the region’s conflicts, with unhappy results. Meanwhile, China has also raised its profile in the region through its aggressive and predatory economic statecraft. A restatement that the region remains vital to the U.S. and that Washington sees the region as a part of, rather than a distraction from, great-power competition and that it continues to stand for freedom of the seas would be helpful.
Managing relations with traditional U.S. partners in the region including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Israel will present enormous challenges for the Biden team. . . .
Reasserting traditional U.S. values in the region does not mean coming down on partner governments like a proverbial ton of bricks, but rather pushing for greater rule of law, basic human freedoms, and good governance while continuing to work closely on the security issues where the U.S. and all three countries share common interests. It is a delicate balancing act to be sure, but it is what would best serve U.S. and regional interests in the long run.
Finally, if there is one thing that the Trump administration has demonstrated conclusively it is that the world will not end if the Palestinian issue is treated with benign neglect. The Trump peace plan, as Doug Feith and Lewis Libby have argued, was less an effort to produce a peace than one that lays the basis for an agreement in the future when Palestinian leaders have decided to become a nation and not a cause. It is probably too much to hope that the Biden administration would leave well enough alone, but it would be well served if it did just that.
Read more on Caravan: https://www.hoover.org/research/us-middle-east-policy-next-four-years