Iran war forces America to rethink its 25-year Middle East footprint

Iran war forces America to rethink its 25-year Middle East footprint

The war that could finally change America's Middle East strategy

For 25 years, America has repeatedly talked about getting out of the Middle East.

And for 25 years, something has always pulled it back in.

Now the Iran war may finally be forcing Washington to ask a much bigger question:

Does America still need tens of thousands of troops and a huge network of permanent bases across the region?

Behind the scenes, military and intelligence officials have reportedly been discussing a substantially smaller American presence if President Donald Trump succeeds in ending the conflict with Iran.

No formal withdrawal order has been issued.

But the fact that officials are already examining the possibility tells its own story.

The price of staying

The United States still has roughly 50,000 troops and major military assets scattered across the Middle East, including aircraft carriers and more than a dozen guided-missile destroyers.

Those bases have provided America with the ability to launch aircraft, conduct intelligence operations and respond rapidly to crises.

But the Iran war has exposed their biggest weakness.

They can be attacked.

American installations in Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan and the UAE have come under Iranian missile and drone attack during the conflict.

Some facilities have suffered substantial damage.

A CIA facility in Riyadh was reportedly effectively destroyed.

Suddenly, the permanent American footprint doesn't look quite so permanent.

Twenty-five years after 9/11

The current debate is rooted in the enormous military expansion that followed the September 11 attacks.

Before 9/11, America had roughly 27,000 active-duty troops across the Middle East.

Two years after the attacks, during the invasion of Iraq, that number had exploded to an estimated 250,000.

Between 2007 and 2011, the American presence remained around 100,000 or more.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were followed by campaigns against terrorist organisations across Syria, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere.

Presidents repeatedly promised to reduce America's involvement.

Then something happened.

ISIS appeared.

Iranian proxies attacked American troops.

New crises erupted.

And Washington was pulled back in.

The much-discussed American “pivot” away from the Middle East became something of a running joke inside national security circles.

Now the bases themselves are under fire

The Iran war has changed the calculation.

American planners are now examining whether some facilities should be rebuilt, hardened or simply abandoned.

There is even renewed consideration of moving parts of some installations underground to protect personnel and equipment from missile and drone attacks.

That sounds like something from a Cold War bunker movie.

But it reflects a very modern problem.

Iran has demonstrated that relatively cheap drones and missiles can threaten enormously expensive military infrastructure.

And rebuilding destroyed facilities could cost billions.

Maybe America doesn't need to live there

One of the more radical ideas being discussed is that some intelligence and special operations missions might not require permanent American bases at all.

Personnel and equipment could remain in the United States and be sent to the Middle East for specific operations when required.

Then they go home.

It would represent a fundamental change in the way America has operated in the region since 9/11.

Instead of:

Build a base. Station troops. Keep them there.

The model could become:

Keep the force at home. Deploy it when needed.

That would be a very different America.

Trump has always wanted out

The political calculation matters too.

Trump has long expressed frustration with America's expensive overseas military commitments and has built part of his political identity around putting American interests first.

Officials are therefore trying to anticipate what a post-war Middle East might look like under a president whose position can change rapidly.

There is no official force-posture review underway, according to the reporting.

Instead, officials across the military and intelligence community are quietly examining possible options.

In Washington, that can be just as significant.

But Iran isn't going away

There is one enormous problem with planning the post-war Middle East while the war is still being fought.

The war isn't over.

Iran continues to threaten American forces and bases in the region.

US forces remain forward deployed.

The Navy is still operating around the Strait of Hormuz.

And America's top naval officer has already made clear that US personnel will not be returning to Bahrain — home of the US Fifth Fleet — “anytime soon.”

So Washington is simultaneously preparing for a possible smaller Middle East footprint while maintaining a substantial military presence in the middle of an active conflict.

The great American pivot — again

There is a familiar pattern here.

Obama tried to turn America's attention towards Asia.

Trump's first administration identified China as America's principal strategic competitor.

Yet the Middle East kept demanding attention.

Afghanistan.

Iraq.

ISIS.

Iran.

Israel.

The Gulf.

And now the biggest direct confrontation with Iran in decades.

Every time Washington announces its great Middle East exit, reality seems to have other plans.

This time could be different

But the Iran war may have created a genuinely different calculation.

America has discovered that its huge network of bases is both an enormous strategic asset and an enormous vulnerability.

Regional allies are being asked to shoulder more of the defence burden.

Some damaged facilities may never be rebuilt.

Some missions could be conducted from the United States.

And some installations may be hardened or moved underground for the forces that remain.

The objective would not necessarily be to abandon the Middle East.

It would be to stop living there militarily.

The post-9/11 era may finally be ending

That could ultimately prove to be one of the most important consequences of the Iran war.

The September 11 attacks transformed America's military and intelligence presence across the Middle East.

A quarter of a century later, an entirely different threat — missiles and drones from Iran — is forcing Washington to reconsider the architecture created in response to those attacks.

The question is no longer simply whether America can defeat Iran.

It is whether, after the shooting stops, America wants to rebuild the same Middle East military machine that the war has just demonstrated can be attacked.

For Washington, that could be the biggest strategic decision of the entire Iran conflict.

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