According to this, it's a stepping stone. They need to neutralize countries that are not co-operating -- Iran, maybe Syria ... https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2025-december-10/ The opening paragraph of the Middle East section in the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy 2025 (NSS), released last week, asserts that Trump intends, as have his past few predecessors, to pivot the focus of U.S. policy from the Middle East to other national security threats. Laying out Trump’s case for de-emphasizing the region, the document states: “For half a century at least, American foreign policy has prioritized the Middle East above all other regions. The reasons are obvious: the Middle East was for decades the world’s most important supplier of energy, was a prime theater of superpower competition, and was rife with conflict that threatened to spill into the wider world and even to our own shores. Today, at least two of those dynamics no longer hold. Energy supplies have diversified greatly, with the United States once again a net energy exporter. According to the document, “Syria remains a potential problem, but with American, Arab, Israeli, and Turkish support, may stabilize and reassume its rightful place as an integral, positive player in the region.” According to the strategy: “…the days in which the Middle East dominated American foreign policy in both long-term planning and day-to-day execution are thankfully over — not because the Middle East no longer matters, but because it is no longer the constant irritant, and potential source of imminent catastrophe, that it once was.”
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