America Must Let Go of the Middle East

The war with Iran is an epic disaster. The United States and Israel launched an unnecessary campaign that has violated international law, killed at least 1,700 Iranian civilians (including 307 children), caused widespread damage to civilian infrastructure, and deepened regional turmoil. Iran’s retaliation has killed 18 U.S. troops and injured more than 600 on bases in neighboring countries, and people around the world are still reeling from the spike in energy prices caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. This war is the latest consequence of a series of U.S. policy choices over the last 35 years that have made the United States less safe and intensified conflict across the Middle East. Those failures stem from the U.S. military presence in the region, which has fed Washington’s mistaken belief that it must continually launch wars and intervene in ongoing conflicts to advance U.S. security. Welcoming American bases and troops onto their territory has also made host countries more vulnerable, exposing them to direct attacks from Iran and Iranian-backed groups. For decades, the United States has acted as though its military presence in the Middle East were essential to American strategic interests and regional security. It has sought to protect partners such as Israel and the Gulf states, check Iran and other adversaries, and combat terrorism. In practice, the U.S. military posture has contributed to instability and destruction. Nowhere is this clearer than in the campaign against Iran; the war has generated the very dangers it was meant to prevent. It is long past time for the United States to withdraw its forces from the Middle East, stop arming governments that violate U.S. and international law, and end its role as guarantor of regional order. Doing so would free Washington to concentrate on higher-priority objectives, including deterring great-power war in Asia and Europe. BLOOD AND TREASURE Although the United States has long been engaged in the Middle East, the Gulf War of 1990-91 cemented the U.S. military role in the region. What started as the high point of post–Cold War American power—organizing an international coalition to end Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait—turned into a decades-long obligation. Successive administrations have kept tens of thousands of personnel in the region, believing that a standing force would protect the free flow of energy, support Israel, combat terrorist groups, and deter Iran. Currently, about 2,000 troops are stationed in Iraq; 2,300 in Saudi Arabia; 3,500 in the United Arab Emirates; 4,000 in Jordan; 8,000 in Bahrain; 10,000 in Qatar; and 13,000 in Kuwait. The precise numbers and locations have ebbed and flowed over the years, but that presence has remained enormous, sprawling, and deeply embedded. Yet a military footprint can itself become a liability, exposing host countries to reprisal and drawing the United States into local conflicts. With bases scattered across the region, threats to American interests are constant, and each one becomes a new argument for enlarging the footprint. The United States’ occupation of Iraq after the 2003 invasion, for instance, not only mired U.S. forces in a long and bloody conflict but also made them vulnerable to Iranian-backed militias, prompting retaliatory U.S. operations in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. Meanwhile, the war in Afghanistan spilled into Pakistan, where the United States carried out hundreds of drone strikes against militants attacking American troops across the border. After largely extricating itself from Iraq in 2011, the United States had to send troops back in 2014 to fight the Islamic State, or ISIS, which emerged from the post-invasion chaos. The cost has been steep. The United States spent $8 trillion fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other theaters as part of its post-9/11 “war on terror.” According to research at Brown University, roughly three million Americans served in those conflicts, in which more than 15,000 service members and contractors were killed and 1.8 million troops were disabled. People across the region have suffered—and continue to suffer—the consequences. More than 940,000 have died from direct violence, including 432,000 civilians; 3.6 million died from the indirect effects of state collapse in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, and Yemen; and 38 million have been displaced. But numbers alone cannot convey the human toll, as seen through the eyes of children who have lost their parents, families who have lost their homes, and a generation whose chance at a normal life has been stolen by constant conflict. And the absence of accountability for the policies and actions that have driven it is striking. The United States also contributed directly to violence and repression perpetrated by other countries, as the stationing of U.S. troops across the Middle East reinforced Washington’s impulse to work closely with abusive governments that often had regional agendas of their own. It propped up autocratic governments such as Egypt’s, sustained Saudi Arabia’s campaign in Yemen, and enabled the role of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Sudan’s civil war, where United Nations investigators documented acts amounting to genocide. Such partnerships stoked popular anger at the governments of those countries and the United States. The U.S. relationship with Israel exemplifies how deep security relationships, combined with permanent basing, can produce disastrous results. Since the slow collapse of the Oslo negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the 1990s, U.S. support has morphed into a blank check for one Israeli government after another. Those governments have eroded the prospects of peace with the Palestinians through creeping annexation and systematic repression in the West Bank. Over the past few years, that backing has enabled Israel to carry out what a UN fact-finding mission concluded was genocide in Gaza, a finding echoed by a number of Israeli scholars and civil society groups. Then, in February 2026, the United States joined Israel in launching an illegal war on Iran. THE WAY OUT Both Democratic and Republican presidents bear responsibility for the harm done by the U.S. military presence in the Middle East. That presence has implicated the United States in serious violations of international humanitarian law. Washington should correct course, beginning with a withdrawal of forces as soon as there is a stable cease-fire with Iran. U.S. leaders now face a series of decisions with lasting consequences, including whether to rebuild bases damaged during the Iran war and sell new weapons to regional partners. Some defense analysts have argued for retaining a smaller military footprint—and, according to reporting in The Wall Street Journal, the Pentagon is considering it—but a partial retreat would still leave the United States exposed to perennial risk in the region. In the last five months, Iran has destroyed or damaged buildings and equipment on at least 15 U.S. military sites. Even if the United States consolidated its troops into one or two bases, they would remain a prime target for Iran and its proxies, so significant resources would be needed for force protection. Without a full withdrawal, Washington will feel compelled to continue shoring up support for U.S. personnel and partners, and the United States will keep being drawn into conflicts. Pulling all U.S. troops out of the Middle East does not require ending all cooperation with partners in the region. Security assistance could still proceed in some countries, such as Lebanon, where U.S. support for the Lebanese armed forces can strengthen state capacity and reinforce the role of official institutions in safeguarding Lebanese sovereignty. But it is in Washington’s interest to ensure that its assistance and arms sales comply with U.S. law, which mandates a halt to such aid when recipients commit gross human rights violations, as Israel has in Gaza. By suspending any security aid and arms exports that violate U.S. and international law, Washington can reduce the risk that its support will encourage other countries’ reckless policies and draw the United States deeper into regional crises. As it draws down its troop presence in the region, the United States can and should ramp up its diplomatic, economic, and humanitarian efforts to support human rights and the peaceful resolution of disputes. As part of this effort, it should increase humanitarian assistance for the Palestinians while backing economic integration projects that could foster stability and prosperity, such as new pipelines that route energy exports around the Strait of Hormuz. It should also use the drawdown to make clear that Washington will curtail aid to countries such as the UAE and Israel until they improve their human rights records and end their destabilizing regional policies. The United States cannot force these governments to reform, but it can refuse to provide the equipment and financing that enable their repression or aggression. Although it is unlikely that the current administration would pursue this approach, decisions in Congress can shape future U.S. policy in the region. Lawmakers can push the United States toward a drawdown by limiting the amount of funding the Pentagon receives to replenish munitions and refurbish bases, and by attaching conditions to those funds. THE FEARS AND THE FACTS Some will argue that withdrawing the U.S. military from the Middle East carries serious risks. Those risks are real but manageable. Start with energy markets and the fear of disruption to oil and gas exports if the United States retreats. For years, Washington assumed that the U.S. presence in the region upheld freedom of navigation. Yet it was the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran that closed the Strait of Hormuz—and the U.S. military was unable to forcibly reopen it, casting doubt on the efficacy of stationing the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. However the standoff in the strait is resolved, Iran and the Gulf states share an interest in keeping energy flowing, even as states spar over whether they can impose fees. Moreover, with the United States now a major energy producer, the renewable sector growing worldwide, and producers exploring ways to bypass the strait, a more diversified global supply makes further disruptions to shipping less threatening. The Trump administration and its supporters in Congress also make the case that American military power is necessary to contain Iran, which has destabilized its neighbors. But the current war has shown that the United States could not protect its partners in the Gulf from Iranian attacks. The Gulf states need to create new security arrangements with one another—arrangements that do not rely on Washington, although Washington can still provide economic and diplomatic support. There is no guarantee that new arrangements would be better, but the current U.S.-backed system is not working. The United States would no longer be fueling instability, at least, in a new order led by regional players. And such a framework may offer a more durable path to stability if it prioritizes regional diplomacy, dialogue, and de-escalation with Iran. Over time, Middle Eastern countries could grow less reliant on external military guarantees. Countering terrorism is not made easier by a prolonged U.S. troop presence, either. Since 9/11, the terror threat has pushed policymakers to lean on the American military. Yet the United States’ use of drone strikes that killed enormous numbers of civilians, together with its multiple invasions, likely fueled more attacks on U.S. personnel by terrorist groups. Withdrawing U.S. forces now would not mean giving up the ability to counter terrorism. Intelligence sharing with regional governments and NATO allies, along with advanced technology that allows surveillance from ever greater distances, could enable Washington to monitor threats. As a last resort, U.S. leaders could send forces back for a specific mission if a crisis threatening the United States erupted. Then there is the question of Israel’s security. A nuclear-weapons state with the most advanced military in the region, Israel is more than capable of defending itself. In fact, the U.S. presence has emboldened Israel to adopt policies that have intensified the threats against it. Washington can break that cycle by making military aid conditional on Israel’s ending its occupation of the Palestinian territories, pursuing peace with the Palestinians, and halting its military campaigns in Iran, Lebanon, and Syria. These steps would reduce the dangers that Israel creates for itself, lowering the overall risk that could accompany the loss of a U.S. backstop. Finally, skeptics of retrenchment from the Middle East worry that withdrawal—especially so soon after the United States’ failures in Iran—would signal weakness to U.S. adversaries. Washington does face a formidable challenge in deterring China and Russia as each presses its claims closer to home. But if the United States stays bogged down in the Middle East, it will have more difficulty working with its Asian and European allies to counter Beijing’s or Moscow’s moves elsewhere. And there is little risk that either would replace the U.S. position in the region. China remains deeply cautious about using its military beyond its immediate periphery, and Russia’s footprint in the Middle East has only shrunk since the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. A PUBLIC RECKONING After decades of almost continuous war in the Middle East, Americans are weary of foreign entanglements. A recent poll by the Searchlight Institute found that 62 percent prefer staying “out of wars as much as possible,” while 33 percent favor using “military force when it benefits the country.” An entire generation has never known peacetime, and majorities of young Americans—including more than half of Republicans aged 18 to 44—oppose the 2026 war with Iran. This was the first war in the era of modern polling that the public opposed from the start, when support is usually highest. Yet amid this public reckoning with the United States’ role in the world, American leaders are out of step with their constituents. U.S. President Donald Trump won two elections by lambasting candidates he blamed for endless wars in the Middle East, then started one himself. When individuals and institutions have spoken out against policy toward Israel, the president has wielded the power of the state to attack them, withholding funding from universities and deporting and jailing protesters. And at a time when Americans’ top concern is affording the necessities of daily life, the Pentagon budget has reached an all-time high of roughly $1 trillion in 2026, and the administration is seeking a further 50 percent increase in 2027. The United States still has an important role to play in global security: its military presence and security guarantees in Europe and Asia help prevent great-power war. But the way Washington is playing its security role in the Middle East is hurting far more than it is helping. Changing course will not be easy, but it is necessary. Decades of ill-conceived wars and entanglements have cost too many lives and too much treasure while adding little to U.S. security and drawing Washington’s attention away from pressing challenges in Asia and Europe. It is time for the United States military to leave. 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