Steven A. Cook, senior fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of The End of Ambition: America’s Past, Present, and Future in the Middle East, spoke to a July 8 Middle East Forum Podcast (video). The following summarizes his comments:
Washington’s Middle East policy was “fairly successful” from the end of World War II through the 1990s, but by the end of the millennium “things started going sideways.” In the 2000s, the trend was “decidedly downhill,” as for the past three decades, unrealistic idealism ensured a downward trajectory of Middle East policy. What has been lacking is “a clear-eyed assessment of the world as it is, not the way we would like it to be.”
The Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations had “delusional fever dreams” to transform the Middle East and preserve American interests.
The three core interests of the U.S. in the Middle East were oil, ensuring Israel’s security, and “American primacy to ensure that no single state or combination of states could challenge those other two interests.” U.S. power prevented threats to these priorities through the end of the Cold War. Post-Cold War, Washington sought to “transform the region” but “failed miserably.”
During the 1990s peace process involving the Israelis and Palestinians, the Clinton administration believed that settling the conflict would usher in “a more open, just, and democratic system” in the Arab world at large. Post 9-11, policymakers in the George W. Bush administration doubled down on “the belief that democracy was an antidote to terrorism.” In an effort to transform the Middle East, Operation Iraqi Freedom put the policy of democracy promotion into action.
Fast forward to the Obama administration’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a nuclear deal for the uninterested ayatollahs of the Islamic Republic of Iran “to come to the realization that it would be better for it to share the region with its neighbors.” Its success would “transform the regional dynamics of the Middle East so that the United States could ultimately withdraw” from the region.
Each of the aforementioned administrations’ “delusional fever dreams” to transform the Middle East and preserve America’s three interests were unsuccessful.
Realigning U.S. foreign policy to the “prime directive” requires “prudential conservatism” to focus on where America should “devote its resources, and what issues it should care about.” Oil will continue to remain important, so the U.S. should first “devote resources to prevent disruptions to the free flow of energy resources from the Gulf and the region more broadly.” Second, the U.S.-Israel relationship should be enshrined through agreements “governing the exchange of technology and defense technology.” And third, “non-proliferation” should be prioritized. However, in the case of Saudi Arabia, it would be “non-proliferation, although with a twist.”
The U.S. and Saudi Arabia are negotiating a security pact whereby the former will assist the latter with “civilian nuclear technology,” but based on the assumption that Iran is a “nuclear-capable state,” the Saudis have been reluctant to agree to more intrusive inspections. It seems clear that the Saudis “want to reserve for themselves the right” to pursue their own nuclear program. If that occurs, the U.S. should “devote resources to helping develop a stable and secure Saudi nuclear program” as a deterrent to Iran.
Biden’s eagerness to return the Iranians to the nuclear deal fails to face the regime’s clear intentions of forcing the U.S. from the Middle East.
Another issue for America is the impact of climate on creating conflict. An feature of the Middle East’s hot climate and a driver of migration is “water scarcity.” The cultural, social, and economic challenges from the region’s mass migration to the European continent have resulted in destabilizing political consequences. A “free and prosperous and whole” Europe is in America’s interest. Developing ways to help the Middle East address its water issues will mitigate the migration problem.
The final issue in the Middle East challenging the U.S. is China. As part of the “great power competition” between the two nations, Beijing has made deals with the Houthis whose missile and drone attacks have heavily affected a waterway which accounts for 10-12 percent of global shipping. China’s aim is to force the U.S. to focus on the problems in Yemen’s Bab al-Mandeb Strait, thereby distracting Washington from concentrating on China’s threat to Taiwan.
Although the Biden administration’s negotiation of a security pact with the Saudis is meant to counter China, the U.S. “should more effectively use its military forces in the Red Sea to force” the strait open. Failing to adequately respond to the Houthis demonstrates American weakness to the Iranians, who equip the Houthis with advanced weaponry. The Biden administration, in its eagerness to return the Iranians to the nuclear deal, fails to face the regime’s clear intentions of forcing the U.S. from the Middle East by fomenting chaos via its proxies.
