Has US strategy towards the Middle East changed after the war?

In recent days, major US and international media outlets, including The Washington Post, Sky News and The Wall Street Journal, have focused on Washington’s reassessment of its military footprint in the Middle East after the Iran war, while Turkey’s Anadolu Agency has closely followed these reports. Reports by these outlets have discussed reviews being conducted by the US Department of War concerning the redeployment of forces in the Middle East, reductions in the US military presence there, and the absence of plans to rebuild bases that were damaged.

These reports attribute this undertaking  to the extensive damage sustained by US bases during the war and argue that their presence exposed the vulnerability of the model of large fixed bases located close to Iran.

The reports have also highlighted the cost of the war, which, according to Pentagon estimates, will have exceeded $37 billion by the end of next month, excluding the cost of rebuilding these damaged bases. This comes despite the fact that the war against Iran has not yet ended and its consequences for the region have yet to be determined. This raises a central question about how new these policy directions really are: are they indeed a consequence of the war with Iran, or do they represent a step in the implementation of a longer-term strategy pursued by successive US administrations over the past decade?

A review of the strategies pursued by successive US administrations, from President Barack Obama’s administration to the present day, points to the implementation of a gradual US withdrawal from the region following the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. From this perspective, today’s proposals to redeploy US forces in the region, refrain from rebuilding American bases destroyed in the war, and reduce the US military presence there represent an advanced stage in the implementation of these earlier strategies. Since Obama’s first term, US strategy in the Middle East focused on withdrawing from Iraq and transferring security responsibility to the Iraqis, while maintaining a long-term relationship with them. It also emphasised key security relationships with allied states in the region, Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf Cooperation Council states, and sought to make their militaries and security systems more capable of working together. The strategy also focused on permanently integrating Israel into the region, while renewing the US commitment to Israel’s security. It described Iranian behaviour as posing an increasingly serious threat, despite continued engagement with Tehran and efforts to alter the course of its nuclear programme. During Obama’s second term, the strategy explicitly stressed the need for partners capable of defending themselves, and for US investment in building their capabilities, while maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge. The emphasis was on strengthening these partners rather than relying solely on US forces, in order to counter Iranian aggression and influence in the region.

The strategy of Donald Trump’s first administration stated explicitly that disengagement from the region would not insulate the United States from its problems there, while stressing the need to maintain only the necessary US military presence. At the same time, it emphasised supporting allies in building their capabilities and developing integrared defence systems in order to confront shared threats in the Middle East, including Iran. The administration put this approach into practice through decisions to move Israel from the US European Command to the US Central Command (CENTCOM), and through the signing of the Abraham Accords to normalise relations between Israel and Arab states. President Joe Biden’s strategy did not depart from those of his predecessors. It called for a more integrated Middle East and pledged to strengthen the capabilities of allies to deter Iran and ensure that it did not acquire a nuclear weapon, while continuing to seek to reduce reliance on US resources in the region over the long term. The strategy of Trump’s second administration provided further clarification of the reasons underlying this policy since the Obama era. Trump’s strategy stressed that the historical reasons for Washington’s focus on the Middle East were diminishing and argued that US partners had become more willing and capable of defending themselves. It also emphasised an approach based on regional integration, while identifying Iran as the principal destabilising force in the region.

CENTCOM documents from Obama’s first term indicate that, following the withdrawal from Iraq, the focus remained on deterring Iran, countering terrorism and ensuring freedom of navigation. They stressed the importance of partnerships, bases and military access as a means of avoiding the need for the United States to fight wars alone. During Obama’s second term, CENTCOM documents pointed to increased cooperation with the Gulf states, particularly in the areas of maritime security, military preparedness, arms transfers and cybersecurity. During the first Trump administration, CENTCOM defined its mission as enabling military operations and activities with allies and partners, with its efforts focused on defeating ISIS, deterring Iran and securing maritime routes. Under Biden, CENTCOM documents reflected progress in achieving US strategic objectives in the region when they noted in 2023 that the size of its forces had fallen by 85 per cent compared with 2008 and by 15 per cent compared with 2022, while its objectives increasingly focused on greater integration and cooperation with partners. Under the current Trump administration, CENTCOM documents emphasise that Washington’s presence in the region today is tied to its network of partners.

Washington structures its relations with its allies in the region through bilateral defence cooperation agreements, which provide for information-sharing, arms purchases and training, as well as the stationing and movement of forces in countries where the United States maintains military bases. This bilateral cooperation also extends into a broader framework through CENTCOM, which operates within a wider regional cooperation network led by Washington and shaped by its plans and its assessment of the threats facing the region.

However, this security coordination with the countries of the region, particularly the Gulf states, rests on several considerations. First, these agreements, as well as the coordination and cooperation they provide for, do not guarantee that the United States will defend the Gulf states, as they are not mutual defence agreements.

Second, the US military presence primarily serves Washington’s objectives in the region and forms part of its broader strategy and operations. Third, US military cooperation and presence in these countries are financed at their expense and from their own national budgets. Fourth, Washington expands the scope of its security and military commitments to these states in proportion to their cooperation in advancing Washington’s political objectives as well. Yet, within the same strategic and conceptual security framework, and through the same type of agreements, Washington has for decades provided military assistance to other allied states in the region that are of geopolitical importance to the United States.

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Although these bilateral agreements between Washington and its allies in the region have evolved over several decades, some dating back to the Cold War, others concluded after its end, and many renewed in recent years, they have all remained within a framework of cooperation or coordination and do not constitute a US commitment to defend those states.

Nevertheless, Washington differentiates among its Gulf allies in the nature of its bilateral military and security agreements. The United Arab Emirates has been accorded a distinct status compared with neighbouring states and received a further upgrade following its normalisation of relations with Israel.

During 2024 and 2025, the UAE became a major defence partner of Washington, allowing it to participate in defence development and innovation. This distinction also became clearly evident in the case of Bahrain following its normalisation with Israel. In 2023, Washington added a new security framework for Bahrain that also provides for consultation and a response to aggression. In a different case, a US presidential executive order was issued for Qatar last year, following the Israeli attack against it, guaranteeing its security and territorial integrity against any attack that the United States would regard as threatening to its own security and territorial integrity, through all lawful and appropriate measures, including the military if necessary. Despite the ambiguity of the wording, the presidential order remains more of a political initiative than an enforceable military commitment when compared with a treaty that the United States is obliged to implement following its ratification by Congress in accordance with the relevant constitutional procedures. An executive order does not impose a legal obligation on the United States, requires congressional approval for its implementation, and may be reconsidered.

Washington’s agreements with Saudi Arabia over the past year include the sale of an advanced defence package, subject, of course, to the condition that it does not undermine the balance of power with Israel, as well as provisions to strengthen the partnership, share burdens and formally cover the costs of the US presence. Since the 1950s, the US military has carried out military engineering and construction projects in the region financed by Saudi Arabia under bilateral agreements. During the Gulf War, CENTCOM and the Saudi government signed an agreement under which Saudi Arabia agreed to provide “food, fuel, water, facilities and transportation” for US forces stationed in Saudi Arabia and the surrounding areas. Allied contributions were used to cover the costs of US military forces in the Gulf. Subsequently, Saudi Arabia came to finance a substantial proportion of its own armaments, training, advisory services and military infrastructure. During the Biden administration, the CENTCOM commander stated that regional partners had “increased their burden-sharing efforts”. This objective has now become an explicitly stated element of the latest agreement between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Successive and escalating developments in the region have demonstrated that the US military umbrella was not originally established to defend Washington’s Arab allies in the region. Rather, the war on Iran has demonstrated that this system and regional network were built to protect Israel.

On 14 September 2019, during Trump’s first term, the Aramco facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais were attacked, disrupting half of Saudi oil production. The US response was that this was an attack on Saudi Arabia and that there was no American commitment to defend it. Nor did Washington prevent Israel from launching attacks on Qatar last year and violating its sovereignty. Before the US-Israeli attack on Iran, the Gulf states collectively sought to persuade Washington to refrain from launching it because of the risks it could pose to their security, but Washington did not respond to their appeals in the face of Israel’s public calls for such an attack. On the other hand, Washington made use of its security and military agreements, its bases in allied states, and its cooperation with them within the regional network developed by CENTCOM in its war against Iran. In 2022, Reuters revealed that the US-Israeli project sought to link Israeli and Arab “radars, detection systems and interceptors” into a regional air-defence network to counter Iranian missiles and drones, and this integration was subsequently achieved. During this year, a CENTCOM report describes military operations during the war with Iran in terms of the integration of regional partners’ air and missile defences, the linking of early-warning systems and the sharing of tracking data, and regards the outcome of the war as evidence of the effectiveness of this architecture. Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, confirmed that Israel sent Iron Dome batteries and personnel to operate them to the United Arab Emirates during rounds of the war.

It may seem illogical today, while the outcome of the war with Iran remains unresolved, to speak of withdrawing US forces from the region and reducing the number of its bases there, even if such a move could represent a delayed step in a long-term strategy based on creating a network of cooperation among allies to carry out Washington’s tasks and protect its strategic objectives in the region. These details and developments may encourage US-allied states in the region to seek new political and strategic alliances, as well as military, defence and security arrangements, in addition to their existing cooperation with Washington. The war with Iran, together with the transformations surrounding the region over recent years, has exposed growing risks and increasingly persistent ambitions directed at its resources, while also revealing the nature of Washington’s security umbrella, which operates according to its own strategic vision and not necessarily that of these states. Saudi Arabia, for example, has moved in precisely this direction through the Mecca Agreement and by developing its relations with China and Russia.

The question, then, is whether the United States, through its recent statements about withdrawing from the region at a time of heightened instability, is seeking to exert pressure on regional states, just as it previously pressured its European allies in order to extract further concessions from them under exceptional circumstances.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.