For more than half a century, the United States (US) played a prominent role in the Middle East and tried to exert political, military and economic influence to promote its foreign policy priorities in the region. Recently there has been much talk of a US disengagement from the Middle East, following the drawdown from its active military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, a process that was initiated during Barack Obama and his pivot to Asia policy.

But a number of countervailing dynamics including renewed conflicts between Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, instability in Iraq and Syria, a rise in Chinese investments in the region but also institutional and domestic factors, may nonetheless mean the US engagement with the Middle East will continue for the foreseeable future. By extension, the upcoming Trump presidency may thus represent not much of a rupture but a continuation of the long-standing principles of engagement with the region based on diplomacy, economic statecraft, and security cooperation, all buttressed by a substantial military presence.

US Engagement with the Middle East: A Brief Overview

Chronologically, it was Saudi Arabia’s discovery of oil in 1938 that pulled the US into the region. Toward the end of World War II, U.S. energy experts feared American oil fields would run out. Securing new oil abroad became a national security priority. As a result, Roosevelt began to pursue closer relations with Aziz Saud. The two leaders met in February 1945, marking an important start to a bilateral relationship that continues to this day.

Another turning point for US policy toward the region was the 1948 Arab Israeli War. The US supported Israel’s independence for moral and political reasons. More remarkably perhaps, they also believed backing Israel would help keep the Soviet Union away from the region. This strategic objective was an important driver of US calculations for the region until the end of the Cold War. Indeed, it was the same objective when in 1956 the US strongly opposed the invasion of Egypt during the Suez Crisis, worrying it would push Egypt closer to the Soviet Union. So, it forced Britain and France to withdraw from Egypt. That conflict changed the balance of power in the Middle East. After that Nasser’s Egypt became a leader in the Arab world for resisting the invading forces. And Britain and France lost the canal but also their remaining influence in the region. In their place, the US emerged as the Middle East’s preeminent Western actor.

In 1973, with the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War, there was a brief moment when the US fears of a Soviet entrenchment materialising. But Israel—with U.S. military aid—eventually managed to push back the Egyptian and Syrian armies.  Following the war, the US brokered a series of agreements which culminated in the 1978 Camp David Accords, as a result of which Israel agreed to withdraw from previously taken Egyptian territory. An important consideration here which still remains relevant to this day was that policymakers in Washington wanted to continue backing Israel while also improving relations with Arab oil producers (notably Saudi Arabia), which had opposed US actions during the war.

The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran was also another turning point. From the turn of the twentieth century, Iran was ruled by the Pahlavis who delivered valuable oil rights to the US and Britain in exchange for weapons and political support. But in 1979, the revolution led by the formerly exiled cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a formerly exiled cleric toppled the monarchy, hence the American leverage. Soon after the revolution, Iranian university students stormed the US Embassy in Tehran, taking American staff hostage for 444 days. The crisis resulted not only in American sanctions on Iran but also the severing of diplomatic relations. Diplomatic relations remain suspended and the impasse remains unresolved more than four decades later.

When Iran lost the US support, another strongman in the region, Saddam Hussein in 1982 took the opportunity and launched an invasion against Tehran. While Iran quickly retook territory, the armies reached a stalemate and fighting continued for eight years, becoming known as the “8 Year War”. This time the US provided hedged its bets and provided military support for both Iraq (to counter Iran as a new US adversary) and Iran (through Israel, in exchange for hostage releases and because the US feared expanding Soviet influence in Iran).

In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, prompting concerns from President George H.W. Bush that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein might next target Saudi Arabia. The Bush administration sought to defend Saudi Arabia against the possibility of Saddam taking the oil fields, and to build the basis for a future operation into Kuwait, by moving significant numbers of US troops and air power to bases in Saudi Arabia.

In the meantime, the US was a key player brokering a set of agreements between Israel and the Palestinians in 1993 known as the Oslo Accords. The accords envisaged a two-state solution, leading to the PLO’s recognition of the State of Israel. Still, optimism about future negotiations was short-lived. In 2000, the Palestinians launched an uprising (known as the Second Intifada) which dashed hopes for peace.

Then, on September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda hijacked four planes and used them as weapons to attack the Twin Towers in New York, and the Pentagon building in Washington, killing nearly 3,000 people. In response, the US Congress passed the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which gave the president sweeping power to pursue the attacks’ perpetrators and their supporters. The AUMF, however, did not define a specific target or establish an end date for these broad new powers. And it has been used ever since to launch and sustain some of the US’ most significant military and counterterrorism operations in the region and around the world for more than two decades, including the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, air strikes against al-Qaeda affiliates in Somalia and Yemen, but also military action in Iraq, Libya and Syria against the self-proclaimed Islamic State (also known as ISIS). In Syria, the US also supplied limited weapons and training to rebels who opposed Syria’s oppressive ruler Bashar al-Assad, recently overthrowing him in a surprise offensive that was launched on 27 November.

Besides Syria, recent years also saw Iran dominating the agendas. The US has long opposed Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. In 2015, Iran was only months away from developing this weapon. So, a deal — known officially as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — was struck to lift sanctions on Iran in exchange for a fifteen-year limit on Iran’s nuclear program. But In 2018, Trump withdrew the US from the nuclear deal, reintroducing sanctions. In response, Iran has once again begun producing enriched uranium. A couple of months ago, Biden presidency warned that Iran only needs “two weeks” to reach the capability to produce enough materials for nuclear weapons — the shortest “breakout time,” ever acknowledged by the US.

Of course, this came at a time that the Middle East is once again in turmoil following October 7 attacks. The resulting war has unfolded into a humanitarian crisis, causing more than 40,000 Palestinian deaths in the first year. The war has also raised fears of escalation toward a wider regional war. Hezbollah and Iran both launched attacks on Israel in response to its operations in Gaza. In October Israel commenced ground operations in Lebanon against Hezbollah, and more recently it has launched an incursion into Syria, capturing most of the strategic Golan Heights amid widespread condemnation. And all of this has been happening under the watchful eyes of the outgoing president Biden who has been on record for supporting a two-state solution.

Offshore Balancing or Forward Engagement?

Despite significant financial expenditure and thousands of lives lost, the American presence in the Middle East is a key pillar of US foreign policy and for the most part, it has rested on the same principles of engagement based on diplomacy, economic statecraft, and security cooperation, all buttressed by a substantial military presence.

On the latter, key US activities in the region consist of weapons sales to allied governments, military-to-military training programmes, counterterrorism operations and long-term troop deployments. And this sort of more robust military engagement can be dated back to 1980, when President Carter remarked that outside intervention in the interests of the US in the Middle East would be “repelled by any means necessary.”

It is also important to underline that the US military presence in the Middle East rests on a common bargain with Middle Eastern governments, and in particular the states in the Gulf: security cooperation and military assistance in exchange for US access to military bases in the region.

Theoretically speaking, two main schools of thought – ‘offshore balancing’ and ‘forward engagement’ – has shaped the debate over the US presence in the Middle East. The former position promotes a strategic distance from the region to “free up resources” and “reduce the risk of terrorism.”

The latter group, on the other hand believes in the necessity of a robust US military footprint to maintain access to oil and gas markets, preserve its strategic advantages in terms of its bases, air superiority, and intelligence capabilities, but above all to prevent the emergence of a regional hegemon, such as Iran, or stop advances from competitors such as Russia and China. From this perspective, if there were a reduction in the visible US support for its partners and allies in the region, it would cause far greater uncertainty and potentially more chaos.

And it is the unsettled nature of this debate between the two camps that explains some incremental change and minor oscillations in the policies of various administrations whilst maintaining, by and large, the status quo that emerged in the post 9/11 period. By the same token, the fact that these two camps have so far failed to establish an overarching dominance over foreign policy thinking and continue to battle for dominance is also among the reasons why those promises uttered during the election campaigns don’t really materialise.

So, for example in the 2008 presidential election Obama pledged to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq and pursue a diplomacy-first approach. Obama initially kept to the deal signed by the Bush administration, and in 2008 he reduced US troop presence in Iraq. However, from summer of 2014, he re-deployed an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 additional troops to the region in support of the counter-ISIS campaign. The same thing happened with Trump. Trump was highly critical of US military’s presence in the Middle East, but US troop levels increased dramatically during his presidency.

And this was also the case with Biden, as he was not immune to pragmatic thinking, or what Steven Cook has called ruthless pragmatism. In arms sales, Biden eschewed his own concerns over human rights violations. He also did not renew the Iran nuclear deal, and although he pulled out from Afghanistan, he maintained a military engagement in Syria and Iraq.

Besides ideational factors, contextual considerations also explain why Trump or Biden took very few practical steps towards advancing their stated positions of withdrawing/reducing US footprint. First is that to do so could rupture relations with regional governments, which is needed to permit US military access to their country’s sovereign territory.

Another is more domestic and rests on the institutional forces: In theory, the State Department is supposed to take the lead in developing, implementing and overseeing foreign policy in the Middle East. However, the Department of Defense via CENTCOM is the most powerful and substantial actor and the first point of contact for concerned regional government officials (For a more detailed review of the external context, see also this Carnegie Report).

So while on the one hand there has been a rhetoric of pivot to Asia and the reprioritisation of the region that had started with Barack Obama’s presidency, the “forever wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan, together with a robust US presence in the Middle East, have since continued.

What we should expect now, therefore, is more continuity than change. Of course, no two US presidential administrations are identical, but their differences tend to obscure continuities, particularly in matters of foreign policy. As Mouin Rabbani of the Middle East Council recently put it: “If we look at the Biden administration’s policies towards the Middle East, there is precious little to distinguish it from what Trump would do if he was re-elected.”

And so, we can expect Trump to pick up where Biden left off. His administration will of course add its own twist, but it is unlikely he will push for a radical break especially on the Middle East. Yes, the first Trump administration’s various initiatives on Jerusalem, the Syrian Golan Heights, and killing of Solemaini were erratic moments with significant risks, but he maintained if not strengthened further the US long-running alliances, partnerships and commitments that will not be upended, including support for Israel, and expanding ties with the Gulf states.

Similarly, his long-running tough stance towards Iran could intensify, but this will be shaped by how Iran moves, and there will be other considerations. It is true that he famously said, “hit the nuclear first, and worry about the rest later.” At the same time, it is likely that key people in his administration are wishing to see a more restrained policy (to focus instead more on China) but also to not upset regional allies.  The Saudis and Emiratis, welcoming recent Iranian efforts for rapprochement, also have no interest in a wider destructive quagmire (Saudis were among the first to condemn Israel’s airstrikes on Iran). So unless Iran decides for a sudden acceleration of its nuclear programme (as a recent UN report suggests) to bounce back from its strategic defeat in Syria, Trump would maintain the longstanding policy of containing Tahran with diplomacy and sanctions.

On Gaza too, bin Salman has made it clear there can be no normalisation of relations with Israel until war in Gaza has ceased, and serious steps to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are taken. While Trump may once again try to revitalise the normalisation through an “Abraham 2,0” he may also choose to be better attuned to his partners, especially Saudi Arabia, if it wishes to contain further Chinese encroachment in the Gulf.

Overall, the future of US policy in the Middle East will likely reflect a continuity with some isolationist inclinations at the discourse level. But it is highly likely that these will be counteracted by the concerns of the allies, the foreign policy establishment but also the realities on the ground.