It's Time for America to Disengage From the Middle East

Mohammed Ayoob

Global Governance, Middle East

The "arc of crisis" has gotten worse with U.S. involvement.

The Orlando and San Bernardino shootings have led important personalities to make several suggestions, both workable and unworkable. These range from banning the entry of Muslim immigrants into the United States to tighter gun control. However, hardly anyone seems to have asked the fundamental question: why have some radicalized inhabitants of broader Middle Eastern origin developed such hatred for Americans that they are willing not only to inflict tremendous suffering on innocent civilians, but also to lay down their own lives in the process?

The answer lies in the history and extent of American involvement in the broader Middle East ranging from Turkey to Pakistan, what has been called the “arc of crisis”. The United States was often involved on the wrong side of the internal and regional conflicts in this region, supporting authoritarian regimes to maintain control over restive populations. More important, the extent of its involvement—especially in the post–Cold War era—has far exceeded its economic and strategic interests in the region.

There are multiple reasons for such a high degree of American involvement in the broader Middle East but most of them are now passé. First, it has become a matter of habit—a holdover from the days of the Cold War when competition with the USSR drove much of American foreign policy. However, whatever justification this may have had until 1990 it lost much of its rationale once the Soviet Union disappeared from the scene and Russia was forced to drastically retrench its presence in the region.