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When Donald Trump returned to the White House, many expected he would make major changes to U.S. policy in the Middle East. After all, Trump opposed forever wars<\/a> on the campaign trail, worked to reduce troop levels in the Middle East<\/a> and nearby Afghanistan<\/a> during his first administration, and came back to office with a lot of political space<\/a> to challenge conventions on foreign policy.<\/p>\n At a strategic level, the expectation that Trump would begin pivoting from the Middle East made sense<\/a> too. With the emergence of U.S. energy independence<\/a> and the serious diminution of global terrorism following the 2019 collapse<\/a> of the ISIS caliphate\u2019s leadership, the Middle East is far less important to U.S. national security today than in past decades\u2014a point acknowledged by the Trump administration\u2019s<\/a> own strategy documents<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n When Donald Trump returned to the White House, many expected he would make major changes to U.S. policy in the Middle East. After all, Trump opposed forever wars<\/a> on the campaign trail, worked to reduce troop levels in the Middle East<\/a> and nearby Afghanistan<\/a> during his first administration, and came back to office with a lot of political space<\/a> to challenge conventions on foreign policy.<\/p>\n At a strategic level, the expectation that Trump would begin pivoting from the Middle East made sense<\/a> too. With the emergence of U.S. energy independence<\/a> and the serious diminution of global terrorism following the 2019 collapse<\/a> of the ISIS caliphate\u2019s leadership, the Middle East is far less important to U.S. national security today than in past decades\u2014a point acknowledged by the Trump administration\u2019s<\/a> own strategy documents<\/a>.<\/p>\n So a year into his second term, is Trump meeting expectations for a pivot from the Middle East?<\/p>\n Not really. A few bright spots aside (minor troop reductions<\/a> in Iraq and Syria, bucking Israel<\/a> at a couple key moments), current trendlines point to more U.S. military engagement in the region when Trump leaves office in 2029. At this point, the best one can hope for is to avoid excessive overreach that does great damage to U.S. national security.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>Since Trump took<\/span> office, U.S. troop levels<\/a> in the Middle East have increased<\/a> from about 35,000 to 50,000. Moreover, several new policy initiatives are expected to keep current U.S. force levels in place and might even lead to increases over time.<\/p>\n Start with Gaza. Trump\u2019s policy here has been nothing short of a nation-building operation, progressively Americanizing peace, reconstruction, and postwar governance. \u201cThis is our show,\u201d a Trump advisor said<\/a>. \u201cWe managed to do things in Gaza in recent months nobody thought was possible, and we are going to continue moving.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump has stacked<\/a> the permanent members<\/a> of the Board of Peace that will oversee Gaza with U.S. citizens, appointed<\/a> a U.S. general to head the International Stabilization Force (whose composition might include U.S. forces, according<\/a> to the White House), and drawn up extensive plans<\/a> for U.S. postwar re-development of Gaza on par with the \u201cRiviera of the Middle East<\/a>\u201d Trump suggested last year.<\/p>\n With Hamas still armed and active, it appears Trump may be taking up Israel\u2019s mantle in Gaza and plowing the United States into the kind of forever war he campaigned to end.<\/p>\n The same goes for Syria. Trump was right to engage<\/a>, rather than isolate, the new post-Assad regime in Syria, but even with recent force reductions, U.S. troops remain in northeast Syria. More concerning still, U.S. forces are now apparently operating on a new military base<\/a> near Damascus for peacebuilding operations meant to bolster the al-Sharaa regime.<\/p>\n All told, it\u2019s conceivable the United States will get further dragged into Syria\u2019s messy domestic politics<\/a>. Recent U.S. airstrikes on ISIS targets following the assassination<\/a> of U.S. military personnel on Syrian soil serve as a case in point.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s Iran policy also belies any pivot from the Middle East. In June, Trump crossed an important Rubicon with the bombing<\/a> of Iranian nuclear sites. This first-ever use of direct U.S. force against Iran helped make force the new center point for policy.<\/p>\n With the White House talking<\/a> about the need for \u201cnew leaders\u201d<\/a> and regime change<\/a> in the wake of recent protests in Iran, the new policy node of force both ties U.S. military assets down in the Middle East and significantly increases the likelihood of expanding the U.S. force presence. Again, case in point: Trump has dispatched a U.S. carrier<\/a> to the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n If the Iranian regime happens to collapse due to U.S. military action, the United States will own that. The drain<\/a> on U.S. military resources in Iraq will pale in comparison to what will be required for the U.S. to stabilize Iran, which is four times larger geographically.<\/p>\n New security commitments under Trump also make a pivot from the Middle East unlikely. Trump gave Qatar a NATO-like security pledge<\/a> in September\u2014a first for any state in the Middle East\u2014and signed a security pact<\/a> for the first time with Saudi Arabia in November. Though not ratified by Congress, both commitments add pressure on policymakers to keep U.S. troops in the Middle East.<\/p>\n These moves taken in sum point to an unambiguous reality: the U.S. is set to stay in the Middle East for decades to come. Some<\/a> might challenge this assessment by saying Trump\u2019s policies are setting the stage for a pivot\u2014get conditions right, then leave. Yet from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan, history shows that this logic tends to fail. Deeper engagement produces just that, deeper engagement, and the same is now likely to happen under Trump.<\/p>\n Can Trump still return to drawing down troops from the Middle East? Theoretically, yes, but realistically that\u2019s probably too much to expect without a crisis elsewhere that requires a significant redeployment of troops from the region.<\/p>\n Research by political<\/a> scientists<\/a> and social psychologists<\/a> shows that a status quo bias<\/a> tends to set in for leaders once a policy decision is made. For a host of potential reasons<\/a>, leaders resist reconsideration, block out<\/a> countervailing evidence about the efficacy of existing policy, and instead double down.<\/p>\n Trump is notorious for his deep aversion to admitting<\/a> mistakes<\/a>. \u201cI don\u2019t like to analyze myself,\u201d he said<\/a> in 2016. This will almost certainly reinforce a status quo bias on his Middle East policy.<\/p>\n Trump also runs the risk of falling into the fallacy of sunk costs<\/a>, whereby leaders plow ahead with costly and even failing policies when they perceive that high reputational stakes are on the line. To avoid embarrassment or achieve grandeur, leaders tend to highly value costs<\/a> sunk into existing endeavors and plow more resources in to save face.<\/p>\n Such sunk-cost thinking can be seen most perhaps in Gaza, which is deeply tied to Trump\u2019s fixation on expanding the Abraham Accords and central to Trump\u2019s mission to go down in history as a transformative order-builder and peacemaker<\/a> in the Middle East. Those ambitions might be leading Trump toward wishful thinking<\/a> that misses or trivializes the costs associated with deeper involvement.<\/p>\n Trump is surrounded by loyalists, has a weak<\/a> national security-making process, and takes council on foreign policy, as he says, \u201cmainly from himself<\/a>.\u201d Such an absence<\/a> of checks and counterweights can also make it tough to break out of status quo and sunk-cost thinking.<\/p>\n What should advocates<\/span> of retrenchment from the Middle East, both inside and outside of the administration, do now? Simply stated, keep hammering that more action and more engagement will increase U.S. costs in a region that by the president\u2019s own words and strategy<\/a> documents<\/a> is of limited strategic value to U.S. security.<\/p>\n Research in the fields of law<\/a>, business<\/a>, and international politics<\/a> shows that turning attention to future<\/a> costs<\/a> and benefits offers the best hope to force decisionmakers (i.e., Trump) toward greater reanalysis of policy.<\/p>\n The bright spot is that with his unconventional way of doing things, Trump has shown a willingness to change course when presented with future-oriented cost-benefit analysis.<\/p>\n He did this when he negotiated an end to the war in Afghanistan<\/a>. He did it when he promised last year to \u201ccompletely annihilate<\/a>\u201d the Houthis in Yemen only to recognize<\/a> bombing wasn\u2019t working<\/a>, pull back<\/a>, and opt for a ceasefire. He did it when he told Iranian protesters earlier this month that \u201chelp was on its way,\u201d<\/a> but instead backed away<\/a> from using force when he realized U.S. military assets were limited, airpower wouldn\u2019t work, and destabilization could follow.<\/p>\n Focusing Trump on future costs and benefits works\u2014sometimes. Let\u2019s hope he goes there more often on Middle East policy. U.S. national security hinges on it.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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