US Political and Military Presence in the Middle East
Although the US-Middle East relations go back to the early days of the United States, Washington’s economic and military engagement in the region did not take off until after large oil reserves were discovered in the 1920s.61 US' deeper military involvement commenced much later -- after WWII and with the advent of Cold War in the early 1950s. US political involvement developed as the Israel-Palestine issue evolved into an international crisis from a regional land dispute between local Arabs and European Jews fleeing persecution in Europe from the late 1880s and peaking in the 1930s. Diplomatic documents released from the early 20s to the late 40s indicate the increasing US commitment to the ME in the face of the power vacuum from the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the region. In the next ten years after the establishment of Israel in 1948, the US administrations began to get more involved in Middle Eastern regional affairs largely in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Over time, Washington became a strong first-tier player in the region with a broadened policy approach that, in the absence of British domination, clearly exceeded that of the previous decades.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the US structured its Middle East diplomatic strategy according to the needs and necessities of the Cold War. As a buffer zone, the ME, along with Shah’s Iran and conservative Turkish governments, became functional to stop Communism from spreading beyond Central Asia. However partially in response to the unconditional US backing of Israel and the decades old European interference, the anti-colonialist fervor flourished in the ME, culminating in the 1960s; Egypt and Syria being the pioneers of the pan-Arabist vision. Anti-colonial sentiment soon evolved into anti-Americanism, feeding the popular left-wing Intifada movement in Palestine under the leadership of Palestinian Liberation
Organization (PLO) and pan-Arabist pro-Soviet Baathist parties in Iraq, Egypt and few other nations. Hence, faced with the Arab oil embargo in the late 70s and the seemingly unstoppable rise of the Arab-nationalist movements in the Middle East, the US administrations found themselves in a dilemma. On the one hand, they remained committed to Israel's security at
61 Early US-Middle East interactions go as far back as 1777. In that year, Morocco recognized the US independence, being the first Middle Eastern country to do so.
108
any cost, and on the other hand, they wanted to make sure that the flow of oil from the Middle East remained secure and that its price kept under control.
Two major policy doctrines shaped the US approach to the ME from the mid-50s to the early 2000s. In what is called the Eisenhower Doctrine, the US government made its first comprehensive policy formulation, an early indicator of the growing involvement of the US in the coming decades. In his speech to a Joint Session of Congress on January 5th, 1957, President Eisenhower highlighted the strategic importance of the ME, and emphasized the need to prevent it from falling under the Soviet influence. For this purpose, he argued that military and economic assistance to pro-US countries must become a priority. The Eisenhower Doctrine had an immediate impact on Washington’s ME policy. As part of it, for example, in 1958, the US sent the 7th Fleet near the Persian Gulf to monitor the sea routes and protect oil fields there.
Hence, although the original intention was, and remained to be, to deny the area to Soviet influence, access to, and protection of, oil supplies also motivated the US and, after the fall of the USSR, this became the mainstay of the US involvement. Hence, although the Eisenhower Doctrine brought hardly anything that was new because the US was already arming its allies in the region, it was important in formulating a concise policy guideline for the dominance of the US Navy in the Persian Gulf (Michael, 2011: 471-474).
A second policy formulation came out nearly 25 years later and made explicit what was essentially implicit in the Eisenhower Doctrine. In his 1980 State of the Union address to the Congress, Jimmy Carter emphasized the more active role the US intended to assume. Coming on the heels of Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the people’s revolution in Iran, the Carter Doctrine opened the ME for direct US military intervention, stating that the US would use any means available, including the military to protect the energy flow from the Persian Gulf (Ibid.
481). Although at the time of the release of the new doctrine the US did not have the military capability to intervene directly in the region, it nonetheless provided the blueprint for such build-up of military forces in the Persian Gulf and its periphery.
Thus, to meet the emerging geopolitical challenges and enhance energy security,
Washington set out to run a strategy of constructing military and political alliances in the region.
Through political alliances, the US managed to safeguard Israel from a unified Arab opposition
109
by offering economic and military favors to the status quo oriented GCC front and, until recently, to Egypt, and reinforcing their regional standing against the less compromising Iran, Syria, and Lebanon front. Military alliances and base agreements, on the other hand, assured both that the US would protect Israel from a possible attack and that the compromising authoritarian regimes across the Persian Gulf would not fall. The combined result of the US strategic military network in the Middle East was a dominant political, economic and military presence in and domination over the region and its natural resources, including oil.
However, unlike the highly institutionalized US-Atlantic alliance model under the NATO’s security umbrella, the Cold War US-Middle East relations evolved into, albeit quite formidable, one of a network of informal security alliances. Alliances with Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey composed the backbone of the US effort against the Communist expansion. In fact, except for enclaves in Iraq, Syria, Algeria and few others for short periods, Communists never really succeeded to take over any country in the ME thanks to the strength of the US-led anti-Communist network. It follows that the fall of the Soviet Union created a new sphere open for influence in Central Asia and a new regional security framework emerged when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. In the following decade, the US remained involved in the Eastern Europe/Balkans (especially after the disintegration of Yugoslavia led to ethnic wars among the Croatians, Serbs and Bosnians) and the Middle East. On the ME front, first, a major war and then extensive international sanctions (including an effective no-fly zone) against Iraq and sanctions against Libya and Iran helped maintain the region’s security balance to the US favor.
The Arab-Israeli dispute, by the way, kept Western policymakers occupied until the Second Intifada killed all the remaining optimism beginning September 2000. Considering the wars in the Gulf and the US geostrategic dominance, Washington’s policy in the Middle East was now composed of two major legs: the Peace Process and the protection of energy resources in the Persian Gulf (Hajjar, 2002: 3-7).
However, the September 11th events dramatically transformed US approach and forced everyone to revisit their postulations vis-à-vis US’ ME strategy (Jervis, 2003; Dalacoura, 2005).
The twin pillars of foreign policy (ensuring the security of Israel and safe access to the Middle Eastern oil) were replaced by, first, the concept of “extended geopolitical security” in the
110
Middle East – North Africa (MENA) region (which also included the security of Israel as its mainstay) and, second, select democratization (promoting democracy and market capitalism in certain countries although no mention of secularization was made). Since the 9/11, both hard and soft military instruments have been used frequently to transform the balance of power in the region: States were forced to a change of behavior either through military action (e.g., Afghanistan, Sudan and Iraq) or military aid (e.g., Egypt, Israel). United States’ oil interests were voiced less emphatically. Rather, an idealist policy of political transformation and democratization in the Middle East took over the political discourse (CATO, 2008). The US ME policy, in short, has gone from one of die-hard pragmatism to a mixture of idealism and realism (Hazbun, 2010). Interestingly, the transformation took place only about a decade after the Chinese foreign policy transition in the region which saw Beijing move from idealism-driven policy to economic pragmatism. US’ declining dependency62 on the Middle East energy has further reinforced its more ambitious and idealist foreign policy, which came at a time when China’s energy dependency grew constantly. In short, both the US and Chinese foreign policy in the Middle East went through a structural transformation and each took its own course to an opposite direction.
However, it must be noted, higher idealism in the US foreign policy has not precluded use of military instruments. In fact, in present time, the US alliance system in the Middle East relies more on a combination of political and military arrangements than during the Cold War era when the US was more capable of and willing to handle things in the Middle East on its own.
Rather, currently, US political and military presence in the Persian Gulf is more comprehensive than, for example, it was during the 1973 Oil Crisis. Politically, Washington guarantees
international legitimacy and regime survival for its allies in the Persian Gulf. Militarily, US bases scattered across the region help project power, control and monitor trade lines and
transportation hubs, and interfere in regional and national affairs.
62 According to the US Energy Information Administration, “The US imported approximately 10.6 million barrels per day (Mb/d) of petroleum in 2012 from about 80 countries. [It] exported 3.2 M/bd of crude oil and petroleum products, resulting in net imports (imports minus exports) equaling 7.4 M/bd. Net imports accounted for 40% of the petroleum consumed in the United States, the lowest annual average since 1991.” In 2012, only 13% of US oil came from the Middle East. See, http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=727&t=6.
111
It has been argued that, comparatively speaking, the pre-9/11 Middle East policy of the United States was based on negative power which aimed at preventing countries from doing certain things not desired by the US Washington was mostly successful to prevent, for example, the threats from Iran to the flow of energy through the Persian Gulf. In the post-9/11 era, however, the US is seen to apply both negative and positive power. Positive power refers to idea promotion through coercive methods whereby the US acts as a “political engineer” (Noel, 2006: 2-3). The forced democratization of Iraq is a popular example to this strategy.
Hence, the current US military presence in the GME comes in hard and soft forms: Hard presence “refers to a military area in public space, overseas territories, colonies, departments, trusted lands, or foreign territories, where a state deploys a certain number of armed forces, engages in military activities, and builds up certain institutions and facilities” (Degang & Zoubir, 2012: 87). Examples are the bases in Qatar and Bahrain or the NATO command in Turkey. Soft presence, on the other hand, refers to “less aggressive and less conspicuous, including ad hoc military deployment, technical military stations, overseas arsenals, military supply sites, drone bases, intelligence stations, reconnaissance sites, aerospace tracking facilities and so on” (Ibid).
A majority of US presence in the ME falls into the second category, which testifies to the fact that the contemporary security environment in the region involves more non-traditional security components than it was initially.
Since the establishment of the first task force in the Middle East in 1948, the US military imprint in the region has grown steadily. In 1949, the task force was renamed as Middle East Force (MEF). Since 1951 when the US appointed a rear admiral in the command of the MEF, the US Navy kept a permanent presence in the Persian Gulf and operated from Bahrain. During the Carter Era, a Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) was set up. The twin events of the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviets and the revolution in Iran in 1979 rendered the existing Saudi Arabia-Iran security axis unviable. Thus, as the strategic environment became complicated, US security institutionalization developed further and eventually the US Central Command
(USCENTCOM) was established in 1980.63 From the 1990s on, Washington signed cooperative
63 The area of responsibility of the USCENTCOM includes Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, United Arab
112
defense agreements with a number Gulf Countries, including Oman (1990), Saudi Arabia (1990), Bahrain (1990), Kuwait (1991), Qatar (1992), and the UAE (1994), which granted US military exclusive advantage in the Persian Gulf over its rivals (Hajjar, 2002: 19-20).
The over-militarization of the relations in recent years could be tracked in the official statements released by Washington. One such noteworthy policy speech was delivered by Chuck Hagel, the US Secretary of Defense, at the Washington Institute for the Near East Policy in May 2013. In his speech, the secretary outlined Washington’s national security interests in the Middle East. As has been traditionally the case, he began with stressing the security of Israel as the core of the US policy. He then emphasized the defense partnership with Egypt as the most important relationship which also relates to the security of Israel. Hegel identified Jordan as another key US partner with which Washington increased military cooperation. Then Hegel identified Iran’s support for Syria, its destabilizing activities and its nuclear program as a major security threat to the US and its allies in the region. In this regard, the US defense cooperation with Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and other Gulf countries, and its military footprint in the region now far exceeded those prior to the September 11.64
It is anticipated that the US will retain strong presence in the Middle East in the coming years despite the strategic rebalance toward Asia.65 This is simply due to the fact that,
geostrategically, the region is still important. Also, the security commitments of the US military make it almost impossible that a meaningful withdrawal from the region would be likely without a major dent in the US power and capability. As of February 2013, the cumulative strength of the US military in the Gulf is composed of “more than 300 combat aircraft, 30 ships, and personnel numbering about 35,000, including sailors, soldiers, Marines and airmen.” The deployment in Bahrain that hosts the Navy’s 5th Fleet includes “two carriers, 20 ships, 103 strike
Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Yemen. Visit USCENTCOM at http://www.centcom.mil/about-u-s-central-command-centcom.
64 Read the full speech at http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/US-defense-policy-in-the-middle-east.
65 In fact, as the Los Angeles Times report indicates, “the Pentagon quietly shifted combat troops and warships to the Middle East after the top American commander in the region warned that he needed additional forces to deal with Iran and other potential threats.” In Jordan, Kuwait, and other GCC countries, US military presence has increased over the past two years.
113
aircraft, approximately 20,000 sailors and marines.”66 Although costly, such an extensive presence doubtlessly gives the US a major advantage over any potential rival in the Greater Middle East.
In the absence of a permanent Chinese military presence and commitment in the Persian Gulf, the US military emerges as a force that could almost singlehandedly dominate the Middle Eastern security framework. Only the two aircraft battle groups that cruise the waters of the Gulf present a formidable challenge to any challenger that attempt to revise the existing security framework. Chinese disinterest in getting involved in the region’s internal politics is partly the result of such an understanding. Although in the future we may see China deploy naval units near and in the Persian Gulf waters (especially if the Port of Gwadar is updated to host PLAN’s surface and subsurface naval units), over the short to medium term, except for anti-piracy, escort and rescue missions in the Indian Ocean, SLOCs security will largely remain to be a US business exclusively (Scobell and Nathan, 2012: 139).
However, a deeper policy discord may change the status quo prematurely and lead the two sides to wage a low-key fight through proxies in the region – as exemplified by the US-Russia proxy war in Syria.67 Energy security is a compelling factor for China to defy US regional strategy. If mutual understanding is not achieved, China-US relations can easily evolve into a destructive great power competition. It is certain that although the projected energy self-sufficiency strengthens the US hand in the region, as a customer of oil from the international markets, even zero dependency on the ME would not be of any meaning in the event of an energy crisis that would push the global spot prices up. Hence, whereas less-dependency frees up the US hand in the Middle East, the international nature of energy prices (among others) still ties the US firmly to the region.
US and Middle East Energy
Historically, the US has had concerns about secured access to the energy resources in the Middle East. This concern, which shaped the nature of US involvement for years, found its
66For more information on the US Strength in the Persian Gulf, visit, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/iraq/military/usstrength.htm.
67 About the US-Russia proxy war, read http://rt.com/op-edge/us-russia-proxy-war-364/.
114
best expression in the Carter Doctrine (Noel, 2006: 1-2). In his 1980, Carter explicitly stated that the US reserved the right to (militarily) intervene in case of a threat to the flow of oil from the Middle East.68 US involvement has become more complex ever since, primarily for two major reasons: First, the post 9/11 security environment now differs largely from the Cold War-era.
During the Cold War, the actors were nation states whereas in the post-9/11 period, the identity of actors is less clear as some of them are not bound by any state lines, identified as non-state actors. Furthermore, during the Cold War the epicenter of the US-Soviet rivalry was Eastern Europe and the Middle East remained in the liberal sphere (on the periphery of it, but still inside) while the very center point of the post 9/11 world has been the Middle East and North Africa (with East Asia is now slowly integrated under the Asia-pivot scheme).
Second, it seems that the long-held dream by every US administration since Nixon of a greatly reduced dependency on the strategically unreliable sources of energy is becoming a reality. Recently, a number of reports have mentioned an “energy revolution” in the United States. Sustained high oil prices have made it economically viable for energy companies to exploit deposits (deep sea or land) considered harder to reach. As of August 2013, US crude oil output stood at above 7.5 million barrels/day (mb/d), while US crude imports were down by 1.6 mb/d over the same period. Hence it is predicted that by October 2013 the US will be producing
Second, it seems that the long-held dream by every US administration since Nixon of a greatly reduced dependency on the strategically unreliable sources of energy is becoming a reality. Recently, a number of reports have mentioned an “energy revolution” in the United States. Sustained high oil prices have made it economically viable for energy companies to exploit deposits (deep sea or land) considered harder to reach. As of August 2013, US crude oil output stood at above 7.5 million barrels/day (mb/d), while US crude imports were down by 1.6 mb/d over the same period. Hence it is predicted that by October 2013 the US will be producing