The arc of American influence started rising through President Jimmy Carter’s successful efforts to broker the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty that took Egypt out of the conflict with Israel and in effect ended the state-to-state conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The Oslo Accords and the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty under President Bill Clinton represented the high point of America’s engagement in the peace process. At the same time, as Natan alluded to, the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War and the eviction of Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait led to a dramatic boost to America’s stature in the region. By the 1990s,the United States was the dominant power of the Middle East.
The arc started to bend downward at the end of the Clinton administration with the failure to achieve a breakthrough between first Israel and Syria, and then between Israel and the Palestinians at Camp David. And that was then followed by the outbreak of the intifada, which looked like anything but peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and by the American-led invasion of Iraq. And that is when American influence began to decline rather precipitously.
That's a very Palestinian-centric way of looking at the Middle East. Let me look at it a different way.
Perhaps the rise and fall of American military power in the region isn't the same as influence, and we should understand that people who got used to our military presence will take a while to adjust to that new reality.
Consider that until the early 1970s America wasn't much involved militarily in the Middle East. We had NATO, North Korea, and Vietnam to draw our attention. And in the Middle East, Britain was the guarantor of acceptable peace.
But then things happened.
France stopped being Israel's primary diplomatic and arms supplier (because the French hated Nasser of Egypt) but came to terms after getting over losing the Algerian War.
Britain decided they would no longer police the Persian Gulf region.
The Arab oil embargo following the 1973 Arab-Israeli War highlighted the West's need for the region's oil.
Iraq signed a treaty with the USSR, adding Iraq to Syria as an ally.
The Camp David treaty between Egypt and Israel made American involvement a routine feature, with American troops committed to policing their common border (they are still there, with allies, in a non-UN peacekeeping force).
Shia nutballs took over Iran after the Shah was overthrown--which had been our proxy ally to maintain stability in the Gulf region--stormed the American embassy and took our diplomats and Marine guards hostage.
The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.
Iraq invade Iran, starting what would be an 8-year war that eventually featured an oil war that threatened oil exports.
So America had a number of reasons why it needed to get more involved in the Middle East. We built up alliances and bases and started working on the ability to move our military there (remember the Rapid Deployment Force and the Carter Doctrine that justified it?).
The fall of the Soviet Union helped reduce the external threats to the region, but with nutball Iran in power and the thug dictator Saddam Hussein adding to the threat level, invading Kuwait after the end of the Iran-Iraq War, the threats remained.
And then al Qaeda strcuk us on September 11, 2001, not only hitting us hard at home but demonstrating how much Islamist jihadi thinking had grown in the region--even in Saddam's Iraq, recall.
American military power was sucked in to hit the Taliban regime that sheltered al Qaeda.
And the idea of leaving Saddam in power over a potentially wealthy oil state with the ability to produce WMD in light of jihadi growth in the region became(rightly) unthinkable. And when al Qaeda counter-invaded Iraq after our successful invasion and successful defeat of the Baathist resistance by February 2004, we found we could not leave Iraq as planned as Iran exploited and enabled the Sunni jihadi invasion through their Syrian vassal state. And Iran didn't take any chances about a civil war developing by supporting the Shia nutballs inside Iraq to be the other side in the budding civil war.
So as time went on, the need for American military power in the region went up. Our peak commitments in Iraq reached about 180,000 while in Afghanistan it reached 100,000.
And don't forget that the collapse of the Soviet Union and the still-future Chinese military rise allowed America to commit force to the region without risking higher priority theaters.
Still, we eventually beat this Iran/al Qaeda effort in Iraq. And even our surge in Afghanistan left Afghan forces that could carry on the fight. In Iraq War 2.0 against ISIL and in current Afghanistan, we can see that we don't need 100,000+ troops in direct combat. Locals with our support and special forces can carry on the day-to-day fighting.
So it is possible for America to reduce our combat role and rely on local allies and on our proven ability to rapidly deploy forces if they are needed. The problem is that in the visuals the world has gotten used to seeing a lot of American forces in combat as a concrete demonstration of our commitment.
But a reduction in our military power doesn't mean our commitment is lower. It means the need for our military power in the region to back our commitment is going down after spiking from about 1973 to 2009 (although the surges in Afghanistan extended that to 2011 or so). Eventually locals will get used to our lower footprint and lower level of direct combat without thinking it means less commitment.
And of course, our need to refocus on Russia and China means we can't afford to keep as many troops in the region if we don't have to. And because of our past efforts at higher levels of troop commitment, we can reduce--but not eliminate--our military presence.
And in the meantime, except for their fans in the West, the Palestinians have lost their title as Queen of the Victim Prom.
Our influence remains intact. And it has nothing to do with the arc of Palestinian influence in the region as Arab states loudly embraced the cause and then quietly walked away.
Of course, this is related to the nonsensical notion peddled that the cause of unrest in the Middle East was our overthrow of the odious and dangerous Saddam regime in 2003. Saddam was one of many threats that arose from the Middle East--one that that required our biggest direct commitment to facing Iraq (three times: in 1990-1991, 2003-2011, and 2014--present--and four times if you count the 1991-2003 no-fly war over Iraq as a separate conflict).
Our influence in the region is just fine. And I'll be happy when our interests don't require large numbers of troops in combat to defend.
