Will Trump succeed in getting out of the Middle East after Obama's failed effort?
I'm sorry, but this is flat out wrong:
President Trump’s foreign policy is significantly different from that of his predecessors. Unlike George W. Bush, who fought a land war in Iraq post 9/11 and deployed thousands of troops throughout the region, Trump is pulling back. He is instead emphasizing the geopolitical threat from China while withdrawing troops from the Middle East, including both Syria and Iraq, where Iran is a major presence.
Trump is following in the tracks of President Obama. His "pivot" to the Asia-Pacific region was all about pivoting away from the Middle East:
Should we have announced a pivot to Asia when increasingly it seems only to be an excuse for the Obama administration to pivot away from CENTCOM? ...
But the most important part of the quoted section is the reason given for pivoting to Asia--that the wars in CENTCOM are coming to an end.
This is no reason for our loud pivot. As I said, the pivot has been going on for many years in reaction to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of China.
So for our president, who simply doesn't want to fight Islamist radicalism in the Middle East--or admit there is a war on terror--pivoting to Asia--which is already taking place--was really about pivoting away from the Middle East. It is repackaging an unwillingness to fight the war we are currently in as a strategy of preparing for the next war (or preventing it with strength).
But it is way too early to pivot away from the Middle East.
As it turns out, it was too early for Obama to pivot away from the Middle East. In 2014 Obama had to initiate Iraq War 2.0, which Trump intensified to defeat ISIL; and even Trump in 2017 reinforced Afghanistan.
So Trump's desire to get out of the Middle East and focus on Asia has continuity from the Obama administration, which declared the post-Cold War trend a policy that seemed to me more like an excuse to leave the Middle East.
The question for Trump is whether it is still too early to pivot away from the Middle East too much. Has enough changed in 8 years to make it work this time?
I think we need to retain forces in Iraq and Afghanistan to help our newly created allies in Iraq and Afghanistan fight jihadis and resist Iran.
Perhaps we can do it with less than what we would have needed a decade ago. But let's not declare the mission over too soon.
