SerpApi.Org
The US and Iran are back to exchanging fire in their strange, slow-motion war. It is clear that US President Donald Trump wants to end the war. He expected it to repeat his drive-by success in Venezuela earlier this year. But Iran fought back better than expected. Its missile and drone reserves proved deep, and its anti-access/area-denial technologies did an excellent job backing off the US Navy from the Iranian coast. The American navy was unwilling to run the Strait of Hormuz to force it open for fear of losses from swarms of cheap Iranian air power. The US fleet remained far offshore in the Gulf of Oman.
The conflict is now a stalemate. Trump cannot win unless he escalates. That almost certainly means the insertion of ground forces; Trump is apparently considering, again, taking Kharg Island. The risks here are obvious. The American record of ground combat in the Middle East is poor. The US can certainly do a lot of damage, but a limited incursion seems unlikely to break Iran. And taking Kharg would likely lead to US casualties, which would likely encourage further US incursions. Gradual escalation on the ground, with the US pulled in deeper and deeper in search of victory, is the classic pattern of a quagmire.
There is an alternative to yet another lengthy, vague, unwinnable Middle East war: retrenchment. The US can admit it is overstretched and pull back, husbanding its resources for more important challenges like China. This has happened before.
Retrenchment is Not Just Surrender
Great powers have routinely overextended themselves in history. They take on too many overseas commitments; they get pulled into ‘small wars,’ which become big wars; they run up debts which overwhelm their finances.
Foolish great powers push on regardless, compounding their bad choices. The Axis powers famously over-extended themselves by attacking powers much larger than themselves even as they were bogged down in other conflicts. The Soviet Union charged into Afghanistan in 1979 with no clear strategic goal and a declining economy. A quagmire it could not afford ensued, helping to elevate Mikhail Gorbachev and the reformers who undid the Soviet system. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeated this error in Ukraine. He cannot win, and he will not accept a limited victory. He is risking systemic collapse at home.
But cutting one’s losses is also possible. Great Britain famously retrenched from ‘east of Suez’ in the early 1970s. Its empire was spinning apart at the time; decolonization was in full swing. And the British economy was sliding into stagnation. It lacked the resources to fight so far from its home and accepted pull-back, albeit with clear angst at home over a lost imperial role.
Even the US learned to be more cautious after the Vietnam War. By the early 1970s, it was clear that the US could not win and that a loss in Southeast Asia would not, in fact, spark a chain of falling dominoes driving the US out of Asia. America, like Britain, accepted the need to pull back. It did, and it showed far greater care in responding to communist movements in Africa and Central America later.
Retrenching from the Persian Gulf
The time has come to make a similar decision about the forward deployment of US forces in the Persian Gulf. America has been the dominant power there since the 1991 Gulf War. It has used force in the region repeatedly – but at great expense, many deaths, and with surprisingly little to show for it.
Iraq is mildly more liberal and better governed than it was twenty-five years ago, but that is about the only improvement against a long list of problems, including: hundreds of thousands dead from all the conflicts, the American use of torture, the spread of Islamism, the persistence of the Iranian clerical regime, the persistence of many authoritarian and/or fundamentalist regimes, and the huge costs to US finances and military readiness from an enduring and large commitment to far-off region.
Pulling back to more defensible US goals is a better choice now. China and Russia are far more important challenges to US power than Iran or Islamic terrorists. The US cannot re-order the Gulf. It can neither defeat Iran nor liberalize the region at an acceptable cost.
That much should be clear now, after forty years of American local dominance. Israeli security does not require the US to remain in the Gulf, nor does the shipment of oil and other products from the region. All regional parties have an interest in trade and export, even Iran. The Hormuz Strait would still be open if the US had pulled back rather than more deeply entrenched itself in the region via this latest war.
Stop Trying to Police the Middle East
Critics will object that the US cannot channel events in the region without a local presence. But at this point, who cares? Is it worth the trouble? Does anyone still believe that local players take their cues from Washington?
The region’s various religious and ideological factions will not reconcile because the US tells them to. Indeed, they often try to manipulate the US for their sectarian goals. They must learn to live with one another, and the sooner the US is out of the way, the sooner they will.
Author: Dr. Robert Kelly, Pusan National University
Dr. Robert E. Kelly is a professor of international relations in the Department of Political Science and Diplomacy at Pusan National University in South Korea. His research interests focus on Security in Northeast Asia, U.S. foreign policy, and international financial institutions. He has written for outlets including Foreign Affairs, the European Journal of International Relations, and The Economist, and has appeared on television news services such as the BBC and CCTV. His personal website/blog is here; his Twitter page is here.
