America’s Opportunity in the Middle East

U.S. foreign policy hands are rightly grappling with how engaged the United States should be in the Middle East. Thought-provoking essays by Martin Indyk (in The Wall Street Journal) and Mara Karlin and Tamara Cofman Wittes (in Foreign Affairs) have argued that the United States has few remaining vital interests—those worth going to war over—in the region. Washington should “do less” in the Middle East, as Karlin and Wittes put it, and lighten the U.S. footprint because, as the headline of Indyk’s essay noted, it “isn’t worth it.” Gone are the days when 180,000 U.S. troops fought in Iraq or when spiking oil prices held the U.S. economy over a proverbial barrel. And the terrifying outbreak of a global pandemic has been the starkest reminder yet that the United States has work to do to refocus its priorities on the most pressing current and future challenges.