Barrack says no playbook guides U.S. security realignment
Tom Barrack told regional security officials at the Global Security Forum in Doha, Qatar, that the United States was no longer the guarantor of global security. He said Middle East nations must focus on regional partnerships, pointing to the new defense pact between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey as the kind of smaller, more diversified alliance the region should pursue. Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and President Trump’s special envoy for Syria and Iraq, spoke at the forum, an annual summit that brings together top security officials and experts from around the world, as officials braced for a potential new round of escalation between the United States and Iran.
Barrack said the grand bargains that had underpinned global security for decades were undergoing major transformation and that countries in the Middle East and elsewhere should focus on securing themselves through regional partnerships. “America as the guarantor to the world, for the last 80 years, it is no longer there,” Barrack said. “What’s happening in this administration is not an abandonment. It’s a message for realignment.” He compared the adjustment to raising a teenager. “And that message is like raising a teenager. It’s not easy,” he said.
Barrack said arrangements forged in the wake of World War II — essentially a quid pro quo in which the United States provided security in exchange for oil — no longer fit Washington’s imperatives. He said Americans did not want to sacrifice their lives for the Middle East and that Gulf states knew the United States could not assure their security.
He said the transition would be uncertain and that there was no prepared plan for what would follow. “We don’t have a playbook,” he said. “We’re all on audibles. We can go one play at a time.” Other Trump administration officials have delivered similar calls for self-reliance at security gatherings in Europe and Asia.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Gulf states had tried and failed to talk Trump out of going to war with Iran. Barrack’s message came as those states worried the United States would retreat from the conflict, leaving them to face what the Journal described as an “angered and newly aggressive foe.” Many were questioning whether they could rely on the United States as a partner even while recognizing there were no good alternatives to its military technology and backing. Gulf countries were looking nervously at Saudi Arabia, where missile and drone attacks by Iran-backed Houthi militants had damaged energy facilities and the international airport in the capital, Riyadh. Saudi Arabia appealed to the United States to intervene militarily, but Trump had limited the American role to providing intelligence and guidance, the Journal reported. The damage from Houthi strikes heightened concerns about the region’s capacity to fend off further missile and drone incursions after air defenses had been burned through earlier in the war.
Barbara Leaf, a top Middle East envoy under former President Joe Biden, was also speaking in Doha. She said regional allies were already moving away from dependence on U.S. protection but that there were limits to an American retreat. “They’re already doing, I think, a lot of logical things—diversification of security partnerships and security defense equipment resources,” she said. “I think we simply haven’t seen where things will ultimately go yet, and therefore how these regional partners are best suited to defend themselves, but they do need big partners like the U.S.”
Ali Vaez, an Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, said the region heard different messages from different U.S. officials, which hurt America’s credibility and led countries to hedge their bets. “At the end of the day, the United States will remain highly influential and involved in the region’s defense, but it has proven to be clearly insufficient,” Vaez said.
American administrations had long hoped to disentangle the United States from the Middle East without success, and the Trump administration was delivering a mixed message. Last year, the United States added Saudi Arabia to its list of major non-NATO allies, a list that includes Gulf neighbors Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait.
Other administration actions pointed in the opposite direction. Trump continued to build up forces around Iran. The military was bringing a third aircraft carrier and an additional Marine expeditionary unit into the region and was resupplying forces in case they were needed for a renewed fight. Amid the continuing deployment, Barrack said, “We’re not leaving.”
Both Trump and Iranian officials had signaled that they were preparing for a possible resumption of large-scale hostilities after a monthslong impasse in diplomacy. The United States had increased economic pressure on the Iranian regime, but the effort had not produced a diplomatic breakthrough. Regional allies were bracing for another possible round of fighting that could hit sensitive energy infrastructure.
Barrack said the war launched by the United States and Israel in late February brought unexpected consequences. He likened the Middle East to a Rubik’s Cube, where a single move can change the whole picture, and said there were lessons to learn and limits to U.S. power. “Every time we try and intervene and change the person or the regime, it seems to have been a mistake,” he said, pointing to Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan.