13◼ REMARKS Bloomberg Businessweek May 27, 2019GETTY IMAGES
“endless wars,” which at that time included 13 years of occu-
pation in Iraq and 15 in Afghanistan.
Trump the president, however, has inserted the U.S. into
the confrontation that’s shaping the Middle East. The conflict is
woven out of intricate enmities of race, religion, history, and—
of course—petroleum: On one side are Saudi Arabia, the United
Arab Emirates, with the surprising addition of Israel; and, on
the other, Iran and its allies Syria, Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon,
and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Saudis and Israelis blame
the situation on Iran’s decades-long ambitions to dominate the
region, just as the Persian Empire did centuries ago. Tehran
blames it on what it calls the B-Team: Trump national secu-
rity adviser John Bolton, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—the
son of the current ruler, King Salman bin Abdulaziz, who suc-
ceeded his half-brother Abdullah in 2015—and United Arab
Emirates’ Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed.Trump’s anti-interventionist leanings have been under-
mined by his closest allies in the Middle East and by White
House courtiers like Bolton—whom the president has report-
edly ridiculed for viewing warfare as the cure-all to nearly any
foreign policy dilemma. That’s left the U.S. with an aggres-
sive Middle East policy largely designed around the singular
goal of backing Saudi Arabia and Israel in suppressing and
pressuring Iran.
U.S.-Iranian animosity, of course, goes back to the 1979
Islamic Revolution of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini that over-
threw the Washington-backed Shah of Iran. Iranian influence
in the region would expand to the proportions that now alarm
Israel and the Gulf Arabs after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq
toppled Saddam Hussein’s Sunni Muslim minority govern-
ment. Under Saddam, Iraq had been a regional counterbal-
ance to Iran. The two countries fought an almost eight-year war
that saw hundreds of thousands of casualties. With the fall of
Saddam, power shifted to Iraq’s Shiite majority, which has been
open to influence from Iran, the region’s Shiite superpower.
The Iranian presence has become so pervasive in Iraq that
the U.S. is now citing it as a major security threat—and a rea-
son to leave the country. Threats from pro-Iranian militia
groups in Iraq forced the closure of the U.S. Consulate in the
oil-rich southern city of Basra last year. This month the U.S.
ordered all non-emergency personnel out of its embassy in
the capital, Baghdad. As King Abdullah said in 2008, accord-
ing to WikiLeaks: “Some say the U.S. invasion handed Iraq
to Iran on a silver platter.”
When a civil war broke out in Syria during the Arab Spring
in 2011, President Bashar al-Assad turned to Iran and Russia
for help. He killed hundreds of thousands of his own peo-
ple and slowly retook most of the country. His bloody vic-
tory made Iran an even bigger power broker in the region.
Maintaining Assad in power was key for Iranian policy. Syria
had always been the pipeline for Iran to ship arms and sup-
port to its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon.
No country was more alarmed than Netanyahu’s Israel
when Trump—reverting to his noninterventionist nature—
ordered all U.S. troops out of Syria last year. The Israelis lob-
bied the Trump administration heavily in the wake of the
withdrawal announcement, according to people familiar with
the matter. The reason: They wanted the U.S. to keep an eye
on Iran’s activities there and maintain a deterrent force in the
country. While Trump hasn’t revoked his order, the U.S. con-
tinues operations at Al-Tanf, the military base in Syria that
Netanyahu was concerned would be abandoned.
Israel fears that Iran is adding to its presence in Lebanon
with a growing military capacity in Syria and support for
groups including Islamic Jihad and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu is determined to prevent Iran from opening another
front against Israel. The Israeli military has mounted dozens of
recent attacks against Iranian weapons convoys and military
bases in Syria. (All this took place after an extraordinary, but
brief, intervention by Iran, Turkey, the U.S., Russia, and a Saudi-
led coalition against the caliphate set up by Islamic State.)● Enemy