America Needs the Middle East to Grow

Its importance to the U.S. and the world goes far beyond oil.

 
It is an unpopular view in Washington now to say that the Middle East matters. But it does. War fatigue, American energy “dominance,” and a bipartisan campaign to increase burden-sharing, in which Arab state partners pay more and do more for their own regional security, are strong and widely supported arguments for America’s disengagement with the region.

The collateral damage of a persistent incompetence on the part of Saudi Arabia to manage its communications strategy and intelligence operations has made the U.S.–Saudi strategic partnership weaker than it was after September 11, 2001. American politicians of both Democratic and Republican affiliation want to wash their hands of our Gulf Arab partnerships. But these relationships are larger than current scandals, nascent leadership transitions, and the optics of being associated with governments that make poor choices and then fail to cover them up.

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