The US ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria says American troops in West Asia will not leave the region but Washington will move away from its so-called security guarantor role as Persian Gulf Arab states should no longer rely on US security umbrella.
Speaking at the Global Security Forum in Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday, Tom Barrack, a confidant of US President Donald Trump, stressed that Arab states of the Persian Gulf can no longer rely on the security umbrella established by the United States in the region after World War II.
“In the region, everybody is saying if we have America and we are selling oil and gas in dollars and we buy weapons in dollars and we have bases of Americans… we are going to have free seas, and we are going to have a security guaranty. All of a sudden, that doesn’t happen,” he said.
The senior US official stressed that Washington no longer wants its “grand bargain” with the Persian Gulf Arab states, which is providing security in exchange for oil, emphasizing that the US is “transitioning” to a new approach, in a major shift that is “like raising a teenager.”
Barrack further noted that Washington's role as world guarantor for eight decades “is no longer there.”
“Conflict and controversy was actually to the Western favor. The more off-base the region was, the more [the West] could manipulate fossil fuels for its own benefit. That’s not in existence anymore,” he stressed.
After a US-Israeli military coalition waged an unprovoked war of aggression against Iran in late February, Tehran carried out retaliatory missile and drone strikes against targets, mostly American bases and facilities, in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain.
Trump’s special envoy to Syria stressed that this reassessment in the Persian Gulf region was due to the “consequences of one intended mission”, referring to the joint US-Israeli war on Iran, commonly known as the 40-day war.
However, Barrack noted that Washington seeks to re-adjust its approach toward the region, not abandon it.
“The bargain is not to own, not to control, but not to leave. We’re not leaving. What’s happening in this administration is not an abandonment. It’s a message for realignment. And that message is like raising a teenager. It’s not easy,” the US envoy stressed.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Barrack said that Washington supported regional efforts to replace the old US security framework, such as the recent trilateral military alliance between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan, known as the Mecca pact.
“Everybody's got to be on their own regional alliances, which is what’s happening,” he added.
Riyadh invoked the so-called alliance for support against attacks by Yemeni forces, whose counteroffensive came after more than a decade of Saudi-led war and blockade against Yemen that began in 2015 when Riyadh intervened militarily to restore the former regime in the country.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis, while Riyadh has failed to achieve its stated objective of reinstating the government it backed in Sana’a.
Saudi Arabia has sharply escalated its aggression in recent weeks, with Yemeni officials reporting hundreds of airstrikes across the country.
“These kinetic reactions have never worked. It doesn’t work. It’s probably not likely that it’s going to work,” Barrack said, when asked whether Saudi Arabia could succeed in confrontation against the Yemeni forces.
Trump “has been clear that he supports Saudi Arabia, and the backing they need logistically he will supply, but America getting involved in a ground kinetic battle somewhere else sounds fruitless,” Barrack stressed.
Yemeni armed forces have responded to Saudi attacks with major operations along the Red Sea coast, driving Saudi-backed forces from strategic positions.
After John Sawers, the former head of MI6, Barrack has become the second high-profile Western figure to warn that there is no military option to defeat the Yemeni forces.
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