America Must Pivot Toward China and Away from the Middle East

Salvatore Babones

Security, Asia

It is time for Washington to embrace that reality and provide the military with the resources it needs.

The United States Central Command (CENTCOM), based at MacDill air force base in Tampa, Florida, covers the Middle East from Egypt through the Persian Gulf to Central Asia. With an area of responsibility that includes Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, CENTCOM is geographically the smallest but politically the most explosive of the Pentagon's six area combat commands.

CENTCOM experienced its first serious trial by fire just ten months after being established, when on October 23, 1983, an Iranian suicide bomber killed 241 Marines, soldiers, and sailors who were on a peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. Also, the 1991 liberation of Kuwait (Desert Storm), the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan (Enduring Freedom), and the 2003 invasion of Iraq (Desert Shield) were all CENTCOM operations.

No one can doubt the heroism and professionalism of CENTCOM personnel. And the effectiveness of CENTCOM as a fighting force is amply demonstrated by the results it has achieved. But that doesn't mean that it's in the national interest for the United States to continue to put enormous military resources into CENTCOM’s area of operations. Is the Middle East really that important to American foreign policy?

Oil and Terrorists

When it comes down to it, ensuring the free flow of oil and fighting terrorism are America's two big reasons for being in the region. The area is an economic backwater composed mainly of profoundly undemocratic countries whose populations are thoroughly anti-American. The only country in the region to which these generalizations do not apply is Israel, and Israel has consistently proven that it can take care of itself.