James F. Jeffrey and Michael Eisenstadt: U.S. Military Engagement in the Broader Middle East
US Military Engagement in the Broader Middle East
James F. Jeffrey and Michael Eisenstadt
Spring 2016
When the next administration takes office in January 2017, it will be faced with daunting issues in the Middle East. James F. Jeffrey and Michael Eisenstadt in their analyses, US Military Engagement in the Broader Middle East, focus on the inheritance of the Obama administration’s general military disengagement from the region and the downward spiral of stability there in the post “Arab Spring” world. Jeffrey and Eisenstadt conclude that there are two possible outcomes if these trends continue: “further U.S.—and thus other Western—withdrawal, leading not to a continuation of the decades-long ‘stalemate’ of modernity and stability versus radicalism and chaos but rather to a downward spiral empowering radicalism and chaos, and an ever growing dominance of a Russia. Job one for the next U.S. administration will likely be to curb the possibilities of both such a downward spiral and dominance by a Russian- and Iranian-led regional alliance,” unless of course the next president seeks to disassociate even more from the region, with all the consequences that might imply for Middle Eastern tumult and frustration ending up again all too soon on our doorsteps.
Ken Stein, May 2016