The quiet change in focus of US-Middle East ties

The quiet change in focus of US-Middle East ties

If America is only present when it must be, and absent when it is wanted most, Gulf leaders will hedge (File/AFP)

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For half a century, the US-Middle East relationship rested on a straightforward bargain: America guaranteed security and the Gulf exported oil. That compact was born of trauma — the 1973 embargo — and hardened by the Cold War. Today, both pillars look shaky. The US is awash with its own hydrocarbons and the credibility of its security umbrella is increasingly in doubt. Yet Washington still appears reluctant to let go, if only because the region remains useful for other reasons: as a source of capital, as a stage for great power competition and as a theater where US influence can still be traded, if selectively, for strategic dividends.