If You Can't Run It, Burn It: U.S. Policy In The Persian Gulf And The Muslim World

An excerpt from, “US moving away from Middle East security guarantor role, Barrack says” by Rosaleen Carroll, Al-Monitor, October 20, 2026:

US Ambassador to Turkey and special envoy for Syria and Iraq Tom Barrack said Tuesday that Washington is moving away from its role as a regional security guarantor, arguing that Middle East governments must take greater responsibility for their own security and that US ground interventions have repeatedly failed.

What happened: Speaking in an interview with Al Jazeera at the eighth Global Security Forum in Doha, Qatar, Barrack said the US role in the region was changing but stressed that the shift did not mean Washington was abandoning the Middle East.

Asked about the “grand bargain” linking Gulf oil supplies with US security guarantees, Barrack said the arrangement was evolving rather than coming to an end. The “bargain” has centered on US security support for Gulf oil-producing states in exchange for stable energy supplies.

“I think it hasn’t ended. It’s transitioning,” he said. “Owning doesn’t work. Controlling hasn’t worked. Every place we’ve tried to control — Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq — Iraq, what a disaster. So the bargain is not to own but to tend. Not to leave. We’re not leaving,” Barrack said.

Barrack pointed to past US interventions in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan as evidence of the limits of efforts to reshape other countries through military force. “Every time we try and intervene and change the person or the regime, it seems to have been a mistake,” he said. 

BREAKING: The U.S. is now preparing to completely abandon Gulf countries, as Trump envoy Tom Barrack directly warns Gulf allies that Washington can no longer guarantee their security indefinitely, telling regional officials in Doha that they must take responsibility for their own…

— The Hormuz Report (@HormuzReport) October 20, 2026