| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
I will focus my remarks on Gulf anxieties as they relate to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, specifically as they relate to U.S. policy vis-à-vis Iran, which is very much a hot topic. There are some deep structural sources of anxiety that have created tensions in the relationship between the United States and our closest partners in the Gulf. There is a widespread perception in the Gulf region that the United States is simply politically exhausted with the Middle East as a whole and with the Gulf in particular, after more than a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think they see the U.S. drawdown from Iraq and the imminent drawdown from Afghanistan, and they wonder when the United States will start to draw down its 35,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and others who are every day on mission in the Gulf region.
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