Accord­ing to the Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions, the world’s most pow­er­ful mil­i­tary and largest econ­o­my affords the U.S. “…unique influ­ence on glob­al affairs…”. Their exper­tise far exceeds mine. But…

 In light of the mud­dle of muck that unique­ness has either put us in, or is unable to extri­cate us from, I think it’s not above any of us to ask:  Benign or malev­o­lent? Wel­come or unwant­ed? Nec­es­sary or extraneous?
The CFR went on to note that: “Deci­sions made in Washington—especially about peace and security—are bol­stered by the Unit­ed States’ intri­cate net­work of alliances…”
Some­how, react­ing to a pos­si­ble threat from Iran­ian drones by pulling the world’s most pow­er­ful bombers out of a British air­base so abrupt­ly that “some of the planes and their flight crews left while aer­i­al refu­el­ing air­craft were still being scram­bled…” doesn’t seem a way to impress and keep allies. Espe­cial­ly when they’ve been let­ting you use the base to wage a war in which they have no say, but are suf­fer­ing the eco­nom­ic consequences.
In the sev­en months since Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump declared vic­to­ry over Iran (on Day One), Amer­i­can per­son­nel were evac­u­at­ed from bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates and Qatar.
Not unjus­ti­fi­ably, it was char­ac­terised  as “retreat”.                 

                                WHAT TO MAKE OF IT         

Ear­ly in the Afghan war, in an off-the-record  chat they insti­gat­ed, I asked a pair of Cuban cig­ar-puff­ing Qatari lumi­nar­ies why their gov­ern­ment spent a bil­lion dol­lars build­ing the mas­sive al-Udeid air­base, only to essen­tial­ly hand it over to the Americans.
“Because it made sense,” one said. “We’re a tiny nation on a spit of sand, with crazy peo­ple (mean­ing Iran) almost in sight of our shore­line. Our neigh­bours on the oth­er side (the Saud­is) can’t even defend themselves.When you live in that kind of neigh­bour­hood, you want to be friends with the guys who’ve got the biggest stick.”
With the Tal­iban back run­ning Afghanistan, and the “biggest stick” aban­don­ing bases the alleged­ly defeat­ed “cra­zies” have man­aged to dam­age or destroy in his neigh­bour­hood, I won­der how the prag­mat­ic Qatari would answer my
ques­tion today?
Since the end of the Kore­an war,  the Amer­i­cans have gained, whether jus­ti­fied or not, an image, if not rep­u­ta­tion of pulling out of, rather than win­ning, mil­i­tary adventures.
Soma­li mili­ti­a­men (dubbed “skin­nies” by U.S. Marines) ‚brought down three Black­hawk heli­copters with shoul­der-mount­ed anti-tank rock­ets. The Marines fought back in a bloody three day bat­tle. Six months lat­er, they were with­drawn from the UN Soma­li peace mis­sion. The “skin­nies” tout­ed it as vic­to­ry for their side.
With­in four months of a sui­cide bomber killing 241 U.S.  mil­i­tary personnel,at Beirut air­port,  the Marines had pulled out of Lebanon.
Nei­ther of those coun­tries has end­ed up much bet­ter off than before the U.S troops arrived.
Nor has either of them become what might be called a staunch U.S. ally, which is unsurprising.
Under the Trump admin­is­tra­tion the adage “the best defence is a good offence” is inter­pret­ed as “the best defence is being offensive”.
The Iran­ian lead­er­ship, who are  past mas­ters at the kind of insults Trump likes to spout,  also seem to be more adept than the Trumpians at pick­ing up use­ful allies.
The Houthis are a case in point.
The group grew out of oppo­si­tion to what they saw as cor­rup­tion and for­eign influ­ence (read Wash­ing­ton and Riyadh) in Yemen’s government.It’s not clear when Tehran start­ed sup­port­ing the Houthis, but they are now a for­mi­da­ble and key Iran­ian ally.
In spite of warn­ings to both the Saud­is and Wash­ing­ton that the Houthis were about to launch an offen­sive, a light­en­ing push has put them in posi­tion to be a threat to the Bab al-Mandab Strait, through which 10 per­cent of glob­al trade passes.
Sound familiar?
Mean­while, despite Israel hav­ing  killed  more than 1,300 peo­ple, includ­ing 301 chil­dren in the Gaza Strip since the cease­fire that forms part of Trump’s 20 ‑point peace plan was put in place last Octo­ber, the Trump admin­is­tra­tion has agreed to sell them 60,000 one-ton bombs.
They can be set to det­o­nate above ground, send­ing shrap­nel 300 meters in any direction.
Note the words “in any direction”.
Over the first six weeks of the Gaza war, the Israelis rou­tine­ly dropped the mas­sive ord­nance on areas des­ig­nat­ed for civil­ians, includ­ing dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed ones.
Israel con­sis­tent­ly insists it seeks to avoid or min­imise (how kind and Gene­va Con­ven­tion respect­ing of them) civil­ian casualties.
All in all, exper­tise or not, how much do the rest of us still  need to  see Amer­i­ca as essential?
In many ways, quite a lot.
In many oth­ers, self-respect­ing nations are begin­ning to think, not so much any more.

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