Walter Russell Mead considers the successes in the U. S. Middle East policy over the last 20 years in his latest Wall Street Journal column:
As the Biden administration addresses the remaining issue that poses a major threat to U.S. regional interests—Iran’s quest for regional superpower status based on its nuclear program and support for militias and terrorists—it should reflect on what Washington and its allies have gotten right over the past 20 years.
The first achievement involves one of the great unheralded successes of our time: America’s prevention of major new international terrorist attacks on its soil. With help from key partners around the world, U.S. security institutions have kept Americans largely safe since 9/11. To appreciate the value of this achievement, think what the world and the U.S. would look like if 9/11 had been only the first of a succession of massive attacks.
The second decisive success is that fracking has dramatically reduced the Middle East’s ability to roil world energy markets. The days are long past when even minor crises in the region could send energy prices surging around the world. Middle East oil still matters, but emirs and ayatollahs can no longer cause global economic upheavals by manipulating prices through the oil cartel.
In the third place, as the raid that killed bin Laden demonstrated, America’s reach has grown very long. Stunning advances in drone technology and precision weapons targeting are part of the story. So too are the extraordinary capabilities of U.S. special operations forces. Add to that the ability of very small numbers of American forces to increase vastly the battle effectiveness of local allies by hooking them up to the information available through integrated communications and surveillance, and the U.S. ability to project a lot of power with a small presence is a game changer in the Middle East and beyond.
Finally, neighboring Arab states now consider Israel an ally to be cultivated, not a foe to be crushed. The leading Arab states and Israel aren’t exactly friends, but they are forming something at least equally valuable in international relations: a partnership that both sides consider essential to their continued security.
I’m still not convinced. I think #1 is an example of tiger repellent, i.e. post hoc propter hoc. I don’t disagree entirely with the second but I think that dwindling reserves of Middle East oil have something to do with it as well and I don’t know how to disaggregate the two. I remain unconvinced that the effects of #3 were entirely benign. Doesn’t that “long reach” also impel other countries to seek nuclear weapons? As to the fourth while I welcome it I also think it’s far too early to tell.
Fracking was always an iffy thing, and many fracking companies operated on borrowed money. At $40/bbl, the whole industry was losing money, but at the current $60+/bbl it’s mostly healthy. Fracked wells, however, have a very short life span, and must be redrilled regularly.
Biden has banned fracking on federal lands, some states have done so in their borders on both public and private land, and pipelines are being shut down by both the feds and some states. Michigan recently closed a pipeline to Canada.
American oil dependence is on again. We are right back to where we were before the fracking revolution. This puts Russia, the Middle East (including Iran), and Venezuela back in the driver’s seat.
Robert Conquest’s Third Law.
9/11 was not one of a series of foreign born terrorist attacks.
It was the second of two, same financial backer, same target.
It was very successful as a force multiplier and achieved Bin Laden’s stated goal of bringing the US into war with the caliphate. Whether it achieved his other goal of US collapse is so far uncertain.
The 20 hijackers we’re on the radar of the CIA, at that time at odds with the FBI whose job it was to track them once on US soil. Never informed by the C IA,
the rather amateurish plan was carried out unopposed.
So the USA responded by creating a brand new agency, Homeland Security, with jurisdiction overlapping the existing agencies.
So.
Did expanded bureaucracy keep us safe? Or was as I believe, the threat over when Bin Laden was neutralized.
Some people say our wars in the Mideast only create more terrorists, but all terrorists are not created equal.
American forces identified, hunted down and killed the most dangerous, active and intelligent enemy leaders, and that keeps us safe.
“Fracking was always an iffy thing,”
Maybe, maybe not. We don’t do oil and gas; you’d better be an expert there to do deals.
” and many fracking companies operated on borrowed money.”
All companies operate to a degree on borrowed money. A revolver finances the cash conversion cycle. But……
“At $40/bbl, the whole industry was losing money, but at the current $60+/bbl it’s mostly healthy.”
Yeah. I call them musical chairs deals. Not my cup of tea.
“Fracked wells, however, have a very short life span, and must be redrilled regularly.”
Finance professors call that reinvestment risk.
“Biden has banned fracking on federal lands, some states have done so in their borders on both public and private land, and pipelines are being shut down by both the feds and some states. Michigan recently closed a pipeline to Canada.”
And this, folks, is what really throttles investment, not all the uninformed, politically motivated hand wringing about stock buybacks and the like. Our firm at one point wanted to get into medical devices and practices etc. I put my foot down and quipped, I don’t want to wake up one morning and read in the NYT’s that Ted Kennedy has put us out of business. People ho do those deals have landed assets in Wash DC……………….so they can follow the graft.
“American oil dependence is on again.”
Back at the Gulf War I told anyone who would listen that the smartest thing we could do was gain energy independence so we didn’t have to put up with that ME gang of thieves. Is Biden stupid or what?
Energy independence was a big plus for this country, giving us more geopolitical independence from the unsettling, erratic fortunes of ME oil suppliers. Under the leadership of the prior administration we were able to count on our own resources to fuel our economic needs. As we turned away from ME oil, these countries begin to see they needed to change old outdated patterns themselves. This included acknowledgment of Israel as being more of a beneficial partner, than an enemy, in countering Iran’s threatening overreach.
All seemed to be slowly gelling, in what appeared to be a restructuring of ME alliances, a fracturing of terrorist organizations due to lack of Iranian funding, the scrapping of the Iran Deal, and continuing US sanctions that negatively effected their economy. Now that the Biden Administration has reversed all of the above, we are once again on the path of ME appeasement, dependence, pay-for-prisoners penchant and who knows what else!
I mostly agree with @Grey Shambler. The 9/11 attack was a mostly one-off, and the FBI could have thwarted it. It was like a plane crash or school shooting – extremely rare and extremely traumatic.
Until the NYT spilled the beans, the US was using the financial system to identify the terrorist organizations, and it was highly effective. I am not convinced that killing people who want to be killed is very effective.
Improvements have lowered the break-even costs for fracking, and after the start-up costs, it is $40/bbl. The Saudis learned this the last time they tried to bankrupt the industry.
Re-drilling the wells is not exclusive to fracking. The Gulf of Mexico is constantly being drilled. Shutting down pipelines does not stop production. Instead, the oil is moved by train.
Oil provides cheap energy, and because producing expensive energy requires cheap energy, the ME will be important to the manufacturers of windmills and solar panels.