In the past two days, when I was surfing the Internet, I swiped a particularly interesting article on the foreign media "politico" -- "The US pulled resources out of the Middle East. Now it is rethinking that decision）。 To the effect that during the Biden administration, the United States underwent a major shift in its strategic focus, because it was eager to get out of the Middle East and "return to the Asia-Pacific," which led to the security dilemma that the United States is facing in the Middle East today.
In the wake of Hamas's "Al-Aqsa flood" campaign against Israel on October 7 last year, many U.S. officials have come to realize that the U.S. government is no longer able to respond as quickly as it did to potential regional "terrorism" threats as it used to because the U.S. government continues to withdraw intelligence and military resources from the Middle East.
Not only that, but there are also concerns among U.S. officials that regional anti-U.S. forces, encouraged by the actions of Hamas and the Houthis, supported by Iran, may also give high-intensity eye drops to U.S. troops in the Middle East and the Imperial Allied Army. In this situation, the United States has to think about realigning its strategic resources and redistributing them to the Middle East in response to the escalating regional conflict. It is certain that more troops will be deployed, and in addition, it will be necessary to strengthen the tilt towards intelligence resources in the Middle East. The U.S. "pivot to the Asia-Pacific" strategy, which has been ongoing for more than 10 years since the Obama era, may be disrupted again this time.
This article on the "Politico" website is very long, so I won't parrot them, but here is just a summary of what I think is more important information:
Point 1: Since the outbreak of the current round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, with the strong support of Iran, anti-American forces across the Middle East have launched hundreds of missile attacks on US troops in Iraq and Syria, killing at least three US soldiers. Yemen's Houthis are not idle, either hitting a dozen British cargo ships today or beating American warships twice tomorrow. Around Israel, Hamas in Gaza City is still resisting, and Allah in Lebanon is gearing up to give the Zionist entity a look.
Point 2: There is a saying that the situation is stronger than people, and in the face of huge practical pressure, the Americans, who have always been arrogant, have no choice but to lower their heads and reluctantly shift their strategic attention from East Asia and refocus on the Middle East, especially Iran.
U.S. policymakers naively believed that China and Russia were the bigger threats they posed, and that Iran in the Middle East, including the local anti-American forces supported by Iran, was nothing more than a disease of mustard. However, it turns out that they do think things are simple, because even if the disease is not treated in time, or if it is not treated properly, then it will also bring fatal risks to patients in the end.
Point 3: The United States has been too keen to interfere in East Asian affairs for more than a decade, and most of its limited intelligence resources have been spent on the major powers in the East, which has inevitably weakened the ability of the United States to obtain intelligence in the Middle East. Once upon a time, Israel's Mossad went to Iran to kill people because the United States provided intelligence, but now the United States has to rely on the information provided by Israel to maintain its ability to perceive the situation in the Middle East.
It turns out that Israel is far less reliable than the Americans think. Even before Hamas launched Operation Al-Aqsa, Israel had intercepted a lot of high-value information, but Netanyahu's government ignored all these signs and did not share them with the United States.
Point 4: About a few weeks after the outbreak of the current round of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a group of U.S. countries has reassessed the current security situation in the Middle East, primarily with Iranian-backed Houthis and Iraqi militias.
At the same time, secret services such as the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have also analyzed the domestic security situation in the United States. U.S. officials believe that although Hamas does not pose a direct threat to the United States, pro-Palestinian groups or individuals are still likely to launch "lone wolf" attacks against U.S. military officers or U.S. diplomats across the Middle East. They may even choose to do it in the United States.
Point 5: The United States cannot sit still when the spark ignited by Hamas in Gaza threatens to sweep the entire region. The United States has had to begin redeploying resources and funds to the Middle East to deal with the escalation of conflict in hot spots such as Gaza, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, and the Israeli-Lebanese border. The United States has now redeployed a number of ships to the Middle East, along with 1,200 U.S. soldiers. Washington has also sent military advisers to Israel in order to coordinate with Netanyahu's government. U.S. intelligence agencies have also stepped up intelligence gathering in countries such as Iraq and Syria to prevent further attacks from Iran.
And all these adjustments will cost money, and according to the Pentagon's conservative estimates, the United States will burn at least $1 billion for this return to the Middle East. If the current round of the Middle East crisis continues like this, and the United States will have to send more firefighters from Europe and East Asia to extinguish the fire, the account will definitely be more than that. When the cannon goes off, it is still ten thousand taels of gold, not to mention that you are still a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier driven by the United States?
Point 6: Although the United States has reluctantly withdrawn some of the resources originally used to deal with China and Russia back to defend the Middle East, at least for the time being, the United States may not invest enough to curb the endless guerrilla attacks of anti-American forces in the Middle East. Thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria are in constant fear of drone and rocket attacks by anti-American militants, while U.S. and British merchant ships in the Red Sea are cowering for fear of "heavenly justice" from Houthi missiles.
In order to pull out these thorns in the side and thorns in the flesh, the US military threw precision-guided bombs on the other side's head, but in the end, it not only failed to extinguish the anti-American anger of others, but also had the opposite effect of adding fuel to the fire. Originally, the Houthis were just to scare and scare Israeli cargo ships coming and going to the Red Sea, but as soon as the US military intervened and intensified, the Houthis directly attacked the US and British cargo ships, not only hitting cargo ships, but also warships. The anti-aircraft missiles on US warships are very expensive, and they were originally intended to be used to play with the big powers in the East, but now they are all cheapened by hand-rubbing Iranian ballistic missiles.
Point 7: The current situation in the Middle East forces the United States to reconsider its strategic resource allocation: Should it continue to emphasize East Asia over Europe and the Middle East? Or should it pursue a balanced strategy in the three major directions of East Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. In the final analysis, the U.S. strategy is still not enough to deal with so many potential opponents in so many strategic directions around the world, just like the analogy played by our Weibo netizen @housha moonlight: There are 10 cauldrons in the world, and the United States actually has a total of 3 pot lids. He is good at moving these 3 lids back and forth, so he creates an illusion to the public that he seems to be able to hold 10 cauldrons.
But an illusion is an illusion after all, and no matter how much you pretend to be like it, it's not real. Seeing that the water in the two cauldrons of China and Russia is boiling more and more, the original lids of the two pots in the United States are obviously unable to hold down, and now they are not dying, and the Middle East, which has been stopped for a few years, has revived. In East Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, the only three pot lids in the United States are now completely bound, and now the whole world has seen through the trick that the United States used to play to tear down the east wall and make up the west wall. The United States no longer has much room to toss and turn, and fathers, sons, and grandchildren fall into the water at the same time.
I don't know what everyone thinks of this article on the "Politico" network, anyway, after reading it, I feel a little helpless in my heart. Millions of workers are tied to food and clothing, the wealth of a big country is huge, and the inertia of strategy and policy is also great, and it is more difficult than others to take back the fist that is struck. Many times the net you cast out does not mean that you can withdraw it if you want to. Even if you have this heart, you often don't have that power.
China can't hold it down, Russia wants to take the lead, and now it looks like even Iran is getting bigger and bigger. So I have to return to the Asia-Pacific today, to Europe tomorrow, and to the Middle East the day after tomorrow. Always tossing and turning, always exhausted, always in vain.
What is the purpose of the United States in confronting China? In the final analysis, it is just trying to maintain its world hegemony. But what if, in the process of confronting China, the dominance of other regions is sidelined? In the end, what if you contain China? Russia and Iran have to thank you for not having time to look westward and make room for others to exert their strength.
In my opinion, the so-called "return to XX" of the Americans is simply an unsolvable false proposition. Whether or not the United States chooses to concentrate all its efforts on confronting China, it will eventually lose its world hegemony. It's not a matter of who's conspiracy or conspiracy, it's the tide. Focusing too much on confronting China may accelerate this process, because compared with Russia and Iran, China, as a potential strategic rival of the United States, is still relatively restrained, unlike Russia personally participating in a regional hot war, and unlike Iran, which has fostered regional anti-American forces to give the United States high-intensity eye drops.
So far, we have only accompanied the United States in playing economic and trade chess, scientific and technological chess, and diplomatic chess, and we have not even moved the real military chess that keeps Washington up at night. But even so, the United States now seems to be obviously unable to resist. However, if we move the mind of Russia and Iran in the course of playing games with the United States, the strategic situation of the United States will certainly be much more difficult than it is now.
It's hard to get out of the Middle East quagmire, and it's about to sink into it again. At this moment, those US officials who are responsible for leading the China policy must be in a state of collapse. I have to say that if the national fortune comes, you really can't stop it. This applies not only to us, but also to Iran, China, Russia, and Iran, all of which are each other's national fortunes. Whether the United States wants it or not, a brand-new multipolar world is being formed, and this process is not subject to the will of the US government, and it is irreversible. The end of the era of superpower hegemony is the trend of the times, and the United States needs to learn to adapt to this new normal.
Or, to put it another way, which has become more popular in the field of Chinese public opinion in recent years, the current China, Russia and Iran are no longer the China, Russia and Iran of the past, and the United States must learn to coexist with our emerging powers, otherwise, it will have to hide back in North America, weld the door shut, and relive the old dream of "independence" in the 18th century. Perhaps, many years later, when the descendants of the United States look back on the present past, they will suddenly wake up: the North Korea and Cuba in their eyes were not the United States itself in the eyes of the world later?