The US has been entangled in the Middle East since the Cold War Era and has had troops on the ground since as early as August of 1990. The question of whether our involvement has been good or bad depends on personal view as well as who was our leader during that certain time. This series of conflicts between countries and organizations has gone through four presidential administrations and is now going into the fifth presidency to deal with this situation. What began as an effort to stop a powerful dictator from taking over neighboring countries eventually evolved into a fight against terrorism, and today our role in the Middle East in a defensive and supportive role for many of the countries. We have also stayed involved in the East for the large surplus of oil reserves found in the region. With our roles shifting as our years involved has continued, we have seen ourselves become more of a leader and support than one of action and aggression. This change in policy has in turn seen an uprising of terror groups since 2014 around the time thousands of US ground troops were being brought home. On the other end, the constant US involvement in the Middle East is costing tax-payers billions of dollars yearly. Gemma Mullin stats “The cost of America’s war on ISIS has now hit more than $11 billion since the conflict began more than two and a half years ago. It can also be said that with the East no longer providing the bulk of our oil, there is no need to stay in the region as we have no benefit. With US involvement in the Middle East nearing 30 years, citizen safety being extremely high, military costs reaching astronomical numbers, and dependency on Middle Eastern oil decreased, it can be said that it is not beneficial for us to be utilizing resources and time in the region. Although a US presence in the Middle East can be beneficial for small number of  countries, the resources and tax-payer dollars can be applied in areas that are better for the American people and for the World.

The US has been assisting foreign nations since the early 1900s. The aid has been everything from economic, supplies, and military support. Early on it was to stop the spread of Communism during the Cold War and prevent dictators from overtaking weaker countries, while today we are in an advisory role where we assist in keeping the countries running and preventing the spread of terrorism. Today most the countries assisted by the US reside in the Middle East with some of those countries being Afghanistan, Israel, Egypt, and Jordan. We give these countries and countless others billions of dollars in order to help the countries thrive and continue to grow and develop. Without the help from the United States and United Nations, many of the countries would be vulnerable to attack from terror groups as well as humanitarian issues like starvation and diseases. President Obama, who vowed in the beginning of his presidency to withdraw troops from the Middle East with numbers going from 180,000 in 2009 to 15,000 in January of 2017 brought out this vulnerability in these countries. The majority of remaining troops having their roles shifted towards training and advising local security forces while only some are fighting the 13 different terror groups in region (Welna). Terror groups particularly ISIS have been on the rise since Obama began to pull our troops out and limiting further U.S. action in the region (Mullin). Since the uprising of ISIS in late 2013, US-coalition air-strikes and ground troops from numerous countries including Iraq, the group has lost half of all its territory it had gained in the Iraq and Syria. Without the help of the US and NATO forces, this terror group would be continuing to gain territory in many countries and wreak havoc on many innocent lives (Mullin). This rise and spread of terror groups in the Middle East has resulted in dozens of attacks across Europe with a few in the United States also. These attacks that have taken place are the result of “homegrown terrorism” where our continued involvement in the Middle East has angered U.S. citizens from the Middle East into attacking people for what we have done to their people. In the United States there have been two terror attacks in the past few years with one in 2015 resulting in 14 killed and another 20 injured in San Bernardino, California and the other attack being in Orlando, Florida with 50 people killed and more than 50 addition people injured (Infoplease). In Europe, there has been a larger number of attacks than in the US with 6 different attacks in the past 3 years. The largest of those attacks happened in 2015 with 130 people being killed and hundreds other injured in Paris, France and in 2016 where 31 people lost their lives and 150 were injured in Brussels, Belgium (Onyanga-Omara). Attacks of these types are getting more and more frequent and in the first half of 2016 alone, as there was the highest number of civilian losses with 1,601 killed and 3,565 injured. Those numbers are for worldly incidences involving any known terror attacks (Mengli). Without the heavy support of the US in the Middle East, terror groups will continue to spring up one by one and spread to the different parts of the world evidently leading to more and more civilian deaths each year as well as destruction across the many countries in the area. 

In recent months, we have transitioned leadership of the country from the Obama administration to the Trump admiration. There has been plenty of controversy as Trump is very outspoken on a range different topics. His theme for his campaign was “Make America Great Again!” and it represents Trump’s desire to focus on America and make our people our number one concern. With that in mind, Mr. Trump has also said “I would just bomb those suckers” in regards to the threats of ISIS since 2014 (Welna). Trump must keep a strong balance of the American people and foreign affairs as he enters his presidency and he is the main reason for this topic of US and the Middle East. Those foreign affairs span from diplomatic relations in the European Union, battling terror groups in the Middle East, and rising tensions in multiple regions of the world with many countries including Iran, North Korea, China, and Russia. Fighting terrorism has not been a very discussed topic during the presidential races but it will be a large take to administer once Trump has taken office. Although there have been several small terror events in the US in the past few years, there has not been a large-scale attack on US soil since September 11, 2001. Since then, there has been an unprecedented level of security for the American people and it continues to get stronger as technology improves and as we better prepare ourselves when identifying potential terrorist or events. We have prevented many terror attacks with our new measures that have been put in place since September 11. When we first entered the conflicts in the Middle East, it was to prevent the spread of Communism as well as we depended upon the Middle East for a large quantity of our oil. Ever since the Arab oil embargoes in the 60s and 70s, our large need for Persian Gulf oil has decreased a significant amount since then. In a 2012 study by Corey Flintoff regarding the oil consumed by the United States, 38.8% is produced by the US, 19.6% is produced by Latin American countries, 15.1% is produced in Canada, Persian Gulf oil is fourth with 12.9% production, and the other 13.9% being made up of numerous countries or regions. Each year the US continues to produce more and more oil further weakening its dependence on foreign oil (Flintoff). Another strong reason for US pulling out involvement in the East is the great costs of staying and fighting the many conflicts in the region. Since 2002, “More than $115 billion taxpayer dollars have been spent in Afghanistan with another $7.5 billion already appropriated” (Mengli). In an article by Gemma Mullin, it can be said that the US has spend $11 billion dollars towards the fight against ISIS. That tax-payer money was used for a range of things like flying fighter jets, sailing military ships, bombs, mission support, military pay, and logistical support(Mullin). American safety extremely high, unreal costs for supporting these Middle Eastern countries and dealing with the conflicts within the region, the US no longer depending on large amounts of oil are the main reasons for support of the US decreasing its action from the East.

With Trumps “Make America Great Again”, he has brought upon a new era of America first and focusing on the wellbeing of our people. For many years, the US has been the strongest and greatest nation in the world and has always been a country that has been called upon to help others in need. In World War I, we broke from our idea of isolationism to save the world from a war that was terrorizing everybody, from then on we have sought to help others in need as we felt it was our duty as the world’s most powerful nation. There was no nation at the time that came close to our capabilities. After World War II, we sought to help countries who were unstable and struggling while also trying to prevent the spread of Communism. When the Soviet Union fell, the Middle East become a priority with dictators and terrorists threatening death to all! Since then we have fought terror while giving aid to many countries economically, but in our day we are no longer the only powerful nation in the world yet we still lead all others when it comes to foreign aid. It is time for other nations to take some of the foreign aid burden from the US so we can take a step back and put some of our resources used in aid and help our own people. We have been so concentrated on helping other countries that we have let our own people suffer from things that, in our day and age with the strong nation that we are, should not let happen. The U.S. will be able to spend our valuable resources and tax-payer dollars on the American people if we take a step back from our large association in foreign policy and let more countries step up and take some of the responsibilities. Those things include healthcare, taking care of our veterans, fixing our aging infrastructure, and really the list can go on and on. With the added resources, we would be able to bring America and its people back onto the top of the world as far as wealth, healthcare, and just a good lifestyle. Although many people around the world are suffering and need help, we have our own problems that have amounted in our country that need to be addresses and fixed. Once the problems are fixed and no longer bothering the country, we should then turn to helping other countries again because that is the America way and our duty as leaders of the free world.
