US Ambassador to Turkey and special envoy for Syria and Iraq Tom Barrack said Tuesday that Washington is moving away from its role as a regional security guarantor, arguing that Middle East governments must take greater responsibility for their own security and that US ground interventions have repeatedly failed.
What happened: Speaking in an interview with Al Jazeera at the eighth Global Security Forum in Doha, Qatar, Barrack said the US role in the region was changing but stressed that the shift did not mean Washington was abandoning the Middle East.
Asked about the “grand bargain” linking Gulf oil supplies with US security guarantees, Barrack said the arrangement was evolving rather than coming to an end. The “bargain” has centered on US security support for Gulf oil-producing states in exchange for stable energy supplies.
“I think it hasn’t ended. It’s transitioning,” he said. “Owning doesn’t work. Controlling hasn’t worked. Every place we’ve tried to control — Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq — Iraq, what a disaster. So the bargain is not to own but to tend. Not to leave. We’re not leaving,” Barrack said.
Barrack pointed to past US interventions in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan as evidence of the limits of efforts to reshape other countries through military force. “Every time we try and intervene and change the person or the regime, it seems to have been a mistake,” he said.
He added that countries would increasingly need to rely on regional security arrangements. The Trump administration’s 2026 National Defense Strategy calls for regional partners to take “primary responsibility” for deterring Iran and its proxies.
The Trump administration has also pushed to expand the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states, seeking to bring more countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, into the agreement.
“This transition is complicated and difficult, and we don’t have a playbook,” Barrack added.
On Iran, Barrack emphasized diplomacy, saying that deep mistrust between the United States and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps remained a barrier to negotiations, despite mediation efforts by outside countries including Qatar, Oman, Switzerland and Pakistan. He said a path forward should begin with a ceasefire, reopening the Strait of Hormuz and easing pressure on the Iranian people.
Know more: Asked about potential US intervention in support of Saudi Arabia in its fight against Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels, Barrack said President Donald Trump was prepared to provide Riyadh with logistical support but that Washington would avoid becoming directly involved in ground battles on Saudi Arabia’s behalf.
Axios reported that in September, as the Houthis made major gains along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman asked Trump to carry out US air operations against the rebel group, but the US president declined.
“I think the president’s been clear that he supports Saudi Arabia, and the backing that they need logistically, he will supply. But America getting involved in a ground, kinetic battle somewhere else seems fruitless,” Barrack said.
“That’s not America’s job,” he said. “It has to be that there becomes no purpose for those militias or those intermediaries so that the nation-state or the regime itself takes responsibility, so there’s no function for those militias,” he added.