Why Turkey Is No Partner for the United States

There is a great deal to like about Michael Doran’s essay, “The Strategy Washington is Pursuing in the Middle East Is the Only Strategy Worth Pursuing.” His critique of ostensibly objective foreign-policy analysts and journalists is devastating. Much of what passes for analysis in Washington these days is merely reflexive anti-Trumpism. As Doran quite rightly indicates, many of the same people decrying the president’s decision to withdraw from Syria were similarly outraged when National Security Adviser John Bolton declared last September, “We’re not going to leave [Syria] as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders, and that includes Iranian proxies and militias.”

The same could be said of the enormous attention devoted to the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. I differ with Doran on the larger question of Saudi Arabia (discussed below), but it is clear that part of the Washington outrage over the incident—terrible as it was—is partisan politics stemming from the president’s connections to, and support for, Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman.

But Doran did not merely set out to write an article trolling Democrats, the elite media, and even a few Republicans for their inability to think clearly in the face of a president they loathe. Undoubtedly, he sought to make a big argument about U.S.-Middle East strategy during the Trump era. And yet, despite Doran’s elegant prose, his effort to provide an intellectual framework for the president’s haphazard and chaotic approach to the region falls flat. The result is Doran’s oddly muscular assertion that, even though President Trump intends to withdraw the United States from the Middle East, he and his administration will nevertheless provide unrivaled support to our allies.