The real price of Biden’s policy in the Middle East, which has resulted in new war in an area recently gone quiet, is that it complicates a strategic withdrawal from the region in order to pivot towards China. Facing a near peer rival, as the British empire discovered, requires ditching imperial baggage to focus on the main foe.
That was the objective logic of the previous president’s policy. But empires tend to hold on to bits and pieces — the Burmas, Ceylons, Kenyas — long after they’ve lost importance because these localities have constituencies in the imperial bureaucracy. There are experts in progressive circles who are learned in ancient ethnic grievances, that while important to those directly involved, are in the context of the Big Board, mere distractions.
But the empire has struck back, or at least the imperial bureaucracy has. It makes Washington sense but nonsense otherwise.
Russia and China will abet trouble in MENA to enmesh the US in a two theater problem. It is natural for them to do this but it is unnatural, indeed perverse, for the Biden administration to walk into the trap.