Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari on Monday appeared to indicate that the presence of U.S. forces in the Gulf is no longer the protective shield it was once believed to be, reported Middle East Eye. “We need to realise in the Gulf that having international forces in the region, having a strategic alliance with the United States, is very important, but is not enough,” he said during the Hili Forum in Abu Dhabi, UAE. “Self-sufficiency when it comes to security is the only way forward. Yes, we need our partners. Yes, we need our allies. But we cannot depend on them alone for our security,” he added.
MEE notes that al-Ansari’s comments came after Avril Haines, the former U.S. director of national intelligence under President Joe Biden, told the Financial Times Festival over the weekend that a reduction of the U.S. footprint in the region would spell more trouble than remaining fully engaged. “Honestly, when you try to pull away from it, and you sort of minimize to the greatest degree your resource allocation, often it doesn’t work out well, is what you see,” Haines said. MEE doesn’t report whether or not Haines acknowledged that the U.S. has attacked eight countries in the wider region—Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan and Afghanistan—since 9/11, thus contributing greatly to instability since then.
