Afrasianet - Abdulsalam Tarawneh - The current conflict between the United States and Israel on the one hand and Iran on the other has revealed a fact that has been postponed for years, namely that some small Gulf states stand on top of a highly sensitive geography, while their own capabilities to protect this geography are not always commensurate with the magnitude of the risks surrounding them.
Almost complete with an external power and military bases that the state does not have the decision to stay or leave, and this is what the current war has clearly revealed, as facilities and sites in Gulf countries have been subjected to attacks related to the Iranian-American conflict, while these countries have found themselves at the heart of the confrontation due to the presence of American forces and bases on their territory, and the question is not what happens when the American bases remain, but what happens when Washington decides that its strategic interests no longer require this presence of the same size.
America does not deploy its forces in the Gulf for emotional considerations and does not consider its presence there as an eternal commitment towards certain regimes, as it moves according to its interests, the balance of power, the costs of deployment, the competition of China and Russia, the nature of the Iranian threat, energy security, and sea lanes.
If these calculations change, the shape of the American presence may change.
The real danger is that the state is small in geography and weak in its own ability and at the same time depends on a superpower that can reposition it when its priorities change.
Thelesson provided by the current war is not that America will leave tomorrow or that these countries will fall tomorrow, but that full reliance on the external umbrella carries within it a strategic weakness And those who think that it is the foreign base that gives the country its future may one day discover that the same base can move to another place.
and then the question will not only be who protects these countries, but whether they have built enough power, institutions and integration in a time of abundance so that they can protect their future when the interests of others change.
Pseudo-security may be necessary at some point, but it does not make a strong state forever.
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