Satellite image shows the impact of Iranian armed forces’ precision strikes at Arifjan base which hosts US forces in Kuwait, in March 2026
Middle East Eye – Aug 18, 2026
The Trump administration is examining whether to pull troops out of the Gulf as a result of the US-Israeli war on Iran, with the Pentagon weighing the risks facing large US bases in the region that have come under Iranian drone and missile attack.
The evaluation is being led by the Department of War’s policy office, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday, saying the war was viewed as “a once-in-a-generation chance for the Pentagon to reconsider its presence in the region”.
The report said that the US has already signalled that it might not rebuild its bases attacked by Iran to pre-war status.
The Washington Post corroborates Middle East Eye’s June report that cited current and former US officials as saying that a reckoning with the US’s old basing framework was expected as a result of the war.
Former senior US officials have raised the prospect of a drawdown for months.
“The truth is that we are not as inclined to occupy these bases now that we have seen what the Iranians can throw at them,” David Petraeus, a former director of the CIA and head of Centcom, which oversees all military forces in the Middle East, told Bloomberg in May.
“This is much more than when I was commander at Central Command,” he added.
Another former head of Centcom, General Frank McKenzie, said in July that the US needs to relocate its bases in the Gulf to Israel and neighbouring countries to better protect its assets from Iran’s missiles and drones.
No one in their right mind would ever put the Centcom forward headquarters, you know, 100 miles away from Iran, [in Qatar], yet that’s where it is,” he told the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, referring to al-Udeid military base.
McKenzie said that the current US basing system in the Middle East has become an “artefact”, describing it as a legacy of the Cold War, when the US was concerned about a potential Soviet invasion of the oil-rich Arab Gulf states and later, the counter-insurgencies the US waged in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“[The US] strategy does not match the reality on the ground,” he added.
The Washington Post reported that US Admiral Bradley Cooper, the current head of Centcom, has supported discussions about potentially moving US troops westward from the Gulf.
Iran has already effectively forced the US away from the Gulf coast. The Islamic Republic has targeted Bahrain, home to the US’s Fifth Fleet; Qatar, home to US Central Command’s headquarters; and air bases in Kuwait and the UAE.
The US’s presence in small Gulf states close to Iran, such as Kuwait and Bahrain, has been exposed as particularly vulnerable. The US already relocated west during the war.
MEE was the first to report that the US gained access to Taif Air Base in Saudi Arabia in March after Iran pummelled Prince Sultan Air Base, southeast of Riyadh.
Palestinian-American citizen raises US flag over besieged West Bank home
Story by FRANCE 24 •
A Palestinian-American has raised the US flag on his home besieged by Israeli settlers, as the United States renewed criticism of the siege that has generated condemnation around the world.
A Palestinian American whose home in the occupied West Bank has been besieged for more than a week confronted Israeli settlers on his property Tuesday and demanded Israeli forces remove armed settlers from the area.
Louai Abu Ridi, who owns one of three houses in Qusra, near Nablus in the occupied West Bank, flew back from his adopted home of Ohio on Monday after settlers trapped residents inside and refused to let in food or other supplies for more than a week. He was flying the Stars and Stripes outside his home on Tuesday and said he has asked the US embassy to keep raising his case.
It’s my message to all Americans in the United States to see what’s going on here in the West Bank, how the settlers put us under siege trying to take my own house in the West Bank, like they have done to hundreds of others
” Abu Ridi told AFP reporters inside his home.
> Another former head of Centcom, General Frank McKenzie, said in July that the US needs to relocate its bases in the Gulf to Israel and neighbouring countries to better protect its assets from Iran’s missiles and drones.
Look! I hit pay dirt!
“Off to the holy band we go, Hi Ho, Hi Ho. Pack up your porno mags, we’re off to join the jew.” (Praise be to allah, hum dillah, where’s my rosemary, etc.)
no Zionazis ?
settlers today do what the SA dit in Hitlers times .
intimidating, housebreaking, torture, expropiating .
first half did deutsch province mafia witth justice
help against me in 9 civil rent cases . no wonder
I dont like deutsche . most moslems here I can
speak to . not the deutsche . they are stupid olds
nolearners .
Trump should forget his “Cry uncle!” to Iran. Iran’s his daddy.