I should have been more sceptical when a warrior waving a Barbie doll heaped praise on America. It was back in 2004, when the world was in awe of American firepower. George W. Bush had toppled tyrannies in Afghanistan and Iraq with televised ease. Saddam Hussein had been captured skulking in a spider hole. Fearing the same fate, Libya’s dictator, Muammar Qaddafi, had given up his nuclear-weapons programme. 

For a while, the sense that America was invincible made diplomacy simpler. The White House told the warring parties in Sudan to make peace—or else—so they promptly started talking. Our reporter in southern Sudan, more than 3,000km from Baghdad, met a delighted young warrior who held up a Barbie doll and shouted: “This is a new wife for President Bush! May God grant him many fertile women with firm bodies and an election victory without problems in Florida!” 




Yet prestige is fragile. That young fighter’s shoutout for an omnipotent America roughly coincided with the peak of its geopolitical pre-eminence. The country soon got bogged down in Iraq, unable to impose liberal democracy at gunpoint. Across the Arab world, where America had tried to shape a new order, revolutions, civil wars and jihadists raged. American presidents started to lose credibility. Barack Obama drew a “red line” in Syria and did nothing when a despot crossed it. Donald Trump makes so many empty threats—including another one this week to “annihilate” Iran—that people have given up counting. 

Now, as Mr Trump seeks a way out of his ill-planned war, something momentous is occurring. As we describe in our cover package, American hegemony in the Middle East is ending. This is not just because its interventions raise oil prices, spurring American voters to punish the party in power. It is also because Americans are tired of the effort and expense of policing an explosive region, not very effectively. As Uncle Sam walks away, no one is poised to take his place, least of all any Arab state. But as we report, three regional powers will try to fill at least some of the vacuum.  

On The Insider this week Edward Carr, my fellow deputy editor, is joined by our Middle East team to discuss what America’s pullback from the region will mean for those who live there, and for the world. You can watch it now.