Return of US diplomats to Middle East seen as reducing risk of return to war

The Trump administration is beginning to send US diplomats back to embassies and consulates in the Middle East that were downsized or evacuated amid the war on Iran, according to media reports. 

The move appears to suggest the US is not anticipating a return to intense warfare that sparked a widescale withdrawal of US diplomats across the region earlier this year. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told foreign counterparts that “for the time being” the US would not start new strikes on Iran, Axios reported on Tuesday, as the US threatens instead to ramp up economic pressure on the Islamic Republic. 

The decision to return American diplomats to the region also caps a months-long ordeal for them and their families, who were kept in limbo as the administration weighed whether or not to restaff its embassies and consulates. 

Many diplomats were evacuated to the US with their spouses and families, putting pressure on them as they considered a return to a new school year - and in which country to enroll their children. 

The New York Times reported that embassies expected to restore higher level staffing included those in Israel, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Iraq and Kuwait. The first diplomats to return will be to the US embassy in Lebanon.

Diplomatic missions in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Lebanon will cap staffing at 85 percent, and posts in Iraq, Kuwait and Bahrain at 75 percent, the report said. In a sign of some US wariness about security, the State Department will enforce restrictions on staff bringing family members to the Gulf. There are already restrictions on family members travelling to Lebanon and Iraq. 

The Gulf states came under severe Iranian strikes in response to the US and Israel attack. Smaller states including Kuwait and Bahrain have been particularly vulnerable.

The Washington Post reported earlier this month that the Trump administration was examining whether to pull troops out of the wider Gulf region as a result of the US-Israeli war on Iran, with the Pentagon considering the risks facing large US bases that have come under Iranian drone and missile attack.

The article corroborated Middle East Eye’s June report that cited current and former US officials as saying that a reckoning with Washington’s basing strategy in the Gulf  was expected as a result of the war.