Is Israel becoming the new hegemon of the Middle East? The answer to this question is an important one.
Preventing the rise of a rival regional hegemon — a state with a preponderance of military and economic power — in Eurasia has long been a core goal of U.S. foreign policy. During the Cold War, Washington feared Soviet dominion over Europe. Today, U.S. policymakers worry that China’s increasingly capable military will crowd the United States out of Asia’s lucrative economic markets. The United States has also acted repeatedly to prevent close allies in Europe and Asia from becoming military competitors, using promises of U.S. military protection to keep them weak and dependent.
Historically, however, the United States has not faced viable hegemonic rivals in the Middle East. Possible contenders, like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Iraq, each lack the military capabilities and economic wherewithal to establish dominance over the others. The region is also divided by long-standing distrust. For those in favor of U.S. retrenchment, this has been a selling point. With no real hegemonic challenger, Washington need not fear that a U.S. pullback from the Middle East will end with the United States shut out of the region for good.
Israel’s aggressive foreign policy over the past two years has brought new scrutiny on these long-standing assumptions. At least on the surface, Israel now has some of the markers of regional dominance. It has been able to act with near impunity, leveling punishing military force against countries across the region and imposing its will on adversaries. It has expanded its de facto borders with new “buffer zones” in Lebanon and Syria, and conducted successful and attempted assassinations in Lebanon, Yemen, Iran, Qatar, and Gaza. These efforts have shifted the region’s balance of power in Israel’s favor, and Israel has proven that its military capabilities far exceed those of its neighbors.
If Israel does have an independent path to regional hegemony that could challenge U.S. influence and leverage, it would create a dilemma for U.S. policymakers. Washington has never been willing to restrain Israel as it has allies and partners elsewhere. Instead, the U.S. role has long been an enabling one that has worked to increase Israel’s military power, not constrain it or hold it back.
This relationship has worked because Israeli and U.S. interests in this regard have been generally aligned and because Israel served as useful proxy for the United States in the region without ever threatening its position atop the hierarchy. Last week’s Israeli strike on Qatar, a close U.S. partner, is the latest sign that this may be changing. Not only did Israel provide the United States little notice of the attack, but as U.S. President Donald Trump said afterward, the Israeli move did not “advance America’s goals” in the region or more generally.
Its tactical feats have been impressive, but the reality is that Israel has little chance of becoming a regional hegemon on its own. Writing in Foreign Affairs, two former Israeli government officials agree with this assessment noting that “although it is the strongest military power in the region, Israel is not a regional hegemon. ... The Israeli economy does not represent a disproportionate share of regional GDP, nor can Israel unilaterally shape economic arrangements in the region to its benefit. Israel, with few natural allies in the region, also enjoys relatively little soft power among its neighbors.”
Rather than an independent path to regional pre-eminence, the best Israel can likely hope for is a sort of quasi-hegemony, underwritten and facilitated by U.S. dollars and American military power. As the Qunicy Institute’s Trita Parsi explained, “Israel cannot sustain its wars for long without the U.S. paying for them, sending weapons and protecting it diplomatically. This is not Israeli hegemony: this is Israel becoming a proxy for U.S. hegemony while putting much of the cost back on the U.S. shoulder.”
There are three mechanisms through which U.S. military and diplomatic support fuel Israel’s quasi-hegemonic position. The first is straightforward. Israel relies on U.S. military assistance for both its offensive and defensive operations. Israel’s attack on Iran was fueled by F-16 aircraft and the bombs it used in Gaza and Lebanon were U.S. made. To be sure, Israel has its own indigenously produced capabilities but it depends heavily on U.S. aid and the “qualitative military edge” U.S. support provides to maintain its numerous and unending military campaigns.
Second, Israel’s offensive military posture in the region is possible because the country’s leaders are confident in America’s nearly unconditional backing. Israel knows that if it suffers retaliation for its military actions against its neighbors, even if Israel itself is the provocateur, the United States will serve as its guarantor, defending at least Israel’s airspace and waters as it did throughout 2024 and 2025. Israel can therefore take extreme risks, knowing that it will never have to pay the full consequences.
The same is true in the diplomatic space where Israel has become accustomed to unfailing U.S. support in the face of international pressure and condemnation. Israel’s impunity, in other words, is not earned but given by the United States.
Finally, continued U.S. military presence in the Middle East enables Israel’s rise by interfering with the region’s natural balancing. Currently, the United States acts as the regional balancer between Israel and the Arab States and between the Arab States themselves. If the United States were absent, Israel’s increasingly offensive regional posture would trigger counterbalancing by its neighbors, including the Gulf States and Iran, to check Israel’s encroachment and block an Israeli push for hegemony. As long as the United States stays, this will not happen, and Israel will remain unchallenged.
For a United States primed to act against regional challengers in whatever form they come, retrenchment from the Middle East is no longer optional. Instead, it is required and necessary to ensure that Isreal cannot continue to capitalize on U.S. military support and its forward presence to act against U.S. interests.
The Trump administration is well-positioned to begin this retrenchment. It should start with air and naval forces surged over the past two years and then turn to legacy deployments held over from the Global War on Terror, including those in Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and at Al-Udeid air base.
Trump will also need to take a harder line with Netanyahu. U.S. offensive military aid to Israel should be curtailed and Washington should make clear that the United States will only provide direct defensive support to Israel in cases where it is the victim of unprovoked aggression — not retaliation for Israel’s own strikes. Finally, the Trump administration needs to draw a clear redline when it comes to Israel’s violations of the territorial sovereignty of its neighbors and be willing to show diplomatic and political disapproval if Israel steps over those lines.
These moves need not signal the end of the U.S.-Israel partnership. That relationship could continue with the United States offering more limited military aid and playing a constrained role in the region, one that supports Israel’s defenses in a narrow way. But the changes would constitute a significant realignment of the relationship that ensures it is fit for purpose and advances rather than harms U.S. interests going forward.
