A few weeks ago, over dinner at a Gulf hotel, a Western diplomat asked me what sounded like an innocent question: “Why are you so determined to keep the Americans in the region? Wouldn’t their departure be an opportunity for you to take your own security into your own hands?”
I smiled and explained the first rule I learned from three decades of watching this region: in the Middle East, don’t ask who fired the missiles; ask who interprets their meaning after they land. Wars here are not decided in the skies above cities, but in the sentence that describes the rubble the following morning.
And in recent months, since the region was shaken by its most devastating war in decades, we’ve heard the same sentence in different accents: the United States should leave the Middle East to its own devices, and its partners in the Arab world should take a new tack.
Think tanks in Washington and London deliver that judgment in polished English under the banner of “realism:” America is exhausted, its security umbrella is fading, and the Gulf states must “come to terms” with their larger neighbor. Media outlets and digital platforms aligned with political Islam render it in angry Arabic: the Gulf is dependent, its partnership with the U.S., is an act of betrayal, and its vulnerability is well deserved. Meanwhile, the platforms of the Iran-backed “Axis of Resistance” proclaim triumphantly: Look at what happened to those who bet on the West.
Iranian influence has never expanded into stable political environments. It has advanced only across the ruins of broken states.
The consequence of that position is left largely unspoken by the West’s self-proclaimed realists: that Tehran’s influence is bound to rise.
Whether unwittingly or uncaringly, Western isolationists are buying into an undeclared enterprise I call the Contractors of the Vacuum.
Building Empty Space
Think of it the way a businessman would. Every contractor needs a project, and every project needs land. The land these actors work on is the vacuum left behind when states collapse, deterrence erodes, and America turns away.
Transnational movements do not thrive in strong states; they suffocate in them. Iranian influence has never expanded into stable political environments. It has advanced only across the ruins of broken states: in Beirut as the Lebanese state weakened, in Baghdad after Iraq was dismantled, in Sanaa after Yemen was abandoned, and in Damascus as Syria burned.
Meanwhile, America’s retrenchment advocates in Washington have only one product to sell: persuading Americans that none of this vacuum is their problem.
The Contractors of the Vacuum put a spotlight on a too-often overlooked fact: the functional partnership between the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran.
On paper, few rivalries appear more obvious than that between Sunni political Islam and a Shiite theocracy. History, however, tells a different story.
Since the middle of the last century, intellectual threads were already connecting Brotherhood ideologues with the clerical establishment in Qom. When the Iranian Revolution erupted in 1979, the Brotherhood celebrated it as an “Islamic revolution,” not a Persian coup, endorsing it before they even knew the name of Iran’s future Supreme Leader.
During the 1990s, the two sides sat together at conferences in Khartoum under the banner of “confronting global arrogance.” Later, when Hamas – the Brotherhood’s most successful offspring – needed money and weapons, it found them in Tehran rather than in the Arab capitals whose solidarity it often invoked.
The two sides showed sectarian hostility at the podium but functional partnership under the table.
The common denominator that makes this unlikely marriage possible is simple: both represent projects that seek authority above the state. Both see the Arab nation-state –not Israel or America – as their true existential obstacle.
A state that succeeds, prospers, and provides its citizens with a decent life deprives both movements of their political marketplace. It leaves little room for those who promise deferred salvation, whether that salvation comes wrapped in a black turban or under the slogan “Islam is the solution.”
Washington Writes, Doha and Istanbul Translate, Tehran Collects
Over the past decade, a third – and perhaps the most unexpected – partner has joined this enterprise: the American restraint movement, an unusual blend of the post-Iraq left and the pre-Pearl Harbor right, which concluded that the quickest path to the heart of a weary Washington was to argue that withdrawal is a virtue.
It is perhaps the most efficient narrative production line in the modern Middle East: theorizing in Washington, dubbing in Doha and Istanbul, and cashing in at the box office in Tehran.
I do not question the sincerity of every scholar operating in this space. Many make their arguments honestly, shaped by America’s painful experiences overseas.
But look not at intentions – look at the mechanics.
A policy paper written in Washington in the sober language of academic realism is translated by evening on political Islamist television channels into the language of agitation. By midnight, it has become a viral social media post mocking the “proxy capitals” of the Gulf.
The Washington think tank provides the television network with scholarly legitimacy. The television network gives the think tank an audience it could never have reached on its own. And Tehran benefits from both.
The result is a ready-made narrative: Iran’s missiles become “a reaction,” its victims become “responsible for their own choices,” and efforts to deter Iranian aggression become “escalation” that should be avoided.
It is perhaps the most efficient narrative production line in the modern Middle East: theorizing in Washington, dubbing in Doha and Istanbul, and cashing in at the box office in Tehran.
Reversing the Burden of Proof
The central trick behind this entire production line – and pay close attention, because you will encounter it every day – is reversing the burden of proof.
In any rational system, when missiles strike peaceful cities, the first question is directed at those who launched them.
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In the logic of the Contractors of the Vacuum, however, the questions are directed at those who were hit. Why were you exposed? Why did you choose those allies? Why did you provoke your neighbor by protecting yourself?
Aggression is recast as “response.” Deterrence becomes “provocation.” The victim becomes the accused, standing inside a courtroom of competing narratives, forced to justify its own wounds.
This tactic is not aimed at any single Gulf capital. It targets the very principle behind every stable Arab state: the idea that sovereign governments have the right to choose their own partners and build their own strength without seeking permission from a movement, a supreme leader, or an “axis.”
The Auction After America’s Departure
The second lesson I learned from this region is equally simple: in the Middle East, a vacuum never remains empty.
Ask Iraq after 2011. Ask Afghanistan after 2021.
When America withdraws, it does not leave peace behind. It leaves an auction.
The Contractors of the Vacuum understand this better than anyone. That is why they are already placing their bids.
The struggle now unfolding across opinion pages and social media platforms is not an intellectual debate about “the future of the American presence.” It is an early attempt to seize control of the auction – to write the rules of the day after before that day even arrives.
History does not grant this region the luxury of delayed answers. And like any valuable piece of real estate in a strategic location, a vacuum always has buyers waiting at the door.
America is pushed out of the equation. The nation-state is placed in the dock. Iran, which may have suffered military setbacks, wins the narrative war by presenting itself as the unavoidable reality with which everyone must eventually come to terms.
For those reading this article in Washington, let me end in the language of interests.
One-third of the world’s oil passes through a single strait overlooking the very “reality” that some would have you accept as inevitable.
When the guarantor withdraws, the cost of security does not fall. Everything else becomes more expensive: shipping, insurance, energy – and ultimately the price of returning under far worse circumstances, a bill America has paid repeatedly whenever it convinced itself that oceans alone could protect it.
Retrenchment is not a savings plan. It is a high-interest loan whose payments are deferred to future generations.
As for those of us who live in this region, our real question is no longer whether America will stay or leave. Serious nations do not tie their fate to the mood of voters in Michigan.
Our question is this: Who writes the rules of the region when the guard falls asleep? States that build, deter, and pursue shared interests? Or the Company of the Vacuum, with its three interconnected branches?
History does not grant this region the luxury of delayed answers. And like any valuable piece of real estate in a strategic location, a vacuum always has buyers waiting at the door.
We have seen their faces. We have heard their accents. And we know exactly whose interests they serve.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect MBN’s editorial stance.
