Now, even the White House no longer believes our large military presence in the Gulf is good for combating the big threat we're supposedly there to contain: terrorism. Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, remarked last week that the U.S. will seek to reduce the American military footprint there. This would allow "us in many respects to demilitarize elements of our foreign policy and establish more normal relationships," he said, to bring the U.S. security posture in the region more "in line with where we were before 1990." Rhodes apparently did not comment on either energy security or Iran. While his comments strike the right tone, there may be less to them than meets the eye. Last week's statement directly contradicted an October New York Times report that administration officials plan to reallocate military resources and combat troops from Iraq to elsewhere in the Gulf, Kuwait in particular.

There are compelling reasons to believe that the Obama administration will not demilitarize the Gulf to pre-1990 levels, as Rhodes said. The majority of U.S. military facilities, including the al-Udeid airbase in Qatar and the headquarters of the Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, were built after 1990. New military spending and new construction are planned for 2012. The State Department has requested around $26 million dollars for new construction at the Fifth Fleet's Bahrain headquarters. This is not a huge sum, but it was requested as Bahraini security forces carried out a brutal crackdown on its own people. American priorities are, sadly, all too clear.

The status quo is never easy to change, especially when it comes to institutions as risk-averse as the Pentagon and State Department and to practices as entrenched as the 25-year U.S.-Gulf alliance. A new strategic approach, one that relies less on the projection of military power, will seem replete with risk. Skeptics will warn that Iran would be emboldened, that terrorists would seek a foothold, and that the flow of oil would be imperiled. But these fears are exaggerated. To the extent that these dangers are plaudible at all, it's because our current policy makes them possible. The greatest risk is proceeding ahead with the status quo. To disengage from our fraught and increasingly counterproductive Gulf presence would require the U.S. to begin withdrawing its military personnel from the region, reduce its spending on existing infrastructure, put an end to the weapons pipeline, and look for places from which it can depart immediately, such as moving the Fifth Fleet out of the Gulf and reducing the Navy's burden in patrolling the Gulf.

This would not mean abandoning the region altogether. Given its global reach, the United States will always retain the capacity to project military power, but the terms should be limited. The challenge is less about finding friendly ports to station personnel than it is about charting clearer and more effective terms of political engagement with allies and rivals. And this requires a new strategic doctrine, one that makes clear to regional actors that the era of open security guarantees -- which have proven so dear to both Americans and to the hundreds of thousands who have died since the United States began its military build-up -- is over. This would not mean the loss of leverage or influence, but in fact the opposite. Once it is clear that the United States is not solely committed to preserving the status quo, regional states will no longer believe they can ignore American calls for reform, restraint, and respect for human rights. Indeed, it is the belief in the Gulf States that they have "special relationships" with the United States.