The real regional danger is American withdrawal, evidenced by Middle Eastern chemical weapons use

Evidence

The real threat to the peace of the region is not the American presence, but the possibility of an American loss of interest and withdrawal. It may be recalled that the only confirmed use of chemical weapons since World War II has been in the Middle East—by Nasser in Yemen in the Sixties, by Qaddafi in Chad in 1987, and by Saddam against Iran and against his own countrymen in 1988. At least 5,000 of the latter were killed. All these attacks were against local adversaries, incapable of retaliation. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1665

Categorization

• XREF: This claim that American presence stabilizes the region echoes the neoconservative argument while contradicting anti-imperialist scholarship on US Middle East policy. — connects to: America’s withdrawal, not its presence, is the region’s gravest security threat
• ADDENDUM: The chemical-weapons inventory and ‘local adversaries incapable of retaliation’ point connects to how regional actors calculate violence in the absence of great-power restraint.