US foreign policy pivots were derailed by Middle East crises.
Evidence
However, Trump reoriented military strategy away from the war on terror toward great power competition with China and Russia. In his second term, Obama accomplished part of his “pivot to Asia” policy by bolstering alliances with Asian states and redeploying the US Navy to the region. But he failed to get the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement through Congress, where it faced bipartisan opposition; Trump later abandoned it. Moreover, after the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq as well as the Arab Spring, the Obama administration was forced to remain focused on the MENA region and could not fully pivot to Asia as planned. In order to contain Iran, the Obama administration negotiated a nuclear accord—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—to protect the monopoly over nukes that the United States and Israel have in the region. But Washington’s allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, both opposed the deal and demanded a more hawkish approach of greater sanctions as well as military action against Iran. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 515
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims