Firefighting trips by Bolton, Pompeo to reassure allies

Editor's note: US National Security Advisor John Bolton's trip to Israel and Turkey, which is to put out the fires caused by the United States' planned withdrawal of its military from Syria, and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's back-to-back visit to eight countries in the Middle East convey a clear message that Washington is hoping to form an Arabian version of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to better contain Iran, Liu Zhongmin, a professor in Middle East Studies at Shanghai Foreign Studies University, commented in an article for Beijing News published on Monday. Excerpts:

The focus of the Donald Trump administration's Middle East strategy is to strengthen its regional alliances to contain Iran, and Pompeo and Bolton's visits to the region were to this end.

The increasingly complex regional situation in the Middle East means the United States no longer has the ability equal to its ambition in the region as before, because of the comparative decline of its national power and influence.