Proposals to move U.S. troops from the Gulf to Israel would empower Israeli aggression and keep the U.S. entangled in pointless war, writes former defense intel analyst Harrison Mann.
By Harrison Mann, reposted from Zeteo, July 10, 2026
You may have heard that Congress is on track to approve an alarming Pentagon funding bill that would merge U.S. and Israeli military R&D, giving the Israeli government leverage over critical defense supply chains, access to military secrets, and extra sway over the innumerable members of Congress with a soft spot for the military-industrial complex. But the Trump administration could be preparing to tether the United States to Israel’s runaway war machine in an even more dangerous way: establishing massive U.S. military bases inside Israel.
With the evacuation and partial destruction of major bases, including the regional U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force headquarters – located in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar, respectively, all fewer than 200 miles from Iran – the Pentagon is exploring safer options further west, including in Israel. Plus, the Trump-chaired “Board of Peace” is planning a 350-acre base in Gaza and has nearly completed a logistics base in Israel near the borders with Egypt and Gaza for the largely hypothetical International Stabilization Force for Gaza. And there are already hundreds of U.S. troops, including combat units, permanently based in Israel, on top of the thousands sent for the Iran war.
Here’s why trying to turn Israel into America’s “aircraft carrier in the Middle East” makes the region a much more dangerous place:
Are There Already U.S. Bases in Israel?
In short, yes – there has been a small permanent U.S. presence since at least 2008, when the Bush administration deployed a missile-defense radar to southern Israel to watch for Iranian missiles. An associated U.S. support base, built inside an Israeli airbase and opened in 2017, was billed as the first-ever permanent U.S. base in Israel. In 2024, Biden deployed a 100-soldier THAAD air defense battery to the same base, which Trump plussed up with an additional battery the following year. Israel also hosts several other small sites for storing U.S. equipment or for undisclosed purposes presumably related to intelligence. In all, there were hundreds of U.S. troops stationed in Israel before the current Iran war. Now there are thousands: crews and maintainers for the 70-plus U.S. aircraft parked in the country, as well as some, if not all, of the approximately 2,000 paratroopers and hundreds of special operators deployed to the region with great fanfare in March but whose bed-down location was never officially announced.
But for most of Israel’s history, concerns about sovereignty and a longstanding ethos of self-reliance, however detached from reality, likely outweighed concerns about Iran and kept leaders from considering a U.S. base on Israeli soil. U.S. administrations didn’t want or need one either, with an array of bases either inherited from Britain or established in the buildup to and aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War. George H. W. Bush took pains to keep Israel at arm’s length from the Desert Storm coalition to avoid spooking Arab partners; U.S.-Israel military relations remained officially segregated from U.S.-Arab relations until 2021, when the Biden administration completed the Trump administration’s transfer of Israel from the European Command to CENTCOM.
Why Put U.S. Bases Inside Israel?
Now, the Israeli government wants the Trump administration to keep thousands of U.S. troops in Israel for good, a request the Pentagon is apparently entertaining. The concept of a “Western Basing Network” to provide safer bases farther from Iran isn’t new, but the de facto combat loss of U.S. bases in the early days of the Iran war has added new urgency to the proposal. The pitch for Israel over other options like Jordan, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia’s west coast, as delivered on Fox News, is as follows: Israel has the strongest air defenses in the region; it already has Ovda airbase, built to U.S. specifications (by the U.S.) and ready for immediate use, where U.S. fighters staged before the surprise attack on Iran in February; and, most importantly, the Israeli government won’t deny U.S. basing and overflight like some Arab governments did when they got cold feet about reprisals from Iran.
There’s no disputing this logic. Israel is the best base of operations for a war with Iran, or any other country in the Middle East – and that’s the problem.
U.S. Troops Will Be Human Shields for Israeli Aggression
Basing more U.S. forces in Israel would empower even more reckless military aggression, if you can imagine that, from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or the cast of sociopaths who could replace him. In the past two years, the Israeli government has twice launched attacks on Iran immediately after a U.S. president deployed extra air defenses to the country. With more U.S. air defense units, fighters, and even destroyers available to shoot down incoming missiles and drones, the Israeli government would be able to attack Iran and Lebanon with even greater impunity.
U.S. bases also threaten to drag the American military into Israeli wars whether they like it or not – a prospect many Israeli leaders would relish. U.S. casualties from strikes on joint U.S.-Israeli bases would create strong incentives for the U.S. to join any war Israel started. The risk of retaliatory strikes hitting U.S. troops is not hypothetical – an unreported number of U.S. troops deployed to Israel were wounded in the early days of the Iran war, most likely members of the air defense units Biden and Trump sent. Tel Aviv might expect the risk of U.S. casualties to deter its adversaries from retaliating, a worrying assumption as Israeli officials step up saber-rattling against Turkey, a larger and arguably more capable military.
The sprawling Board of Peace International Stabilization Force base planned for southern Gaza and associated logistics base on the Israeli side of the border carry the same risks, even if they are not officially intended as replacements for U.S. bases in the Gulf. This is an American operation – the so-called “Board of Peace” is chaired by Trump and the International Stabilization Force (ISF) is commanded by a U.S. two-star general. Washington and Tel Aviv could easily make these permanent American bases if they wanted. This will be all the more tempting given the likelihood that the barracks stay vacant; Board of Peace members are understandably reluctant to fulfill pledged troop contributions to an ill-conceived ethnic cleansing scheme.
How Would the Region React to New U.S. Bases in Israel?
A mix of panic and relief from Gulf states, who have relied on U.S. security guarantees for decades but rapidly discovered how little those guarantees were worth when Trump made them cannon fodder for his Iran war. Gulf leaders would likely accelerate their détentes with Iran and seek deeper military ties with prospective alternative regional powers, Pakistan and Turkey, but there would be no divorce from D.C.; Gulf militaries remain overwhelmingly dependent on U.S. weapons.
The Iranian military would certainly invest in new stockpiles of more sophisticated long-range missiles and drones that can reach Israel. But if CENTCOM bases move out of range of Iran’s short-range munitions, Tehran might also just try to move its short-range precision munitions closer to CENTCOM, putting them in the hands of Hezbollah and friendly Iraqi militias. In other words, moving major U.S. bases closer to Iranian partners and proxies makes those groups much more important to Iran’s defense strategy, a shift that itself would court endless conflict as the Israeli and U.S. militaries try to clamp down on supercharged smuggling and renewed supply lines in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq.
Congress could try to prevent the president from establishing more bases in Israel by restricting funding, but the Pentagon has no shortage of creative budget maneuvers when it wants to fund something and could circumvent Congress’s power of the purse altogether by having the Israeli government cover basing expenses. It would take exceptional oversight and uncommon budgetary discipline for Congress to keep the White House from putting bases in Israel.
Ultimately, the president has incredible latitude to deploy and even permanently station troops wherever he wants. Electing a new one who has the courage to withdraw whatever forces Trump leaves behind in Israel is the only way to guarantee US troops won’t be the Israeli military’s next human shields.
Harrison Mann is Associate Director for Campaigns and Policy at Win Without War, a progressive national security advocacy network. He is a former U.S. army officer and intelligence official who resigned in protest over Gaza.
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