Former U.S. CENTCOM Commander Gen. Frank McKenzie on Monday voiced his support for the U.S. to shift its military footprint in the Middle East westward, including in Israel, to mitigate threats from Iran.
Speaking on a Jewish Institute for National Security of America webinar, McKenzie said, “No one in their right mind would ever put the CENTCOM forward headquarters, you know, 100 miles away from Iran [in Qatar], yet that’s where it is. Because when we put it in place many years ago, we were thinking Iraq, we were thinking Afghanistan, we were thinking other things, and not the growing threat from Iran.”
The U.S. has long operated a sprawling network of bases across the Middle East as critical hubs for air operations, naval logistics, and intelligence gathering, housing between 40,000 and 50,000 personnel. These include Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base — the largest U.S. military facility in the region — and Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, alongside key installations in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
However, throughout the conflict with Iran, U.S. bases across the region came under repeated drone and missile fire from Tehran and its proxies. Recent reports have suggested that the U.S. is considering moving the damaged bases westward further out of Iran’s range, including in Israel.
The U.S. does not currently maintain a permanent, sovereign military base in Israel, though American forces temporarily operated out of Israel’s Ovda Air Base during the conflict with Iran and the U.S. stationed dozens of military refueling and cargo aircraft at Ben Gurion Airport.
McKenzie argued in support of JINSA’s position that the U.S. should continue operations at Israel’s Ovda Air Base on an ongoing basis.
“What we’ve got is a situation where it’s good to be close to your potential enemy, because it’s a short commute to the fight,” McKenzie said. “But it’s bad to be close to your potential enemy, because he has the ability to strike you very quickly.”
While McKenzie argued that the U.S. should maintain its existing Gulf footprint to signal continued solidarity with regional partners, he noted that an anchor in Israel would grant Washington unparalleled operational flexibility. “The goal is to spread out that necklace of bases far to the west, where you make it harder for the Iranians to reach you,” he said, though he cautioned that the strategy faces a shelf-life as Tehran continues to expand its missile capabilities.
“We need to look at basing in Israel. I think it’s a great idea,” McKenzie said, suggesting that Ben Gurion could continue to serve as a vital refueling hub for American tankers. He also pointed to Egypt, Jordan, and Oman as viable components of a broader western basing network designed to complicate Iran’s targeting calculus.
Israel provides a unique advantage over traditional Gulf hosts, McKenzie argued, because it is far less likely to impose strict political or operational parameters on American missions.
“Of all the countries, one thing that’s significant is the [host] country … they’re going to want to have a say in where those jets go when they take off,” McKenzie explained. “Probably Israel is the place where you’re going to have the fewest ABO [access, basing, and overflight] restrictions on your airplanes. That’s why Israel is a particularly attractive location.”
Beyond fewer diplomatic hurdles, McKenzie emphasized that Israel remains an ideal option because its multi-layered air-defense architecture makes it uniquely resilient against incoming fire. “That’s probably the most significant thing,” he said. Iranian strikes on U.S. facilities in Qatar and Bahrain forced the U.S. to evacuate or disperse personnel and relocate troops after missiles damaged several facilities.
McKenzie revealed that CENTCOM had previously proposed a similar western contingency plan to the Biden administration, but encountered stiff bureaucratic resistance.
“We had plans to do this, plans that were not supported by the policy shop in the Pentagon during the Biden administration. But I think now is the time to go back and take a look at it,” McKenzie said. “It just really was a refusal to examine the reality of the situation on the ground and the growing trend of Iranian rearmament weaponization, which placed these bases at a very close range to Iran under increasing degrees of risk.”
When asked whether shifting forces westward would satisfy the ongoing memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran — which requires the U.S. to withdraw forces from the “immediate proximity” of Iran within 30 days of a final deal — McKenzie remained noncommittal, expressing strong skepticism.
“I think we still need to further negotiate what removal from immediate proximity of Iran means,” McKenzie said. “It would be easy to say moving west would grant you that visibility. I’m just not sure I’d recommend that, and I’m not sure that this administration is going to want to do that.”
Addressing whether a permanent U.S. presence would put Israel at a heightened risk for more frequent or intense Iranian or proxy strikes, McKenzie acknowledged the potential but argued the protective benefits outweigh the downsides, stating: “I’m not sure how we could get to a higher level” of threat environment.
“Yes, possibly. But on the other hand, what you gain by U.S. basing there is you gain the use of those aircraft against [Iran] in order to reduce the frequency, duration and intensity of those attacks,” McKenzie said. “I’d rather have U.S. forces there than not.”