US is leaving oil-for-security approach, envoy Barrack says in Doha

The United States is moving away from its traditional exchange of security for oil in the Middle East, US envoy Tom Barrack said on Tuesday in Doha.

Barrack, who serves as US Ambassador to Turkiye and Special Envoy for Syria, was speaking at the Global Security Forum in Qatar's capital, according to Al Jazeera.

He said the United States no longer seeks to dominate the Middle East and "no longer wants to own" in the region. He said Washington is not abandoning or leaving the Middle East but is reassessing its role.

Barrack said the US had been involved in 23 regime changes across the wider Middle East. He said every US attempt to intervene to change a person or regime in the region seems to have been a mistake.

The arrangement he described is often associated with the Carter Doctrine, which has been described as an oil-for-security framework for US policy in the region.

In the same forum, Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said negotiations between Tehran and Washington are continuing, with mediators exchanging messages between the parties.

Since February 2026, the U.S./Israel-Iran conflict has significantly affected regional security and global commerce, according to a US congressional research paper.