The Pentagon is evaluating whether to reshape the U.S. military presence in the Middle East, including potentially pulling troops away from vulnerable Persian Gulf bases, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

The assessment, being led by the Pentagon’s policy office with involvement from the Joint Staff and U.S. Central Command, comes after months of Iranian missile and drone attacks damaged or destroyed more than 200 U.S. facilities across the region. Since early signs of progress in the spring, the Trump administration has struggled to convert overwhelming battlefield superiority against Iran into a durable political settlement.

Six American service members were killed in a March strike on Port Shuaiba in Kuwait, while another Iranian attack killed four U.S. troops in Jordan last month, according to the Post. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has not ordered a formal posture review, and a senior Pentagon official characterized the work as “prudent planning” that could guide decisions about whether and where to rebuild damaged installations. “Decisions are going to have to be made on some of this stuff,” the official told the Post.

CENTCOM normally maintains about 40,000 troops at nearly 20 locations stretching from Jordan to Oman. Yet even before the war began in February, commanders evacuated personnel from some Gulf bases judged particularly vulnerable to Iranian missiles and drones. Some of those changes could become permanent. “Iran thinks we are in the traditional places,” one person familiar with the adjustments told the Post. “And we are not”.

The potential shift underscores an uncomfortable strategic reality emerging from the nearly six-month conflict: The United States has demonstrated an extraordinary capacity to destroy Iranian military targets but considerably less ability to dictate what follows.

The White House declared in April that Operation Epic Fury had achieved its principal military objectives after more than 13,000 targets were struck and Iran’s missile, naval and defense-industrial capabilities were severely degraded. The administration argued that American military power had provided Trump “maximum leverage” for negotiations. But Iran retained enough capability to continue striking American forces and U.S. partners, while Tehran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz became a major obstacle to translating tactical dominance into strategic victory.

Trump signed a preliminary agreement with Tehran in June that was supposed to end the fighting and begin negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program and the strait. The deal subsequently unraveled, and intermittent strikes resumed. Formal diplomacy remains stalled even as Washington has sought new intermediaries and backchannels to Iran’s increasingly powerful Revolutionary Guard leadership.

That leaves several of Washington’s broader objectives unresolved. Iran has preserved some missile and drone capability, the fate of its enriched uranium remains contested, and reopening the Strait of Hormuz has proved particularly difficult. The administration’s objectives have also evolved during the conflict, complicating the definition of a final victory even after the Pentagon achieved many of the military goals originally assigned to it.

The war has simultaneously exposed the cost of sustaining American dominance. The Pentagon said operations will cost about $37.5 billion through September, excluding reconstruction of damaged bases, while the military has expended more than 1,000 sophisticated Patriot and THAAD interceptors defending U.S. personnel and installations.

“The war really did highlight the vulnerability of U.S. forces in the region,” former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia Michael Ratney told the Post. Moving forces westward toward Jordan, Israel or Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast could reduce some exposure, Ratney said, though greater distance from Iran is not a “perfect solution to this problem”.

The debate could also reopen a longstanding divide inside the administration between officials favoring a robust American military presence and advocates of shifting resources toward homeland defense and China. CENTCOM commander Adm. Bradley Cooper supports considering movement of U.S. troops westward from the Persian Gulf, according to the Post.

Gulf governments, meanwhile, have relied on American forces for decades and would struggle to replace the protection quickly. Their frustration with Washington has grown since the war began, while the broader conflict is encouraging regional governments to reconsider longstanding security arrangements and hedge against dependence on the United States.

Former National Security Council official Allison Minor said Washington could preserve arms sales, intelligence cooperation and other elements of those partnerships even with fewer American troops. “But you need to be discussing all of those comprehensively and not just the question of the sheer number of troops,” Minor said. Any permanent restructuring remains a long way off and would require approval from senior Trump administration officials.