WASHINGTON – U.S. army and intelligence officials have been having “quiet discussions” recently about reducing Washington’s military presence across West Asia, six sources were cited as saying in a CNN report released on Tuesday.
The discussions come as the economic consequences of the war are now spreading far beyond the battlefield, with oil prices approaching $100 a barrel and financial markets across the United States and Europe coming under renewed pressure on Tuesday. 
The surge in crude prices has revived fears of a new inflationary shock, raising the prospect of higher interest rates at a time when Western economies are already struggling with elevated price pressures.
“In offices across the military and in the intelligence community, there have been recent quiet discussions about cutting the number of people and facilities typically stationed in the region if the Trump administration succeeds in ending the Iran conflict,” the sources said.
The report describes the discussions as efforts to find “another post-9/11 strategy,” as is written in the article’s headline.
But even as Washington considers reducing
 its military footprint, the economic fallout from the war is becoming increasingly difficult for Western governments and consumers to contain. 
Brent crude climbed as high as nearly $100 a barrel on Tuesday, reaching its highest level in six weeks, while U.S. crude rose above $93 a barrel. The latest jump followed attacks on energy facilities and cities around the Persian Gulf, intensifying fears that the war could further disrupt fuel supplies.
Wall Street responded with a broad retreat after the Labor Day holiday. Investors were increasingly concerned that the oil shock would feed directly into inflation and complicate the path of U.S. monetary policy.
European markets were also hit by the renewed oil rally. European shares slipped on Tuesday as higher crude prices revived inflation concerns, with investors increasingly worried about the prospect of higher interest rates and a prolonged period of weak growth combined with persistent price pressures. 
The damage is particularly visible in fuel markets. Reuters reported Tuesday that diesel prices had reached record highs and had almost doubled from their level before the conflict, while gasoline prices had also nearly doubled. 
Physical crude available for immediate delivery was trading well above futures prices, a sign of the pressure being placed on the global energy market.
That pressure is already feeding into the wider Western economic outlook. Higher oil prices raise transportation, manufacturing and heating costs, while increasing the likelihood that central banks will have to keep monetary policy tighter for longer. 
In the United States, markets were already reassessing expectations for interest rates ahead of inflation data due later this week.
Europe faces a similar dilemma. The European Commission warned Tuesday that the continuing conflict and seasonal demand could tighten markets further in the coming weeks and months.
“The recent fighting with Iran has laid bare deep vulnerabilities” within U.S. military infrastructure across the region, the report states.
It notes that 18 U.S. service members were killed by successive Iranian attacks on U.S. bases. Many of these bases, including the Fifth Fleet Base in Bahrain, have been severely damaged by Tehran’s drones and missiles.
Officials involved in discussions revolving around the potential reduction “are now acting at least in part to predict what might be acceptable” to U.S. President Donald Trump, the sources told CNN. 
They described Trump as a “mercurial president” who has “articulated no clear strategy for a post-war future – and who, in the past, has staked his political identity on reducing [U.S.] forces overseas.”
The report comes as 50,000 troops remain deployed across West Asia as part of a massive military buildup linked heavily to the U.S.-Israeli terrorist war on Iran.
“CIA officers who were sent home during the hottest part of the fighting earlier this year are being sent back to the region,” one of the sources told CNN.
The vulnerabilities of U.S. troops stationed across the region “were always known,” but the U.S. “never acted on it with urgency,” another source – a U.S. official – is cited as saying.
At the height of the war, Iranian drones and missiles targeted Washington’s bases so heavily that U.S. media began reporting that troops were being relocated to civilian office spaces and hotels in a blatant act of using human shields.
Since Washington’s renewed escalation, including the bombing of a wedding in southern Iran, Tehran has struck multiple U.S. sites repeatedly.
In late August, NBC News reported that Iran “inflicted billions” in “unprecedented damage” on U.S. intelligence facilities across the region throughout its many waves of retaliatory strikes.
“Iranian missile and drone attacks have inflicted damage on U.S. intelligence posts and surveillance hardware in the [region] that is more extensive than any destruction [U.S.] spy agencies have endured,” and the damage will “cost billions of dollars to repair,” the report said, citing four sources.
Iran has demanded the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the areas surrounding it.