Thousands of Americans are stranded across the Middle East as the Trump administration’s war with Iran enters its fourth day, with multiple U.S. embassies flat-out telling citizens they can’t help them leave.
“The U.S. Embassy is not in a position at this time to evacuate or directly assist Americans in departing Israel,” the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem posted on Twitter before taking it down.
The U.S. Embassy in Qatar was even blunter: Americans “should not rely on the U.S. government for assisted departure or evacuation.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that more than 1,500 people are still asking for assistance getting out. The State Department claims it has contacted “nearly 3,000 Americans abroad” and is “actively securing military aircraft and charter flights.” But the people actually stuck there are telling a different story.
“This is nothing less than a total failure of the U.S. government to provide the expected assistance to American civilians who are caught in harm’s way,” said Randy Manner, a retired U.S. major general and former deputy commanding general of the Third U.S. Army in Kuwait, who has been stranded in the United Arab Emirates since Friday.
Manner called the situation “the epitome of absurdity”—the government is telling people to leave countries whose airspace is closed. Airlines have canceled approximately 18,000 flights arriving to and departing from the Middle East since Saturday.
Krista Jucknath Hickman, a federal employee stranded in Dubai, said she registered her trip with the State Department beforehand but got no security alert. When she tried calling the State Department’s hotline for help, she was told there were no evacuation procedures in place.
“The orders are not realistic, not supportive,” Hickman told the BBC. “All that can be done is book flights that don’t take off.”
She and her husband eventually paid $1,000 to be driven into Oman.
U.S. businessman James Blunt described calling the hotline while in the UAE: “They are absolutely disinterested, no sense of urgency.” Another person told NOTUS that two calls to the hotline on Tuesday went unanswered entirely.
Texas resident Oliver Sims, who was returning from a friend’s wedding in India, said it has been “really scary” being stranded in Qatar—including being woken up by Iranian drone attacks.
The State Department has urged Americans to leave Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. That’s 15 countries and territories—and the embassies in those places are largely saying they can’t do anything.
The Saudi Arabian embassy even told Americans not to come to its consulate in Dhahran due to “a threat of imminent missile and UAV attacks.”
When asked about the slow response, Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday that the war outbreak “happened all very quickly.”
“I thought we were going to have a situation where we were going to be attacked,” he said. “They were getting ready to attack Israel. They were getting ready to attack others.”
The State Department says over 9,000 citizens have returned to the U.S. so far—which means thousands more are still stuck in an active war zone, waiting on hold.