Your top point is honestly the biggest.

Until this year, US military bases were seen as an asset. They were thought to deter attacks, and in the case of someone being crazy enough to attack the country that hosted a US military base, they sold the promise of a quick and decisive response.

But for countries in the Middle East, every base was nothing but a liability with nothing but a long list of detriments. The bases got attacked and destroyed with basically zero effort whatsoever, local militaries had to step up to defend the US bases on their own dime and with their own people putting their lives on the line, and the bases basically just served as provocation and ended up with the countries being attacked as "punishment" for letting the US military operate on their land. And the US put in the bare minimum effort, if any, to defend the countries being attacked. It was basically "that's on you. Buzz off".

Europe is now being threatened with having their US bases cut back/removed entirely and I'm not sure if people are even worried anymore. People have been using the term "paper tiger" to refer to Russia these past 4 years because their efforts at war have been absolutely embarrassing. Somehow the US has made Russia look competent, and despite being against all the BS America did in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, I didn't think America would somehow show itself to be more rotted out from the inside than Russia. I always assumed the US was competent, albeit war hungry. But somehow competence has completely vanished.

And right now, East Asian allies of the US operate under the very wrong assumption that the US will back them up if China/Russia/North Korea tries something. And now that those countries know the US won't do shit, there's a non zero chance that they've taken war plans from purely hypothetical plans to "we could actually do this" plans.

The situation in Europe is even more crazy. The US needs the bases in Europe to project power in the Middle East. If every country in Europe would ask the US to leave then the US would have a very serious issue projecting power around the world.

The US bases are also pretty expensive to set up. Lots of logistic support has to be in place to let those bases function. That require a lot of support from the host country. Normally, you would expect the US to be friendly with the host countries, but that seems lost on the current administration.

What is really wrong is that it is known that russia is fighting in Ukraine with drones designed in Iran. And we have seen how hard it is for US designed weapons to deal with those drones. To the point that a lot of development is happening in Ukraine to deal with this problem.

By attacking Iran, the US has shown the world that Ukraine is the weapon supplier of choice against future drone wars.

> The bases got attacked and destroyed with basically zero effort whatsoever, local militaries had to step up to defend the US bases on their own dime and with their own people putting their lives on the line

As a US citizen, I hope more countries come to this realization and start rejecting these.

It's such a lose-lose for everyone

The establishment and maintenance of these bases cost the tax payers so much....

If only we could refocus this massive expenditure of resources to internal domestic infrastructure...

I'm not sure if people are even worried anymore.

European here (from Spain), and the overwhelming majority of people I know are hoping for the removal of the bases. They are worried, yes... worried that it's just grandstanding and it's not really going to get done (which is likely, because those bases have always been there mainly for the benefit of the US).

Which US bases were destroyed?

> But somehow competence has completely vanished.

It was pushed out, by force.