AMERICAN foreign policy in the Middle East is deeply disconcerting.

The track record has been failure after failure since the Iraq war. It has destabilised the region and in particular upset the balance of power between two regimes, those of the Iranian Ayatollahs and Saddam Hussein.

Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states fret that the Obama administration's policy towards Iran is appeasement now that the dreaded Iranian guard is effectively acting as an American proxy in Iraq's battle against the radical terrorist "Islamic State" (ISIS). The fear is that the nuclear deal with Iran will be so weak that the regime will develop a "breakout capability", ie the capacity to build and test a nuclear bomb relatively swiftly. If such an event occurs, Saudi Arabia would likely follow in a Middle Eastern nuclear arms race.