Back to the Middle East?

IN THE aftermath of the costly US interventions in Iraq and the rest of the Greater Middle East, there has been a lot of talk in Washington about the need to reassess America’s military presence there and perhaps even consider a gradual disengagement from the region.

Indeed, much has changed since the heights of the American interventions in the region following the series of major Arab-Israeli wars, and the oil crises that followed the 1973 Middle East war and the 1979 revolution in Iran.

Those crises demonstrated the Western economies’ dependency on the energy resources in the region and the need to contain the Soviet threat there during the Cold War coupled with concerns over anti-American sentiments in the Arab World over the US support for Israel.