Key Points
As the White House ponders its response to the attack on Tower 22, the U.S. military outpost in Jordan, the news from the Middle East could hardly be worse..
Between the 1983 Beirut bombing that killed 241 American military personnel and the Iran-Contra scandal, the Middle East gave Ronald Reagan the worst moments of his presidency..
Barack Obama desperately wanted to avoid Middle East entanglements but found himself bombing Libya and fighting ISIS in Syria and Iraq even as the battle over the Iranian nuclear deal loomed over his second term..
The regions dominant role in global energy markets means that even countries like the U.S. that dont depend on Middle Eastern oil cant escape the consequences if regional instability disrupts the flow of oil and gas to places like Europe, India, China and Japan..
The Middle East is on fire today because the Biden administrations core regional strategyto reach some kind of dtente with Iranhas catastrophically failed..
