Obama in Cairo

The basic conundrum for U.S. policy in the Middle East is that our policies are deeply unpopular in the Middle East and yet, there is a bi-partisan consensus around maintaining those policies. This is the feedback loop that President Obama will try to break with his much touted speech in Cairo.

Far better, in my view, to heed the words of Edward Luttwak and just leave well enough alone:

With neither invasions nor friendly engagements, the peoples of the middle east should finally be allowed to have their own history—the one thing that middle east experts of all stripes seem determined to deny them.... We devote far too much attention to the middle east, a mostly stagnant region where almost nothing is created in science or the arts—excluding Israel, per capita patent production of countries in the middle east is one fifth that of sub-Saharan Africa.

At the point the Middle East collectively decides it no longer want to sell any oil on world markets and instead rely on their vibrant, diversified economies to generate wealth for their people, and at the point where all other oil suppliers dry up and alternative energy sources collapse, a friendly phone call to Saudi Arabia might be necessary. Until then, why bother?