How can we NOT be involved in the Middle East? The region has enormous reserves of petroleum needed by ourselves and more by our allies (especially those in East Asia) to fuel our common interconnected economies. Like it or not, economic failures in Japan, Korea, and Western Europe threaten our own economic well-being at home. It is a vital national interest (and a matter of our own economic survival) to keep the flow of oil from the region steady and secure - if we want to maintain our own way of life.
Aside from the economic issues, many of those nations are becoming capable of producing/procuring weapons of mass destruction. Our presence over there (especially at sea in the Persian Gulf) serves as a deterrent and warning to rogue nations or terrorist groups that might decide to use these types of weapons against us. The media likes to report how vulnerable we are in the region, but never seems to report the converse of our seeming vulnerability - that we threaten the very survival (economic and political) of the nations that oppose our way of life. Our fear is that Middle East nations will cut off oil exports; their fear is that we will cut off their ability to sell oil (their primary means of generating revenue) AND their ability to import vital foodstuffs. Countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Oman can’t feed themselves - they have to sell oil to buy food. Currently, our ability to wreck their oil exporting and food importing infrastructure far outweighs any damage they can do to us - in a matter of hours we could bring the ability of nations like Iran to move oil and foodstuffs by land or sea to a standstill. Our presence in the area keeps that threat very real, and gives us leverage to counter any really overt and damaging actions they might contemplate taking against us.
As for getting “in bed” with the wrong people, what can you do when all choices are bad? Guided by the old (but mostly true) saw that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” we held our nose and supported Saddam Hussein against Iran, Bin Laden against the Russians in Afghanistan, and Musharraf against the radical Pakistani Islamists. What were our options? To not support these former allies would have ceded control, power and influence to groups even more determined to damage our interests and threaten our citizens. That part of the world is too volatile and too important to complacently leave to the Iranians, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and other terrorist groups. Eventually, they would develop the means to attack us over in North America; if nothing else, 9/11 serves as a warning to that potential threat.
Do some radical Islamic factions have barbaric customs? You bet. Does our despair and distaste for their way of life justify us leaving the area? No way - they would eventually gather enough strength to threaten us here in the U.S. and around the world.
I do agree with you that we need to pray for these people.
Peace!
