A funny thing has happened in the Middle East: virtually all of the government opposition to the United States has gone away. After almost a half century of Cold War battles to protect oil fields, deny Soviet access to warm-water ports, and commit hundreds of billions of dollars in aid, the Middle Eastern foes of the United States can be counted on one hand with several fingers left over. South Yemen merged into North Yemen in 1990, Saddam fell in 2003, Libya came in from the cold in 2004, and on they went. The only countries with truly adversarial relations with the United States are Syria and Iran, and even they hold out some prospect for engagement, if not immediately.
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