United States - Why is the US in this list? It's not even in the Middle East! True but its presence is strongly felt there and it is no doubt a big player in that region's history for the past century or so.
But why the United States? It's not really alone right? It has Britain and Canada. But as we can see there is a changing shift in these countries psychology. Not much with Canada but the more disturbing part is with Britain. They felt that it was wrong for their former PM Tony Blair to support the Iraq War, so any conflict now will be fully scrutinized by the public thereby making government cautious.
Well one will say it will find new allies among Arab countries, maybe even those that were hostile to us before like Libya and even the people of Palestine. The foreign policy gesture of cuddling these nations is so far reaching that even Iran is a target. This is such a dangerous policy since you are being friendly to evil regimes thereby undermining the work of reformers who wants to be freed from those questionable rulers.
The US' reaching out to find new allies in the Middle East is not a good reading of the realities there as well. For one, the theology of Jihadist for all things end times shows the US as a darker threat than Israel! The Jihadist sees the US as the "Great Satan" and that Israel as only the "Little Satan". Their eschatology or idea of the end times is to unleash chaos in the world so that their own messiah will come to this world. This is an aspect of the Jihadist that the US and Europe is ignoring. What then can the US or any power in the world offer these Jihadist when they really don't have any care for the here and now! No amount of land, oil, money or power will do for them!
The American's hope is for Muslim reformers to succeed in that region but even so, their general population has always looked at the Americans with a suspicious eye. A country and a people they don't really trust.
In my opinion this is a crucial point not only in American history but of that of the world's as well. America has to chose its friends wisely and it right now it is not wise to push away those who have been loyal to you for a long time now.
