Middle East is strategically unimportant

The region’s states are mostly poor and lack the ability to project power beyond their neighborhood, so their global significance is limited to two arteries: Suez/Red Sea shipping and Persian Gulf oil exports. That means expensive, long‑term interventions (for example aimed at remaking Iran) are unlikely to be cost‑justified or politically sellable in the United States. — If accepted, this reframing argues for a narrower, chokepoint‑focused U.S. strategy and an end to ambitious nation‑building or grand redesign efforts in the region.