Get the Middle East out of my politics!

As I read a recent Harvard Harris poll on the favorability of various political figures in the U.S., it struck me that figures like Abdul El-Sayed, Zohran Mamdani, and Benjamin Netanyahu have net approval ratings below any American politician. While Mamdani's low rating could be attributed to his leftist policies and association with the DSA, it seems that all three of these unpopular figures share a common factor - their association with the intrusion of Middle Eastern politics into American politics.

As we commemorate the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, the question arises: might Americans simply wish to have nothing to do with the Middle East? Although I do not agree with the leftist perspective that those attacks were a result of American involvement in the region, it is undeniable that the U.S. has been heavily engaged in the Middle East since then, embroiled in conflicts such as the Iraq War, the war against ISIS, the War on Terror, and increased support for Israel.

While some of this involvement may have been necessary, such as the fight against ISIS, overall, the era of heavy U.S. involvement in the Middle East has been detrimental to U.S. power and prestige. It's time for the U.S. to disengage from the region. This sentiment has been with me for a long time, even before I became a writer. In the early days of the Noahpinion Substack, I wrote a post titled "How to fix U.S. foreign policy," advocating for a general disengagement from the Middle East.