MIDDLE EAST: The US is losing, so why isn’t Iran winning?

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“Can I just finish this sector on one observation, which might seem a little bit impertinent, and that is I don't think, in the grand sweep of history, what happens in the Middle East matters very much.

“The future of the global order, the future of America's role in the global order, will be decided in Europe and Asia, where it always is decided, because that's where the big power is.

“A great secret about the Middle East is that in the end, it's always kind of marginal. During the Cold War, it wasn't one of the central fronts. It wasn't until 1980 that the Carter Doctrine declared that the Americans would keep them out.

“During the post-Cold War era, the fact that the Middle East was the only part of the world that didn't seriously sign of, least for for a while, seriously sign on to the idea of American primacy didn't get in the way of the fact that American primacy became, for a while, the sort of, focus of of global order.”

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