"Those countries like it the way it is."

Does "the way it is" include a massive US occupying force? Maybe it benefits the current puppet governments since I doubt they would otherwise retain power. Same probably holds for the Saudi royal family. But, personally, I don't really care since all those governments there are insular and I don't feel threatened by them.

I think that, in our absence, Al Qaida and the Taliban will engage in a never-ending battle over who gets to dictate morality to the goat-herders and opium growers. Of course, that morality will not interfere with goat herding or opium growing and we can settle for intercepting the opium at our coasts while we develop a virus specific to opium poppies.

The one conflict in the ME that is of significance to us, since it affects the availability of first rate swimming suits, is the one between Israel and Palestine - and that is the one that need the world to put on pressure.