welp, I think we've learned that US/ western "retribution" in the ME actually leads to more terrorists -- makes their recruiting easier, turns otherwise neutral people and parties into sympathizers, draws in bigger actors. see Iraq. see afghanistan, . that's why we've been arming Israel and Saudi Arabia so heavily and trying to get them to work together (along with Turkey) over the last 20 years. we're not the ME police force that anyone there (but maybe Israel) wants. will our interests occasionally mean we go hard over there? sure, occasionally. doing so constantly and in big ways has gotten us nowhere. the real achievements have been in building up and finding common ground between our allies.